OMG! = Obama must go!

The Roman Catholic Church objects to Obamacare's mandate requiring Church employees be covered for abortion and contraception. The church has long held the belief that birth control in general, and abortion in particular, are immoral.

Obama claims he offered a compromise: The compromise would require that church employees be covered for abortion and contraception.

This is no compromise at all. Obama is lying again.

The Church has published its formal objection.

Obama is also violating the First Amendment right of religious freedom. Obama Must Go.

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This issue has unfortunately become a major campaign debate. Unfortunately, because this should not be a partisan fight. This is a battle over our most fundamental freedom: freedom of religion. And it’s also a battle over the Constitution--whether Congress can allow government agencies to legislate. It’s a battle that is going to be fought out on Capitol Hill and in the courts.

This is not a partisan question. This is not the Obama Administration vs. the Church. This is a question of whether the Constitution will be respected and the first liberty protected, or whether the bureaucrats will be allowed to make a decision that will override our religious liberties.

Congress would never mandate religious organizations to violate their faith. But in passing the Affordable Health Care Act, Congress in essence delegated its legislative authority to federal agencies—staffed by unelected political appointees.

We want to do our level best to keep this from becoming a partisan issue, and we want to argue always on the high ground, protecting the Constitution and respecting freedom of conscience. It’s at the heart of liberty. When freedom of conscience is lost, all liberty is gone.

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The Manhattan Declaration is sending a petition to Obama. Click here to sign.

Obama - Budget - Lies

One could argue that Obama's just-announced budget is a great big lie. But let's be specific. Here are three lies...

Lie #1 -- $4 trillion in deficit reduction

"If Congress adopts this budget, then along with the cuts that we’ve already made, we’ll be able to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion by the year 2022 -- $4 trillion." -- BHO, 2/13/12

This is pure political deception. According to Obama's own budget, the projected increase in the total U.S. debt over 11 years (2012-2022) is $11.189 TRILLIION. (p. 245) There is no deficit reduction in Obama's budget. ZERO. But in Obama's world, an $11 trillion increase in the debt is called a deficit reduction. How? By taking credit for not spending money that either the government has already agreed to not spend or will not spend anyways, Obama is saying his budget saves $4 trillion. As the National Review explained:

Fully half of the savings come from the administration’s claiming as its own the $2 trillion in cuts won by congressional Republicans in the debt-limit deal. Some $850 billion comes from not spending war dollars that were never going to be spent anyway. Another $430 billion comes from jury-rigging the baseline to hide the cost of the infamous Medicare “doc fix.”

Of course, the $11.2 trillion increase is buried on page 245 of Obama's budget (see link below, download the .pdf, and see Table S-15, last line). So the fact is, Obama is lying.

Lie #2 -- Tax rate reductions amount to government spending.

This one will take a little explaining. In Obama's world, any tax rate below what he deems is the "fair share" is the equivalent of government spending. As our Marxist In Chief explained:

"Right now, we’re scheduled to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. We’ve already spent about that much. Now we’re scheduled to spend another trillion." BHO, 2/13/12

The "spending" Obama is talking about is government revenue (i.e. taxes) that the government isn't collecting because of the tax rates Obama doesn't like. So a tax rate below what Obama deems to be appropriate is government spending. Take this to its logical conclusion and the government owns all income. Anything we keep is government spending.

Lie #3 -- This isn't about class warfare

A classic debating tactic is to attack your opponent's best argument head-on with a direct denial followed by a restatement of your core beliefs which actually confirms your opponent's argument. Look at how Obama addresses the "class warfare" charge in reference to his budget:

"Some people go around, they say, well, the President is engaging in class warfare. That’s not class warfare. That’s common sense. That’s common sense. Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary when it comes to his tax rate -- that’s just common sense. Because Warren Buffet is doing fine, I'm doing fine. We don’t need the tax breaks. You need them. You're the ones who see your wages stall. You're the one whose costs of everything from college to groceries has gone up. You're the ones who deserve a break." -- BHO, 2/13/12

Here, Obama issues a direct denial to the "class warfare" charge and then proceeds to lay out the classic class warfare argument: The rich are getting tax breaks.... You deserve those breaks.... Hate the rich, hate the rich, hate the rich....

There are many more lies.

This is re-posted from Steve Elliott

Citizens for Tax Justice 'Study' = Lie

Leftist Newspeak has sunk to a new low. Not happy with distortion, the Left are speaking outright lies. The subject of the lies are so dreary, most people would rather catch a nap. But I trained as an economist, which makes me immune to nap-inducing rays (however I emit nap-rays).

At hand is a "Study" from the far left Citizens for Tax Justice about what they call Corporate tax dodging. The "Study" claims 30 companies in the United States paid less than 0% tax in one year pf the last three years. The "Study" implies this happened despite each companies profitable status.

So I checked them out.

According to Citizens for Tax Justice, the worst offender is PEPCO Holdings, the Potomac Electric Power Company. CTJ claims "Pepco Holdings had the lowest effective tax rate of all the companies in the study, at negative 57.6% (effectively, a tax refund) over the three year period." There is no way to match CTJ's claim with any reliable source.

PEPCO's published earnings report, as required by the US Government's Securities and Exchange Commission, states PEPCO paid:
$90 million in federal taxes in 2008,
$104 million in 2009,
$11 million in 201.
No time in the last three years has PEPCO experienced negative taxation.

The information is on page 148 of their annual shareholders report.

Citizens for Tax Justice is just badly messed up.

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Originally CTJ report attracted my interest because I expected to find evidence of state and federal corruption. I expected to find the government giving favorable tax treatment to their pet companies. CTJ seems to mistake government expenditure as direct tax relief.

Don't get me wrong, governments use tax credits to manipulate the market. Corruption's smoking gun will be when there is no discernible difference between two businesses, and one is getting a tax credit.

Consider corruption's smoking gun in the case of Gibson Guitar and Martin Guitar.

Blumenthal Caught In His Lies

Democrat Richard Blumenthal, running for Connecticut's US Senate seat, baldly asserted he had served in Viet Nam. It never happened. Blumenthal fessed up. Rather than being hooted out of the election, people at the news conference applauded Blumenthal for his lie.

This rates a 10 on the "Huh?" scale. This is a fairly new thing. Why on earth do Democrats adore confessed liars of far left political stripe? What's next, suborning perjury? Currently serving as Connecticut Attorney General, Blumenthal should have lost his current job for such stupidity and been totally disqualified from the Senate.

Time will tell.

The New York Times ran a couple of stories on this. Here's one and the other.

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The Sovereign Society provides today's Fun Fact: "Did you know that Washington, D.C., boasts the highest per capita consumption of booze in the United States? Yikes… The emperor has no clothes and he’s on a bender!"

Call the Elitists to Action!

See if you can tear them away from stealing stuff! They can go back to that later....

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun control advocacy group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), began running television ads urging Congress to "close the gun show loophole." Page 34 of MAIG's Blueprint for Federal Action on guns says that the group supports H.R. 2324 and S. 843 -- bills that would require National Instant Check System (NICS) checks on private sales of firearms at gun shows. The bills also contain provisions designed to drive gun shows out of business.

Bloomberg's MAIG ads claim "The Columbine school massacre ... killers got their guns because of a gap in the law, called the 'gun show loophole.'" And in a related press release, MAIG claims "All four guns used in the Columbine shootings were bought from private sellers at gun shows."

Those claims are lies, of course.

What else has this former Democratic, former RINO, political class member done lately for the good of the powerful, rich, elitists?

“According to an extensive review of the mayor’s financial records by The Observer, even as Mr. Bloomberg was trying to counter the loss of taxes and other income from the richest New Yorkers, the foundation he controls was in the process of shuttling hundreds of millions of dollars out of the city and into controversial offshore tax havens that would produce nothing at all for the city in terms of tax revenue. (Aram Roston, New York Observer)

While begging New Yorkers to keep their tax dollars in state (and in the “state’s pockets”) Mayor Bloomberg was quietly taking his money offshore.

How much did he move offshore? About $290 million dollars!

Mr Hyper-Rich, Bloomberg -- A perfect example of the elitists now running Mr Obama's deception of America.

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With material from the NRA and Sovereign Society

From the front lines

It's okay to waste plastic and paper if it's wasted because it's bad to waste it. Ow.

Primary season here in the Left Coast. Bob-1 files a report:

Rather interesting election results last night. Mayor (billions of) Nickels didn't even make it out of the primary; the leader is - for Seattle anyway - relatively sane. Same goes for Kink Co Exec.

And Seattle Referendum 1, the 20 cent paper & plastic bag tax, got slaughtered 58% no to 42% yes. Ironically, despite the claims of the huge amounts of "Big Oil" cash poured against the ref by the pro folks (and left repeatedly in prerecorded fashion on my phone over the last few days) I never received any "anti" calls. Guess "Big Moonbat" had even more cash...

Or might have just been the insane yard sign campaign by the pro-tax folks.

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If the Sheeple's Paradise of Seattle can lean an inch or two away from total lib lunacy, could a nationwide Dem bloodbath in 2010 be beyond imagination?

Yes, there's Hope for Change.

Big Happy Face

Despite persistent layoffs, the economy seems to be faring better than it was at the start of the year. AP Story

The authoritarian, Leftist-controlled press keeps trying to put a happy face on economy. But things keep getting worse. The clear fact is the Democreeps started the economic downturn when they were elected to Congressional dominance in 2006. The clear fact that Democreeps are making it worse Must Be Ignored.

Mr Obama frightens working people repeatedly. The very people the Left knows make the country run are scared. So the stock market collapses, industries are trashed, wealth destroyed and companies dismantled. And the Left enters Dreamland. In this dream state Mr Obama will probably get his monster cap-and-trade carbon tax. Bye-bye to last of free industry, hello politicized production. The Lie Factory is hiring.

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Next up: Death care --- naturally, they are calling it health care, but they lie (Again? Really?). The significant fact they ignore, this time, is that no country has ever applied government funding to health care without lengthy waiting lists for some life saving treatments. The Big Government approach is if people are not made to pay in money, they must pay in waiting - waiting - waiting.

Waiting lists, increasing costs anyway, nothing will work. Finally, the people will be told there are too many of them, some must be sacrificed. Some of them must go off the rolls, and not receive health care. Too many people, overpopulation is the problem, thin the herd, the extra humanity must be eliminated somehow.

This is the essential of elitism... thinking that one person should decide the fate of thousands, millions. When elitism becomes political policy, hell awaits. Congress' and Mr Obama's only qualification is political success. They are using that success to set up a heartless system of statist compassion. Satan could not do a better job of dehumanizing the American people.

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Flash! - I saw an television ad stating Mr Obama's health care system would not replace private pay health care. The tagline was for some government front agency, but I didn't notice who. Anyway, let's get to the meat of this.

If the government sponsored health care system is not intended to replace private pay care, then what is it doing? We already have extensive public pay health care in place. On what are we going to spend nearly $1 trillion buckaroos?

If only this ad were serious, but you can see it is sugar coating to make the toxic seem tasty. Private pay in tandem with public pay shows they are setting up a means test. This is what the trillion is for: To see if you can afford to pay.

Gee. They lied again.

What's wrong with big government?

No doubt the people in Washington DC really care about their plans and policies success; their re-election depends on it. The only thing I have riding on their success is my livelihood. But I doubt the effectiveness of remote control administration. These politicians are good at politics, not other occupations.

I doubt big government plans will work. Big means distant. Someone in Washington will not see as clearly as someone right on top of the problem can see. The car makers, for example, know car making. Besides, the people in Washington are politicians. They can't even sell cars, much less make them.

Banking is another example. Washington people only know how to borrow huge sums of money and spend it in the politically correct ways policy dictates. They are clueless about the rest of banking.

Heaven help you if the Washington politicians ever try to dictate your personal life. Bad law wipes out good behavior.

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The look ahead

Please pardon the hysterical tone of this addendum. I'm watching the newly elected government take apart the free system and am slightly panicked by it.

People don't get it. The Leftist controlled indoctrination centers (Mind Molding Mills, i.e. public schools) have been thorough. Only conservative economics has given human beings plenty, but the people are now convinced only socialist destruction of the economy is fair.

First, in November 2007, the Leftist government changes the accounting rules with mark to market, severely damaging private banking and financing systems. This year, the people elect a socialist idiot who has zero real word experience. Obama's job before politics: community organizer. This doesn't even sound like a job. It sounds like he was a paid rabble rouser.

The stock market is still taking a beating, because no investor wants to be on that front line when Big Brother strikes. Now we are told the only problem with our economy is we have too much freedom left. We are told Big Government reserves investment, innovation and compassion to itself.

Government doesn't invest for productive return. They invest for re-election: Waste! The governments idea of innovation is building windmills (Sen. Maria Cantwell): an idea at least 2000 years old.

These elitists snort at compassion. For example, Big government has been in the food control business for years via food stamps. For the poor, government bureaucrats decide who eats and who does not.

Take it a another step. When the government holds farmers to non-production requirements, idling good farm land. When the inexperienced clods in this government makes a mistake and short food production way too much. Every socialist nation has had mass starvation. What will the elitists say when this socialist workers paradise has mass starvation? Oops? Will they care at all?

The fascist Left has declared war on the common man.

“I have heard a lot of talk about we ought to do a tax cut... If you put a tax cut into the hands of either a business or an individual today, there is no guarantee they are going to invest their money…in the United States. They are free to go to invest anywhere they want, if they choose to invest... The fact is none of those people are guaranteed to invest that money in any of the new projects that we are. So government, yes government, has the ability to be able to make a decision that the private sector won’t necessarily make today.”

Sen. John Kerry, speaking in favor of the $787 billion pork bill, February 6, 2009

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In case there is doubt

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder told reporters.

Attorney General Eric Holder speaking about the Obama administration plan to seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban and a ban on "cop killer" (whatever that means) bullets, February 25, 2009.

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Repression always relies on a more powerful government.

Less power for government needs a political philosophy of ordered liberty by social manner, not political power and order imposed from the top down by government.

If society is motivated by the basic and common virtues, then the outcome is freedom and a well ordered society. If society is ordered by power alone, then the result is violence and oppression.