Open thread for Sunday, March 2nd: Life During Wartime
Here is the open thread for Sunday, March 2nd; please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
As usual you can follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. I often post links to articles I probably will not be writing about so it is a great way to keep up with what is going on in the world. You can also subscribe to receive email updates and if you do you will never miss a post again.
In case you have not noticed I have replaced the old Twitter widget with a new, fully interactive Twitter widget. This widget updates my tweets in near real time and allows you to respond to or retweet my tweets right from the blog. Is also allows you to tweet me right from America’s Watchtower. How cool is that! If you do not have a Twitter account what better reason do you need to sign up for one!?
Please check out what the New Federalist Party has been up to by clicking on the link to the right. On the NFP Facebook page you will find a link to the party platform. Check it out and if you like what you see we are currently looking for donations and delegates to the states for the convention.
This week’s musical selection is called ‘Life During Wartime’ by the Talking Heads. Enjoy:
Barack Obama has already delayed the employer mandate in order to give companies more time to adjust to the new law but he has been unwilling to provide ordinary Americans the same luxury for some strange reason even though people have had a hard time signing up for Obamacare.
Next week the House is scheduled to vote on delaying the individual mandate:
In the latest salvo against President Obama’s health care law, the House of Representatives plans next week to vote on a bill to delay the individual mandate for a year.
Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., introduced the bill, the Simple Fairness Act, on Friday.
Under the health care law, Americans who don’t purchase government-approved insurance policies face a fine of $95, or 1 percent of taxable income, for 2014. In 2015, the fine is scheduled to increase to $325, or 2 percent of taxable income.
The new bill would effectively push back that implementation timeline for a year, by setting the fine at $0 for 2014 and then reducing the 2015 fine to $95 (the current 2014 level).
“The President recently issued another delay to unilaterally change his own law, a delay that protected businesses from the employer mandate tax,” Jenkins, who serves as vice chair of the House Republican Conference, said in an emailed statement. “It is not fair to give relief to businesses with big checkbooks, yet not help hard working families with relief from these unaffordable mandates.”
Barack Obama skips national security meeting on Ukraine
Barack Obama’s national security team met this morning to discuss Russia and the crisis in Ukraine but apparently the president had something more important to attend to (perhaps a fundraiser?) for it is being reported that he did not attend the meeting.
A White House official emailed some reporters to say that President Obama’s team met today to discuss the ongoing situation on Ukraine. It appears President Obama did not attend.
“The President’s national security team met today to receive an update on the situation in Ukraine and discuss potential policy options. We will provide further updates later this afternoon,” reads the full statement.
But do not worry, he was briefed by the ever-reliable Susan–the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was the result of a video–Rice.
Greenpeace co-founder says there is no proof climate change is man-made, compares the movement to a “religious cult”
One of the co-founders of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore (who has since left the group), had some interesting things to say last week, including the claim that there is no proof that climate change is man-made:
A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment.
Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet.
“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” he said.
Even if the planet is warming up, Moore claimed it would not be calamitous for men, which he described as a “subtropical species.”
Of course we have known for quite some time the computer models were faulty, Climategate proved the corruption within the environmental movement, and the movement’s use of scare tactics cannot be denied, but it is refreshing to see someone as high profile as this actually confirm what we already knew to be the truth.
Liberal groups are upset at some of Barack Obama’s judicial nominees since the filibuster was scaled back
We all remember when Harry Reid changed the filibuster rules in order to make it easier for the Democrats to pass Barack Obama’s nominees. Now, with the new rules in place some liberal groups, more than two dozen actually, are upset that not all of his choices have been liberal enough for their liking.
When Democrats changed Senate rules last year to limit the filibuster against White House nominees, it raised hopes among some liberals that President Obama would use his new power to reshape the federal judiciary. Now, just over three months later, some Democrats and progressive groups are instead trying to stop two of the president’s latest nominees to the federal bench on the grounds that they are too conservative.
According to the story linked above the Republicans still do have some power to limit nominees because “blue slips” must still be presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee before a nominee can move forward:
Senators still hold virtual veto power over judicial nominations associated with their states under a custom of the Senate Judiciary Committee that requires senators to return a “blue slip” acquiescing in a nomination before it can move forward.
Blue slips have been difficult to get in the case of nominations from states where one or both senators are Republicans. Of 18 pending nominations from those states, according to the committee, no Republican blue slips have been submitted, and Democrats have submitted only a few.
Senators in Georgia and the White House reached a deal in order to move six nominees forward:
Barack Obama eases fines on companies hiring illegal aliens
One of the positions many liberals take in the battle over illegal immigration is this: we should not punish those who come to America to seek a better life by obtaining work in the United States for they are simply doing the jobs that Americans will not do and somebody has to do these jobs. To be fair it is not only liberals who take this position, we have seen a growing number of establishment Republicans, including George Bush, take this position.
But there is a distinction between many of the Republicans and the liberals when it comes to this and that is that many liberals claim we should be going after the greedy corporations which seek to hire low wage earners instead of higher priced American workers whereas the Republicans seem to want to protect these corporations from penalty by simply focusing on the immigration aspect. This is why, in my opinion, many of the Republicans support amnesty for illegal aliens–they are in bed with their corporate masters.
I happen to believe that any immigration reform should crack down on people who enter this country illegally, regardless of how pure some of their motives might be, AND the corporations which hire them, but apparently the president does not feel the same way, even though he promised to crack down on corporations that hire illegals.
Battleground Texas ceases its questionable tactics used in an attempt to turn Texas into a blue state
Last week America’s Watchtower covered the story of Battleground Texas and the possibility that the group was violating Texas law by sharing voters personal information. You can read that story here if you are not familiar with it.
Today we are learning that Battleground Texas has stopped using this tactic in their support of Wendy Davis and their attempt to turn Texas into a blue state:
Obamacare: Substitute teachers hours are being cut
The Obamacare hits just keep on coming. We have already seen businesses, most notably in the restaurant industry, cut part time employee hours in order to avoid Obamacare penalties and now it is beginning to affect substitute teachers as well. This is happening because in their infinite wisdom the Democrats redefined the definition of a full time employee to any employee working 30 or more hours for the purposes of Obamacare.
Another EPA official caught using a personal email account to push the global warming agenda
Way back on November 17th of 2012 America’s Watchtower wrote about EPA official Lisa Jackson and the possibility that she set up a secret personal email account in order to illegally promote the global warming agenda. Here is part of what I wrote back then:
It is now being reported that an administrator with the EPA, Lisa Jackson, might have set up a secret personal account–complete with the alias “Richard Windsor” and used that account to conduct official EPA business. And according to sources this was done at the request of the White House:
They’ve been moving government over to private email,” said Mr. Horner in an interview with the Washington Times. “In the book, I reveal private servers the White House had universities and pressure groups set up so they can conduct discussions
Needless to say, if this is true it is a violation of federal law and is also the antithesis of Barack Obama’s promise to run the most open, honest, and transparent administration in the history of the United States.
America's Watchtower 