Month: April 2014

Another Republican Claim Proven Right — Census Bureau

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is yet another “lie” supposedly made by the right. Remember the Lie of the Year where Mitt Romney said Jeep was gonna go to China? Proven right, and the Lie of the Year was pwned! How bout’ Sarah Palin being eviscerated for her “death panel” comments? Again, the Right (Sarah Palin and others) were proven right! How bout the REAL Lie of the Year? Obama was shown to be THE Lie of the Year… and it stuck!

Now another Republican position was proven right. This comes via Black and Conservative (Derrick Wilburn). Bravo to Media’ite for posting this!

In 2009, in the earliest weeks of President Barack Obama‘s administration, the White House made the controversial decision to take the unprecedented step of moving the Census Bureau from control of the commerce secretary over to the White House ahead of the decennial 2010 census.

Conservatives sounded alarm bells. “It takes something that is supposedly apolitical like the census, and gives it to a guy who is infamously political,” said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) of then White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

“Requiring the Census director to report directly to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a shamefully transparent attempt by your administration to politicize the Census Bureau and manipulate the 2010 Census,” read a letter addressed to Obama authored by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC)….

[….]

….Policy analysts and columnists, who are not reflexively friendly to conservative causes, called the debasement of a formerly neutral agency to achieve a political end “insane” and “inexcusable.”….

[….]

According to a report in The New York Times, the Census Bureau has been directed to change the wording of its questions relating to health care coverage so that they can no longer be checked against the past three decades of data. According to the nonpartisan analysts and census officials The Times spoke with, this change will make it nearly impossible to accurately assess the effects of the Affordable Care Act has had on the number of Americans who have health insurance.

The changes will, however, likely have the effect of showing a reduction in the number of uninsured. This will not be the result of the effects of the law. Rather, according to the Census Bureau’s chief of the health statistics branch, the drop in uninsured is only going to be due to “the questions and how they are asked.”…

[….]

…And, thus, another crazy conservative conspiracy theory is proven to not be so crazy after all.

So this is how it looks:

  • Republicans warned you couldn’t keep your health care. Dems said you could keep it.
  • Republicans warned illegal aliens would be insured thru Obama-care. Dems said NO WAY JOSE!
  • Republicans warned about death panels. Dems said we were conspiracy nuts!
  • Republicans said the Obama admin was gonna sell (and move) Jeep to China. Dems said, yeah right.
  • Republicans said the Obama admin would politicise the Census. Dems said yur crazy!
  • Republicans said Putin was gonna take Ukraine. Dems said the 80’s called.
  • Republicans said the ACA (Obama-care) would kill jobs. Dems said it would create 400,000 immediately.

Um, when is America gonna wake up?

Government Overeach via Wickard v. Filburn ~ Clark Neily

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Video Descripton)

Dennis Prager interviews Clark Neily, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, about government overreach. Clark has a new book entitled, “Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government” (http://tinyurl.com/o5u9n8l). Clark talks briefly about the watershed case, Wickard v. Filburn, allowing the Federal government the ability to over-step its enumerated reach.

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/

See more: http://thefilburnfoundation.com/opinions.html

Reforming Tax Rates & Obama-Care Will Boost Domestic Investment

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via IBD Editorial, “American Companies Think The Unthinkable — Leaving The U.S.“

Taxes: Walgreen, America’s venerable drug-store chain, is thinking the unthinkable: relocating to Europe. Not because it sees growth and opportunity there, but because of onerous taxes here in the U.S. It’s an ominous trend.

The Financial Times of London calls it “one of the largest tax inversions ever.” That is, a company seeking to avoid punitive taxes in one market by moving to another.

No doubt the FT is right. And after its recent $16 billion takeover of Swiss-based Alliance Boots, it would be easy for Walgreen to remake itself as a Swiss company.

If it did, the Democratic Party’s liberals would no doubt call Walgreen unpatriotic for wanting to lessen its tax burden. In fact, they are responsible for an economic environment so hostile to capital and investment that companies now find it intolerable.

As we’ve noted, corporate tax rates in the U.S. are the highest among the developed nations. The average rate in America in 2013 was 39.13%; for all of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, it stood at 28.2%.

In short, being headquartered here is a major competitive disadvantage for American firms.

According to an analysis by UBS, Walgreen’s U.S. tax rate is 37.5% — compared with Alliance Boots’ rate in Europe of about 20%. That’s a huge gap, worth billions of dollars a year.

But it’s even worse than that. A recent OECD study says the “integrated tax rate” — taxes on capital and income — for U.S. companies is a nightmarish 67.8% vs. 43.7% for the OECD….

[….]

A total of 547 companies — including Apple, GE, Microsoft and Pfizer — have dramatically expanded their so-called foreign indefinitely reinvested earnings overseas, which let them avoid the punishing rates here at home.

“The new numbers … certainly highlight what is one of the key challenges for tax reform,” said Wyden. No kidding.

Wyden and his fellow Democrats will try to raise taxes even higher or gut foreign tax exemptions. If so, it will backfire. Companies won’t invest here if government takes more of their money; they’ll just find new ways to put it out of reach.

And why shouldn’t they?

Not only are taxes too high, but also new laws such as Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare, a vast expansion of regulation, debt and the size of government, the federal takeover of entire industries, the bullying of Wall Street and demonization of CEOs, and forced CO2 cuts that will hammer manufacturers have made this the least pro-free market U.S. government in generations….

…read it all…

Some Bundy Ranch Updates and Editorials Throughout the Day

Published by Papa Giorgio

Click to Enlarge

 TARGETING MEDIA: Watching us, watching them – BLM Sniper points rifle at GMN photographer.

Ron Paul Addresses Bundy Ranch Nevada Land Dispute on Your World With Neil Cavuto ~ Warns of WACO Style Attack

Disarming the Warriors ~ Fort Hood I & II, Norfolk Naval Station

Published by Papa Giorgio

We are defanging our military. What’s more, is that we are taking away their basic human rights to defend themselves, their Second Amendment rights to bear arms in their own self-defense, while asking them to volunteer to defend us. Moreover, we are choosing time and time again to deny them the mental health and veterans’ benefits, while giving more money to entitlements for other communities. Meanwhile, shootings on bases have occurred now multiple times, and 22 people in our armed services commit suicide daily. This is unacceptable–hear why in this Afterburner with Bill Whittle.

Confused About the Ongoing Bundy Ranch Debacle? Read On…

Published by Papa Giorgio

I have been a bit confused as well, but after a few days of digesting news — old and new media — I have come to the conclusion that if I had the time/money I would take a trip out to the Bundy Ranch and help. Below is some of the news that fortified this previous “on-the-fence” position I had.

(The below video is via GOP Daily Dose.) An earlier video had me hoping this would end well, but alas, it turns out Harry Reid was right for once when he said, “Well, it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over” (Breitbart).

Firstly, I wish to thank Powerline for a well written, thought out, presentation that has cleared up some more issues for me. I suggest reading their entire article entitled: “Why You Should Be Sympathetic Toward Cliven Bundy,” it is worth the time.

On Saturday, I wrote about the standoff at Bundy Ranch. That post drew a remarkable amount of traffic, even though, as I wrote then, I had not quite decided what to make of the story. Since then, I have continued to study the facts and have drawn some conclusions. Here they are.

First, it must be admitted that legally, Bundy doesn’t have a leg to stand on. The Bureau of Land Management has been charging him grazing fees since the early 1990s, which he has refused to pay. Further, BLM has issued orders limiting the area on which Bundy’s cows can graze and the number that can graze, and Bundy has ignored those directives. As a result, BLM has sued Bundy twice in federal court, and won both cases. In the second, more recent action, Bundy’s defense is that the federal government doesn’t own the land in question and therefore has no authority to regulate grazing. That simply isn’t right; the land, like most of Nevada, is federally owned. Bundy is representing himself, of necessity: no lawyer could make that argument.

That being the case, why does Bundy deserve our sympathy? To begin with, his family has been ranching on the acres at issue since the late 19th century. They and other settlers were induced to come to Nevada in part by the federal government’s promise that they would be able to graze their cattle on adjacent government-owned land. For many years they did so, with no limitations or fees. The Bundy family was ranching in southern Nevada long before the BLM came into existence.

Over the last two or three decades, the Bureau has squeezed the ranchers in southern Nevada by limiting the acres on which their cattle can graze, reducing the number of cattle that can be on federal land, and charging grazing fees for the ever-diminishing privilege. The effect of these restrictions has been to drive the ranchers out of business. Formerly, there were dozens of ranches in the area where Bundy operates. Now, his ranch is the only one. When Bundy refused to pay grazing fees beginning in around 1993, he said something to the effect of, they are supposed to be charging me a fee for managing the land and all they are doing is trying to manage me out of business. Why should I pay them for that?…. (continued after break)…

LOL! Government Thinks the 1st Amendment Is an Area (Scary)

“Let’s be clear: the BLM is its own worst enemy on this issue, and many others. The agency’s ludicrous mishandling of this week’s protests with “First Amendment Zones” and the like is part and parcel of a years-long and mounting disrespect for public involvement in the management of its own lands. The probably illegal denial of public comment at solar project hearings we reported on in 2011 remains BLM Desert District policy, an issue we’re continuing to track.” (KCET)

The Washington Times gets to the core of the issue and why a militarized force (many government agencies, even the Post Office, that have no law enforcement needs have such units now) may be being used. And it is where an administration places it’s eggs:

Mr. Reid’s son Rory Reid, a former Clark County commissioner, represented ENN Mojave Energy, a Chinese-backed company seeking to build a $5 billion solar plant near Laughlin, Nev. The company ultimately dropped those plans after failing to secure sufficient financial backing, according to reports.

That project was more than 100 miles from the Bundy Ranch, Ms. Orthman said.

A separate solar project, involving a local Indian tribe, that Mr. Reid has pushed also does not overlap with the Bundy ranch.

“[Harry] Reid’s push for solar energy development in southern Nevada included attendance last month at a groundbreaking ceremony for a solar power facility that involves the Moapa Band of Pauites and First Solar Inc.,” said the KLAS-TV report. “But that 250-megawatt power plant will be roughly 35 miles southwest of the Bundy ranch.”

…read more…

Powerline continues to explain there may be some alternative energy interests (the Washington Times article directly above) involved in why the BLM is enforcing the issue right now, and then PL goes on to explain:

…So it is possible that the federal government is driving Bundy off federal lands to make way for mitigation activities that enable the solar energy development to the north. But I don’t think it is necessary to go there. Rather–this is the second and more important point–it is obvious that some activities are favored by the Obama administration’s BLM, and others are disfavored. The favored developments include solar and wind projects. No surprise there: the developers of such projects are invariably major Democratic Party donors. Wind and solar energy survive only by virtue of federal subsidies, so influencing people like Barack Obama and Harry Reid is fundamental to the developers’ business plans. Ranchers, on the other hand, ask nothing from the federal government other than the continuation of their historic rights. It is a safe bet that Cliven Bundy is not an Obama or Reid contributor.

The new head of the BLM is a former Reid staffer. Presumably he was placed in his current position on Reid’s recommendation. Harry Reid is known to be a corrupt politician, one who has gotten wealthy on a public employee’s salary, in part, at least, by benefiting from sweetheart real estate deals. Does Harry Reid now control more than 80% of the territory of Nevada? If you need federal authority to conduct business in Nevada–which is overwhelmingly probable–do you need to pay a bribe to Harry Reid or a member of his family to get that permission? Why is it that the BLM is deeply concerned about desert tortoises when it comes to ranchers, but couldn’t care less when the solar power developers from China come calling? Environmentalists have asked this question. Does the difference lie in the fact that Cliven Bundy has never contributed to an Obama or Reid campaign, or paid a bribe to Reid or a member of his family?

Based on the evidence, I would say: yes, that is probably the difference. When the desert tortoises balance out, Occam’s razor tells us that the distinction is political.

So let’s have some sympathy for Cliven Bundy and his family. They don’t have a chance on the law, because under the Endangered Species Act and many other federal statutes, the agencies are always in the right. And their way of life is one that, frankly, is on the outs. They don’t develop apps. They don’t ask for food stamps. It probably has never occurred to them to bribe a politician. They don’t subsist by virtue of government subsidies or regulations that hamstring competitors. They aren’t illegal immigrants. They have never even gone to law school. So what possible place is there for the Bundys in the Age of Obama?

Read it all!

Here is a good explanation in media form via FreeDomain Radio that clearly goes through the many aspects of this confrontation.. well:

(From the above videos description) Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy – of Bundy Ranch – is locked in a standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over illegal cattle grazing, endangered tortoises and property rights. It gets even better…

The fight involves a 600,000-acre area under BLM control called Gold Butte, near the Utah border. The is the habitat of the protected desert tortoise, and the land has been off-limits for cattle since 1998.

Five years before that, when grazing was legal, Bundy stopped paying federal fees for the right. Bundy stopped paying grazing fees in 1993. He said he didn’t have to because his Mormon ancestors worked the land since the 1880s, giving him rights to the land.

“We own this land,” he said, not the feds. He said he is willing to pay grazing fees but only to Clark County, not BLM.

“Years ago, I used to have 52 neighboring ranchers,” he said. “I’m the last man standing. How come? Because BLM regulated these people off the land and out of business.”

Nevada, where various federal agencies manage or control more than 80 percent of the land, is among several Western states where ranchers have challenged federal land ownership.

Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donate

Another good “new media” presentation filters out the junk and provides the below cache of the original issue and drive behind the Bundy Ranch “round-up” ~ pun intended. This comes via SCG News:

Cached Forensic Evidence

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Grocery Store Right Near The Belly Of The Beast Cutting Hours

Published by Papa Giorgio

Maryland Grocery Store Limiting Full-Time Workers Due To ObamaCare, here is the Libertarian Republican commentary:

Racist ACA? Suburban Maryland grocery store chain that employs many minorities now forced to cut back employee hours

Boom! Right near the belly of the beast, Washington, D.C. A local news report, obviously too hot to handle for national liberal-biased media.

Exit question – Wonder how many Capitol Hill staffers, Fed bureaucrats at HHS and even some WH administration staffers shop at Snider’s?

Awesome! Ranchers & Cowboys Stood Off Federal Agents

Published by Papa Giorgio

“Power kills; absolute power kills absolutely…. The more power a government has, the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite…”

~ R.J. Rummel — from the classic book, Death by Government

Right or wrong, this militarized action is getting worrisome. Even how the Bureau of Land and Management (BLM) retreated, as if this group of citizens were a military force poised to attack. All they wanted was to retrieve Cliven Bundy’s cattle. The government is making wise choices here… to back off. But this is better handled in court. Remember, Ruby Ridge led to (in part) the Oklahoma City Bombing:

Unfortunately, when the Attorney General, as the highest law enforcement official in the country, does not vigorously pursue justice in cases where government clearly employed improper force, a cancerous suspicion metastasizes in the body of society with potentially devastating effects. Not least of all, it encourages dangerous extremists like those in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Dean Koontz ~ horror/fiction author ~ in the foreword of Ambush at Ruby Ridge, by Alan Bock.

In an epic standoff that, supporters of Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy advanced on a position held by BLM agents despite threats that they would be shot at, eventually forcing BLM feds to release 100 cattle that had been stolen from Bundy as part of a land grab dispute that threatened to escalate into a Waco-style confrontation.

When Losing a Debate, Call Your Opponent Racist

Published by Papa Giorgio

  • Candy Crowley: Do you think your Republican colleagues are racist?
  • DCCC Chairl Steve Israel: Not all of them, no. Of course not. But to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by racism.

(Gateway Pundit) Disgraceful. It is this type of sloppy thinking that may be fueling the ethos in the young black community to knock out white people,

(Daily Caller) The “game” involves young teens attacking a victim, without provocation, and seeking to knock them out with one punch. If one punch doesn’t knock the victim out, more beatings sometimes follow. Nearly all of the attackers are black, while almost all of the victims are all non-black. In the Huffington Post, Al Sharpton wrote that the attacks are “racist, period.”

Through educators, the “zeitgeist” in the liberal Democratic circles, and leading Democrats — like above… you get action on such expressions. And it will only get more dangerous for conservatives. I fear it is not as much as a joke as George Will likes to think it is (Gateway Pundit):

George Will commented on the Eric Holder’s latest suggestion that the criticism against the Obama administration was racist in nature.

“Liberalism has a kind of Tourette Syndrome these days. It’s constantly saying the words racism and racist. There’s an old saying , if you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. If you have neither, pound the table. This is pounding the table. There’s a kind of intellectual poverty now. Liberalism hasn’t had a new idea since the 1960s, except Obamacare, and the country doesn’t like it.

“Foreign policy is a shambles from Russia to Iran to Syria to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And, the recovery is unprecedentedly bad. So, what do you do? You say anyone who criticizes us is a racist. It’s become a joke among young people. You go to a campus where this kind of political correctness reigns and some young person says, ‘It looks like it’s going to rain.’ And, the person next to him looks and says, ‘You’re a racist.’ It’s so inappropriate. The constant invocation of this that it is becoming a national mirth.

When Preachers Wade Into Constitutional Matters (Franklin Graham)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This comes via Shall Not Be Questioned… unless your a preacher?

I’ve noticed anti-gun folks jumping on the fact that Franklin Graham is leading the NRA Annual Meeting Prayer Breakfast, and they hope that he’ll publicly challenge NRA at their own event to accept the President’s background check agenda since Graham endorsed the White House’s private transfer ban proposals last year.

Nightmare

“As ministers, we agreed together that we could stand on a united front for universal background checks…”

(Guns.com)

First, as much experience as I have with NRA Annual Meetings, I couldn’t tell you which office puts on the prayer breakfast because I have no idea which office is responsible for booking those speakers. I’m 99.99999% sure it’s not ILA, the office that actually keeps up with politics and pays attentions to such important policy details. This is an event that has never been a big deal before, really just an opportunity for people who don’t want to miss church or miss out on the giant three day gun show.

The anti-gunners highlight this interview with Time that Franklin Graham did in early March of last year. The key section:

Graham…told TIME [he and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention] have agreed to back universal background check legislation put forward by the administration in the wake of last year’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

By specifically citing the administration-backed proposal at the time of the interview, it’s kind of important to look at the details of the legislation anti-gunners want Graham to bring up at the Prayer Breakfast. The language in the Senate that the White House was backing at the time of Graham’s interview came from Chuck Schumer. That language would have made teaching someone to shoot on your own land a felony, as well as loaning your hunting rifle to a friend for a hunting trip. The record keeping requirements would have created a registration system, and spouses would have faced possible felony prosecution if their spouse who bought the gun left home for more than 7 days without officially designating the “transfer” of said firearms as a gift. As Sebastian said in his summary after reading the language:

This bill has nothing to do with ensuring people who are getting guns are law-abiding, and everything to do with getting backdoor registration, and creating a patchwork of rules and laws that will land anyone who uses guns, and isn’t a lawyer, in federal prison for a long time.

The bill that Graham was backing at the time he talked to Time was not Toomey-Manchin, the somewhat less extreme bill that was later voted down in the Senate.

Now, his views on that terrible bill from Schumer aren’t directly related to his ability to preach a sermon. But, given the venue and host group, I don’t think most attendees who paid for tickets really expect a preacher who publicly backed the White House’s bill that would leave many of them open to felony prosecutions for simply passing on their traditions or going on a long business trip.

At this late date, I wouldn’t really put money on a bet that we’ll see any changes to the speakers, but it will be interesting to see if Graham decides to act on the encouragement of the gun control groups. He certainly didn’t come out and condemn the White House-backed Senate bill once the language and summaries became widely available, so presumably he maintains his support of the policies. That certainly could be a very big problem if he does decide to go along with the gun control groups and use NRA’s event as a venue to promote the bill again.

…read more…

If anything, Graham should be preaching to arm our soldiers:

On April 6th, Lynda Voyles-Konecny said concealed carry allows her to be better armed than her son who was 100 feet from the Fort Hood shooter on April 2nd. She is asking Congress to change this.

According to Huntsville, Alabama’s WHNT 19, Voyles-Konecny said military personnel “defend us overseas, but they’re defenseless at bases.”

She continued, “They’re trained. They know the rules of engagement, we send them off to war, they have their guns, they come home, and then [their guns are] taken away from them on their home bases.”

“Building the Machine” ~ A Common Core Serious Saturday

Published by Papa Giorgio

Video Description:

“Building the Machine” introduces the public to the Common Core States Standards Initiative (CCSSI) and its effects on our children’s education. The documentary compiles interviews from leading educational experts, including members of the Common Core Validation Committee. Parents, officials, and the American public should be involved in this national decision regardless of their political persuasion.

WHAT IS THE COMMON CORE?

The Common Core is the largest systemic reform of American public education in recent history. What started as a collaboration between the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to reevaluate and nationalize America’s education standards has become one of the most controversial—and yet, unheard of—issues in the American public.

In 2010, 45 states adopted the Common Core, but according to a May 2013 Gallup Poll, 62% of Americans said they had never heard of the Common Core. Prominent groups and public figures have broken traditional party lines over the issue, leaving many wondering where they should stand.

Find out more about the Common Core: http://www.hslda.org/CommonCore