The Snooki Tax

Take note that the persons opposed to tanning altogether are the ones who got this 10% tax added. They know that even a 10% tax (just like all the taxes added to smoking) dissuades someone from that action. Similarly, all the taxes coming down the pike will do what exactly to consumers wanting to go out and spend??

Politico:

In one scene, Snooki — with her impressively orange tan — broke the shocking news that she’s been staying away from her home away from home: Tanning salons.

“I don’t go tanning anymore because Obama put a 10% tax on tanning. McCain would never put a 10% tax on tanning. Because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan,” she said.

Snooki was referring to a provision in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act that mandates tanning salons impose a 10 percent tax on UV-ray sessions.

McCain and Jersey Shore team up. Why would a President who is concerned about jobs and people (supposedly) put a 10% on small business owners that would do nothing but hinder job growth. Many of his policies hinder this.

Facts Are Stubborn Things – Obama Inserted Berwick By Royal Decree

I thought this was supposed to be the most “transparent” Presidency. (I will post at the end what this story brings to mind.) In this video you will see this biased view explained here coming out from Bernard Whitman and also note Obama again inserting a czar in order to usurp proper protocol:

Dems Inaccurately Claim GOP Blocked Berwick Nomination, Media Happy to Play Along

The Times reported:

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said the “recess appointment” was needed to carry out the new health care law. The law calls for huge changes in the two programs, which together insure nearly one-third of all Americans.

Mr. Pfeiffer said the president would appoint Dr. Berwick on Wednesday. Mr. Obama decided to act because “many Republicans in Congress have made it clear in recent weeks that they were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points,” Mr. Pfeiffer said.

[….]

The Daily News echoed:

Berwick supporters scoffed at GOP complaints and accused them of stonewalling.

“Republican lockstep stalling of Don’s nomination was a case study in cynicism and one awful example of how not to govern,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). “Republicans screamed that these federal programs were in trouble, then tried to deny the Administration the capable guy the President had chosen to oversee them.”

The Globe printed Kerry’s statement, and noted that “Obama…blamed Republicans for forcing his hand.”

President Obama Attacks Congress for Delaying His Nominees — Is He Right?

President Obama said in a statement that “It’s unfortunate that at a time when our nation is facing enormous challenges, many in Congress have decided to delay critical nominations for political purposes.”

[…]

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., echoed the president’s suggestion, saying that “Republican lockstep stalling of Don’s nomination was a case study in cynicism and one awful example of how not to govern.”

[…]

But Republicans were not delaying or stalling Berwick’s nomination.

Indeed, they were eager for his hearing, hoping to assail Berwick’s past statements about health care rationing and his praise for the British health care system.

“The nomination hasn’t been held up by Republicans in Congress and to say otherwise is misleading,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which would have held Berwick’s hearing.

Grassley said that he “requested that a hearing take place two weeks ago, before this recess.”

Berwick’s nomination was sent to the Senate in April, and his hearing had not been scheduled because he was participating in the “standard vetting process,” a Democratic aide on the Senate Finance Committee told ABC News.

But speaking not for attribution, Democratic officials say that neither Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., nor Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, were eager for an ugly confirmation fight four months before the midterm elections.

[…]

You can argue – and White House officials and Senate Democrats are, in fact, doing so – that Democrats were delaying Berwick’s hearing and the vote on his nomination because Republicans were going to play politics with it.

But a) that’s not the same as delaying or obstructing his nomination and b) some might argue that there’s also something to be said about combating policy arguments with better policy arguments.

This reminds me of all the times the Democrats said bush was cutting veteran benefits, when in fact he was increasing them. How? Because they would call for a 6-billion dollar increase in the proposal, but the Republicans and Bush would say their budget could only cover, say, 4-billion dollars. The net increase was 4-billion, but all you read in the papers and heard on MSNBC was that Bush cut 2-billion dollars in veteran benefits. Here is the comparison between Bush and Clinton in regards to veteran benefits, you tell me if the media was as mainstream as some purport?

Kenya Clashes Coming

Religion News Blog (RNB) h/t:

Kenya’s constitutional vote on sharia courts pits Muslims against Christians

NAIROBI — For 13 years, Judge Mudhar Ahmed has worked in relative obscurity, issuing Muslim marriage certificates, divorcing Muslim couples and weighing in on Muslim inheritance disputes. Now, he’s facing an issue unlike any he has seen. He has one word to describe it: “Islamophobia.”

Ahmed is the head of Nairobi’s Kadhis Court, one of 17 judicial bodies that administer sharia, or Islamic law, to Kenya’s Muslim minority. The courts were enshrined in the nation’s constitution decades ago, but Christian leaders are seeking to remove them from a proposed new constitution, scheduled for a referendum Aug. 4. They argue that Kenya is a secular state and that Muslims should not receive special privileges.

Muslim leaders say the maneuvers are part of an agenda to deny their community rights and undermine their beliefs. “They are creating hatred between Muslims and Christians,” said Ahmed, his soft voice hardening.

The tussle portends a larger collision between Islam and Christianity in Kenya, a vital U.S. ally in a region where Washington is quietly fighting the growth of Islamic radicalism. Many Kenyans are concerned that the tensions, if not contained, could deepen political fissures and spawn the sort of communal upheaval that left more than 1,000 people dead in 2008 after elections.

In this predominantly Christian nation, Christians are worried about a Muslim community that is growing in numbers and influence, and they have been vocally backed by U.S.-based Christian groups. Muslims are wary of the rising power of fundamentalist Christian organizations backed by American Christians.

The 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania frayed relations between Christians and Muslims. Those links have further eroded in the decade since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as concerns about Islamic radicalization and terrorism grew in this East African country.

…(read more)…

Here Are A Few Reminders About the First Stimulus…

  • $5 million to create a geothermal energy system for a shopping mall in Tennessee. The mall is over half empty of tenants and has had falling shopper attendance for years
  • $1.57 million to Penn State University study fossils in Argentina
  • $100,000 to a puppet theater in Minnesota
  • $2 million to build a replica railroad tourist trap in Carson City, Nev.
  • A boat cruise company in Chicago got almost $1 million to “combat terrorism”
  • $500,000 went to Ariz. State Univ. to study ant genetics
  • Another $450,000 went to Uinv. of Arizona to study ants
  • Almost $400,000 went to Univ. of New York to pay students to drink beer and smoke marijuana for a study there
  • $219,000 to the Nat’l Institute of Health to study if young people “hook-up” after getting drunk
  • $210,000 to the Univ. of Hawaii to study bees
  • $700,000 to crab fishermen in Oregon to pay for lost crab pots
  • $5,000 a person tax rebate if you buy a new electric golf cart (Wall Street Journal)
  • Up to $1 million went to prisoners in $250 stimulus checks (FoxNews)
  • $54 mil to a New York Indian tribe to run its casino (New York Post)
  • $1 billion for a power plant in Mattoon, Illinois that is based on speculative science and may not even work
  • $15 million to back-road bridges that get little traffic in Wisconsin
  • $800,000 for a practically unused airport in Pennsylvania
  • $3.4 million for an animal walk way under a road in Florida
  • $1.15 million to install a guard rail for a lake that doesn’t even exist in Oklahoma
  • $10 million to renovate a rail station that has stood unused for a decade
  • $578,000 to battle homelessness in Union, New York even though the town says they have no homeless people there
  • $233,000 to the Univ. of Calif. to study why Africans vote… in Africa
  • $2 million to build a new fire house in a Nevada town that has no firemen
  • North Carolina schools got $4.4 million for literacy and math coaches… to teach their teachers!
  • $54 million for a railroad project in Napa Valley went to a minority-owned company that then hired a local construction company for half the price, pocketing the rest
  • A California company was given $15 million in stimulus money to monitor water quality in a stream it was under indictment for polluting previously

(Source)

Verum Serum Points To Obama’s Own “Wag the Dog”

…Of course it’s obvious why BP would want to minimize the problem. They are on the hook financially for the clean-up and their reputation as a “green energy” company is taking a severe hit. But recall that the President claims to have his boot on BP’s neck. The only comparable motivation for the Obama administration is politics.

Granted politics are always an issue where Presidents are involved, especially with the midterms approaching. But in this case there seems to be ample reason to conclude that politics is wagging the dog on the Gulf spill. When Katrina hit, the media went overboard with stories of everything up to murder (and just short of cannibalism) in flooded New Orleans. This time around, the media–with the exception of Rolling Stone, Mother Jones and now PBS–are being far too reticent to investigate the government’s response.

…(read more)…

Virginia (Ginni) Thomas Says Obama Leading Country Away From Core Principles

World Net Daily has a good article/interview with Justice Thomas’s wife, “Ginni” Thomas. She talks about the Tea Party and other important aspects of conservatism. Saying,

“The Sept. 12 march on Washington – when I saw all of those real, ordinary Americans march on Washington and come at their own expense – people who were there said it changed their lives,” she told WND…. [the] 52… blond with a vibrant smile and ebullient personality, said she “felt called to the front lines for our nation as President Obama was moving the country so far away from the founding principles.”….

…(read more)…

She founded a site called Liberty Central, which is a good place to check in with once-and-a-while. Below is a video I pulled from their YouTube account: