Democrats: The REAL Party of the Rich

By Carol Platt Liebau
Democrats, led by the President, have resorted again and again to the rhetoric of class warfare -- you know, "the party of the rich" and all that.
That's why it's ironic that Democratic Party is the actual party of the rich. Democrats represent the richest district in the country -- and the richest Americans.
In shorthand, they represent the very rich and the very poor . . . those needing or wanting the benefits procured by a big, active, high-taxing government, and those who can pay those high taxes without even noticing (or find creative ways to prevent them from biting). They are also rich, powerful and connected enough to influence government policy in their favor, and often stand to benefit from government regulation that serves to stifle competition.
The GOP has become the party of the strivers, of the middle class, of small business, and of all those who have aspirations to prosperity. And sadly, they are the only ones who are serious about protecting what Paul Ryan has described as "the right to rise" -- what used to be universally known and embraced as "the American Dream."

The Joke's on Us

By Amy Payne
You can’t make this stuff up. On the health law’s pseudo-deadline day, following a huge push for people to visit the website, HealthCare.gov went down. Politico summed it up:

HealthCare.gov was down for six hours early Monday morning. Then it was up. Then it activated its “virtual waiting room.” Then it blocked newcomers trying to create accounts. Then it was working again…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says Obamacare is having problems getting off the ground because “people are not educated on how to use the Internet.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says Obamacare is a “political winner,” while “Saturday Night Live” lampoons the administration’s attempts to connect with young Americans through any celebrity and social network available.
This is really happening.
As we’ve noted, even if HealthCare.gov had worked perfectly from Day 1, it wouldn’t solve any of the problems Obamacare creates for people. Obamacare has been reducing options for health coverage, killing jobs, trampling on religious liberty, and dumping millions of Americans into an already broken Medicaid program.
That’s why we don’t need better government websites, snazzier celebrity endorsements, or “fixes” for Obamacare. We need real health reform that will put patients at the center and give people control over their own health care. We need more coverage options that provide better value for our hard-earned money. And we don’t need leaders who take us for fools.

Obama's War on Coal

By Conn Carroll
...Using the Environmental Protection Agency as its primary means of assault, the Obama administration has undermined every phase of the coal production process. This president doesn’t want Americans to mine coal, transport coal, or export coal. And they definitely do not want utilities burning it so you can turn on your lights.
At first blush, it might seem like these policies only affect the small mining towns in Western Kentucky or the South Carolina factory workers that make excavation equipment. But the implications of Obama’s War on Coal are far reaching: 300 of America’s coal plants will close due to EPA policies by 2025. That’s 44,000 megawatts of generating capacity in 33 states gone. Electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket” and grid stability may be threatened. Most troubling, these dramatic changes to American energy policy are being implemented by lawyers and unelected bureaucrats in federal agencies. Congress has passed no new laws ordering Americans to consume less coal. In fact, the last time Democrats tried to legislate these anti-energy policies they were run out of town.

Conservative group sues EPA over its ‘IRS-like’ tactics

By Michael Bastasch
A conservative environmental law group is suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its alleged “IRS-like” tactics, including stone-walling federal records requests and imposing fees

on conservative groups that sought government records.
The Energy & Environment Legal Institute is trying to force the EPA to release records previously denied under a Freedom of Information

Act request looking for agency records regarding clean water rules as they relate to mining operations. E&E Legal argues that such information is crucial to the public understanding issues surrounding the EPA’s “War on Coal.”
In this case, E&E Legal was looking for records regarding the EPA’s veto of an already-granted permit to a coal mine in Logan County, W.V. The EPA vetoed the permit to save

the mayfly, an insect that the agency says is harmed by surface mining.
...“Specifically, EPA denies fee waiver requests for groups that generally oppose EPA’s regulatory agenda while routinely granting them for ideologically aligned groups with which it works closely on shared agenda, which is the subject of an ongoing EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) inquiry,” Horner continues.

No Joke: U.S. Taxpayers To Spend $400K On Plastic Camel Statue…In Pakistan

By Mike Miller
The average Pakistani makes $1,250 per year. The U.S. State Department is about to spend $400,000 on a plastic statue of a camel. Staring at a needle. For its new embassy in Pakistan. Is it just me?
Via Buzzfeed:

The work, by noted American artist John Baldessari, depicts a life-size white camel made of fiberglass staring in puzzlement at the eye of an oversize shiny needle — a not-so-subtle play on the New Testament phrase about the difficulty the wealthy have in entering the kingdom of heaven.

Officials explained the decision to purchase the piece of art, titled “Camel Contemplating Needle,” in a four-page document justifying a “sole source” procurement.

“This artist’s product is uniquely qualified. Public art which will be presented in the new embassy should reflect the values of a predominantly Islamist country. (Like the Bible, the Qur’an uses the metaphor of a camel passing through the eye of a needle.)

This latest purchase comes on the heels of a similar purchase in December when the Department shelled out over $1 million for what amounts to a pile of rocks for its new embassy in London.
Irrespective of the religious message that may or may not be intended by the statue, should the U.S government be in the business of using taxpayer dollars to buy expensive works of art for its embassies in foreign countries?

Common Core Worksheet Asks Fourth-Graders to Describe Adultery

By Ashley Herzog
It’s time for another update on outlandishly stupid Common Core nonsense! A fourth-grade worksheet asks kids to describe adultery.
Some people figured this one had to be a hoax. Sadly, it’s not.

The text of the question:
Ruby sat on the bed she shared with her husband holding a hairclip. There was something mysterious and powerful about the cheaply manufactured neon clip that she was fondling in her newly suspicious palms. She didn’t recognize the hairclip. It was too big to be their daughter’s, and Ruby was sure that it wasn’t hers. She hadn’t had friends over in weeks but here was this hairclip, little and green with a few long black hair strands caught in it. Ruby ran her fingers through her own blonde hair. She had just been vacuuming when she noticed this small, bright green object under the bed. Now their life would never be the same. She would wait here until Mike returned home.

At least it’s heartening that many parents are flat-out refusing to participate in these homework assignments. The parent who exposed this worksheet wrote in the blank, “Inappropriate! I’m not explaining to an 8-year-old!”

PK'S NOTE: Once again, if I had kids, I'd be home-schooling. As a taxpayer with no kids, I have no voice in my local educational system.

Teacher 'White Privilege Conference': Whites Are Never Cured of Racism

By Warner Todd Huston
More details are emerging about what was presented at the "White Privilege Conference" held in Madison, Wisconsin, where tax money was spent to train teachers how to annihilate "white privilege" and "white supremacy" in American schools. One session insisted that whites can never be cured of their permanent racist attitudes.
On March 30, Breitbart reported on the conference, now in its fifteenth year. Over these years, teachers have been told that whites have been pushing "white supremacy" on kids since the country was created, and that whites are so infused with racism that they aren't even cognizant of their crimes.
The latest conference pushing this propaganda was held in Madison between March 25 and 29. A Wisconsin reporter tried to gain access to the event, but hosts denied him entrance.
However, another reporter was able to gain access without being discovered. Nick Novak of Wisconsin's MacIver Institute attended the event and found in one session that teachers were being told that white people are like "alcoholics" with their racism. They will never be cured of it but will always be racists at heart.
...Tobias was told that the event was "private" and not funded by tax dollars. Therefore, it was not a public, political event open to reporters, they said.
The event was held at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center and was provided with an $18,375 booking event assistance payment, money that came from a fund drawn from local hotel room tax revenue.
Also, several local school districts paid thousands of dollars in registration fees, hotel stays, and transportation costs for teachers and administrators to attend. Those are also tax dollars.
Furthermore, some of the workshops sponsored by this year's White Privilege Conference are quite political. The event offered such workshops as "Against the Tea Party Movement," "If You Build It, They Will Come: Developing a Pre K-12 Curricular Scope and Sequence for Whiteness and Anti-Racism," and "Climate-Change-Mind-Set: Replacing White Liberalism with Racial Justice as Our Communities Organize in Response to Climate Change."

The IRS Digs in its Heels

By Jonathan Moseley

...However, a dangerous trap by the Obama Administration is being set, which even House Republicans failed to recognize. Christine O’Donnell revealed in February – and Congressional committees have confirmed her report -- that the IRS interprets 26 U.S.C. 6103 as prohibiting the disclosure of IRS misconduct or abuse concerning taxpayer information.

So – cloaked in double-speak – Koskinen effectively announced to Congress that the information Congress is trying to obtain will not be disclosed. Christine O’Donnell exposed that the IRS thinks “6103 information” includes not only a taxpayer’s records but also how IRS personnel mishandled that taxpayer’s records. The IRS plans to redact and withhold from Congress all information about misconduct and abuse by the IRS.

On March 26, Commissioner Koskinen repeatedly emphasized that the IRS is screening all documents to withhold from Congress any “6103 information.” But the IRS argues that “6103 information” includes the very misconduct and abuse by IRS employees which Congress is trying to investigate.

Consider: O’Donnell’s tax records were illegally accessed, according to a Treasury Department inspector general investigator Dennis Martel (who interviewed me earlier on a related issue). So Christine filed a Freedom of Information Act request about herself. The IRS responded that they had three (3) boxes of documents to hand over and would she come get them. Then the IRS called back and said they would not release any documents about her to her because 26 U.S.C. 6103 prohibited it. That’s the same problem Congressman Darrell Issa’s Committee will run into.

That IRS interpretation is so bizarre that a Federal Court would slap it down quickly. But someone needs to stop talking and start suing. Congress cannot make progress exposing this Obama scandal otherwise. To file a simple and inexpensive lawsuit, only someone with legal standing can be a Plaintiff. The only ones we know of with standing are Christine O’Donnell, Catherine Englebrecht, and the National Organization for Marriage. I drafted an example and offered it for free as my contribution to the fate of the nation -- “for the greater good.” Someone needs to file that lawsuit.

National Science Foundation Spends $700K on Climate Change Musical

By William Bigelow
The National Science Foundation has fantasies of Broadway. It is funding what it thinks is a hot commodity: a new musical titled The Great Immensity that is focused on climate change at the cost of $700,000 to taxpayers.
The website for the production reads:

In a thrilling and timely production, presented in association with the celebrated investigative theater company, The Civilians, The Great Immensity is a continent-hopping thriller following a woman, Phyllis, as she pursues someone close to her who disappeared from a tropical island while on an assignment for a nature show.

But this is science, so how about the hard data that undergirds the plot? Not to worry:

The Great Immensity explores the environmental crisis drawing upon research and interviews conducted in two distinct locations: Barro Colorado Island (BCI) in the Panama Canal and the city of Churchill in arctic Canada.

Just in case your curiosity is piqued and you have your own tale of climate change disaster to tell, the website wants you to get involved:

The characters from the play are here to share with you the latest in environmental art, science, and action, and to demonstrate how people around the world are having a positive impact on the big issues that we are facing. Now is the time to get involved in shaping the next fifty or one hundred years of life on this planet. Click HERE to learn more and find out what you can do!

Science and Broadway: Your tax dollars at work.

Obamacare Real Enrollment: Just 1.7% of Uninsured Covered

By Wynton Hall
Obamacare, the plan purportedly created to provide health coverage for the uninsured, has enrolled just 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured.
News of the disastrous numbers comes as nervous Democrats and President Barack Obama, ahead of the November midterm elections, did their best on Monday's enrollment deadline to put a positive spin on the deeply unpopular Obamacare program. The latest Associated Press poll finds that Obamacare has now hit an all-time low approval rating of just 26 percent.
The White House now claims an Obamacare enrollment figure of six million people. However, according to The New York Times, at least 20% of those never paid their premiums to activate coverage, leaving them uninsured. That drops the number down to 4.8 million.
Next, as Washington Post columnist Ed Rogers notes, "the official HHS numbers still include duplicate enrollments." No one knows how many duplicate enrollments are in the stack; the White House refuses to say. However, given the disastrous Obamacare website failures, it is reasonable to imagine that the pile is riddled with numerous "false start" applications.
That leaves the most important question: How many people are gaining insurance who were previously uninsured? After all, that was the stated reason for Obamacare in the first place. McKinsey & Co. says that only 27% of those who have picked a plan through Obamacare were previously uninsured.
Moreover, McKinsey says these individuals have an unusually high rate of failing to pay their first month's premium. "Only 53 percent of them had paid their first premium, compared with 86 percent of the previously insured," reports CNBC.
Even conceding the White House its alleged six million enrollment figure (which, again, includes duplicates and incomplete applications), that would mean that just 810,000 of paying Obamacare customers were previously uninsured, a figure that represents 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured people.
Indeed, most of those the White House counts as Obamacare enrollees are among the five million who had their health insurance plans canceled due to Obamacare.

GM Recall Scandal Goes Straight to the White House

By Joel B Pollak
New General Motors CEO Mary Barra will testify before Congress Tuesday about why it took so long for GM to issue product safety recalls involving faulty ignition switches that caused air bags to fail in crashes, contributing to thirteen deaths. She will testify alongside David Friedman, the acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), who will be expected to explain why the government did not act sooner.
They ought to be accompanied by former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, as well as "car czars" Steven Rattner and Ron Bloom, together with White House and Treasury officials who oversaw the government's huge bailout of General Motors. Many--though not all--of the safety problems happened on their watch. In addition, LaHood and other Obama administration officials led a witch-hunt against Toyota during the same period.
It was LaHood who led the hysterical propaganda campaign against Toyota, telling the public that Toyotas were unsafe to drive because of sudden-acceleration problems. Democrats and the mainstream media piled on. Toyota did recall vehicles for a problem involving its floor mats, but the problems with Toyota's electrical systems that were supposed to be causing its vehicles to accelerate out of control failed to materialize.
LaHood and the Obama administration attacked Toyota during a period when GM, now being run with direct input from the White House, had lost its #1 ranking in global auto sales. That was considered an urgent priority. So while the government was ignoring real and deadly safety problems at GM, it was trying to scare consumers about nonexistent problems at Toyota. The White House owes victims' families, and the public, an explanation.

Issa to ATF Head: Why Are Major Fast and Furious Players Still Working at the Agency?

By Katie Pavlich Late yesterday afternoon, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley sent a letter to ATF Chief B. Todd Jones asking why major players in Operation Fast and Furious are still working at the agency, especially considering Jones said they were no longer employed. Although many agents and supervisors involved in the deadly operation have retired or resigned since 2010 when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed with a gun trafficked to Mexican cartels during the program, not a single person has been fired.

....According to the letter, ATF continues to employ Case Agent Hope MacAllister, Group Supervisor David Voth, and Special Agent in Charge William Newell. All three were major players during Fast and Furious in the Phoenix Field Division. Not only were they involved in the operation, but also retaliated against whistleblowers like John Dodson for speaking out against their tactics. Newell's corrupt and reckless history in particular goes far beyond Operation Fast and Furious and into cases like Dobyns v. USA.
...Issa and Grassley also pressed Jones about a recent Inspector General report showing that approval was given to former ATF Agenet Bill McMahon to take a $200,000 per year salary with JPMorgan, the bank that holds ATF credit cards, while at the same time taking paid ATF leave in order to secure his retirement benefits after Fast and Furious fallout. The OIG report described this action as "being fraud" had it not been approved by government supervisors.
Before he was confirmed as permanent director of ATF, Jones promised to clean up the agency. Jones will be testifying tomorrow, Wednesday on Capitol Hill in front of the House Oversight Committee at 9:30 am et. The focus of the hearing will be ATF's reckless storefront tactics, tactics that include using mentally disabled teens for sting operations, but the questions outlined in this letter are also sure to come up.

How Foreign is Our Policy?

By Thomas Sowell
...The president's public warning to Syria of dire consequences if the Assad regime there crossed a "red line" he had drawn seemed to epitomize an amateurish bluff that was exposed as a bluff when Syria crossed that red line without suffering any consequences. Drawing red lines in disappearing ink makes an international mockery of not only this president's credibility, but also the credibility of future American presidents' commitments.
When some future President of the United States issues a solemn warning internationally, and means it, there may be less likelihood that the warning will be taken seriously. That invites the kind of miscalculation that has led to wars.
Many who are disappointed with what seem to be multiple fiascoes in President Obama's foreign policy question his competence and blame his inexperience.Such critics may be right, but it is by no means certain that they are.
Like those who are disappointed with Barack Obama's domestic policies, critics of his foreign policy may be ignoring the fact that you cannot know whether someone is failing or succeeding without knowing what he is trying to do.
Whether ObamaCare, for example, is a success or a failure, depends on whether you think the president's goal is to improve the medical treatment of Americans or to leave as his permanent legacy a system of income redistribution, through ObamaCare, and tight government control of the medical profession.
Much, if not most, of the disappointment with Barack Obama comes from expectations based on his words, rather than on an examination of what he has done over his lifetime before reaching the White House.
...Anti-Americanism was the rule, not the exception, among Obama's mentors over the years, beginning in his childhood. When the young Obama and his mother lived in Indonesia, her Indonesian husband wanted her to accompany him to social gatherings with American businessmen -- and was puzzled when she refused.
He reminded her that these were her own people. According to Barack Obama's own eyewitness account, her voice rose "almost to a shout" when she replied:
"They are not my people."
Most of Barack Obama's foreign policy decisions since becoming president are consistent with this mindset. He has acted repeatedly as a citizen of the world, even though he was elected to be President of the United States.
Virtually every major move of the Obama administration has reduced the power, security and influence of America and its allies. Cutbacks in military spending, while our adversaries have increased their military buildups, ensure that these changes to our detriment will continue, even after Barack Obama has left the White House.
Is that failure or success?