Obama Gives up on his Vow to End Special Interest Groups in Politics
One of president-elect Obama’s promises during the campaign was to end the influence of special interests in politics. I understand that that is just what it was, a promise and nothing more. Special interests and lobbyists are in politics for good, we will never rid the system of them. I understand that and you understand that but how many people who voted for Obama really believed that he was going to end the lobbyists being involved in politics? They are in for a rude awakening.
It comes as no surprise to me, and probably most of you out there, that Barack Obama has picked as secretary of health and human services a man who has ties to special interest groups in the health field. Tom Dashle has earned more than $16 million as a special policy adviser for Alston & Bird. A lobbying firm.
His work as a paid adviser appears to run counter to Obama’s pledge to “free the executive branch from special interest influence.” No political appointee, Obama’s transition team has declared, “will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years.”
I guess there is an exception to every rule, and Tom Dashle appears to be that exception.
Barack Obama promised to change the culture in Washington, but now that he is in Washington he is just following along the good old boy network. I guess the “change” that Obama was talking about was a “change” in which special interest groups would have the most influence in Washington, not to actually “change” Washington.
It is Time for a Tax Revolt in New Hampshire
Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell
With this news about all of the new taxes that are being proposed in New Hampshire is it any wonder that the residents of the state are beginning to get angry? It shouldn’t be news to anyone that Governor John Lynch and his cronies are spendaholics, yet he was voted in again partly do to inadequate leadership in the New Hampshire GOP which failed to properly promote the fiscally responsible Joe Kenney. There was however some gains made in the state house where Republicans won back 17 seats although they are still in the minority.
Perhaps the seeds of a tax revolt in the state of New Hampshire have been sown. Maybe the residents of New Hampshire have finally had enough. As New Hampshire families tighten their belts due to the slowing economy they feel that it is time for the New Hampshire government to do the same. Sure. to give Governor Lynch a little credit, he has decided to cut down on some of his outrageous spending increases, but just like any other -holic he just can’t quite bring himself to quit. In his case he is a spendaholic. So the state will still be forced to raise more taxes and fees, a move that will ultimately slow the economy more and hurt New Hampshire residents during a time when they are already pinching pennies.
Residents are becoming fed up with a state government that can’t control itself and a tax revolution 
may be in it’s infancy. It will start small but it has already started and it began before the last election. However there wasn’t enough momentum then but is grows and grows. Maybe it will reach maturity by the next election. But this revolution won’t just happen from without, this revolution is looking to happen from the inside out. New Hampshire residents will start to look to take their government back and reinstall the New Hampshire advantage that Governor Lynch has hijacked.
Ed Naile of Deering chairs the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers, advising local groups hoping to institute first-ever budget committees, kill construction bonds or run slates of candidates for selectmen or school board.
“We’re not a political party, but I can tell you a lot of people are asking us about running for office,” Naile said. “I think you’re going to see all but the best of the major spending proposals get shot down at March meetings.”
Tax cap petitions are circulating in many communities and they are gaining support. In Manchester a petition was received that should have had a tax cap question put on the ballot last election, but the city said fuck you to the will of the people and refused to let the issue be voted on.
Republican Mayor Frank Guinta of Manchester tried and failed to get the Democrat-controlled board of aldermen to put a cap before voters this fall.
“There were enough petition signatures, but they voted to do it next November,” Guinta said. “A cap would force the city to choose priorities and find cost efficiencies. In a recession, you can’t spend what you don’t have. A vote of 10 out of the 14 aldermen could still override the cap in case of emergencies.”
But we are growing louder, we must make our voices heard. We must rise above the clamor of these tax infidels for they are not done. The voters in Concord are about to get a big fuck you from their officials.
Concord officials filed suit recently to keep the matter from ever coming to a vote. He thinks they will lose.
“They’re rightly scared of this,” Naile said. “They made a mistake. When it finally goes to vote next November, the economy will be even worse. We’ll be whipping up our troops over it.”
We can’t stand for this type of insolence to our wishes. It is time for us to be heard, we will not be stopped. We can take back our state. I am not alone, the movement is growing and we will be heard one way or the other.
Mike Biundo chairs the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition and said the taxpayer rights movement is huge and growing.
“In addition to Concord and Manchester, we’ve been in touch with folks in Londonderry and Merrimack about caps,” he said. “Some folks in Andover are interested. The one in Somersworth (this month) only failed by 8 percent. The recession is fueling it. People are looking for tax relief.”
We are told that if we want to cut spending we are irresponsible but it is not you and I who are irresponsible. When I look at the state government that is where I see the irresponsible behavior, that is where I see waste, that is where I see a big bloated government bureaucracy so engorged that is can’t ween itself properly from it’s addiction. It is time for us to hold an intervention and make the state government understand that it has a problem. It will be for the government’s own good, as well as ours.
Some see the tax revolt as inevitable.
“There is a perfect storm brewing at school meetings next March,” warns Ted Comstock, director of the School Boards Association. “Voters have an expectation services will be maintained and expanded. They are going to want more out of fewer resources. The only branch they can get back at is local government.”
I smell revolution in the air.
Obama Flip-Flops on Farm Aid
You know the old saying, actions speak louder than words? Well here is a case of Obama’s words vs. Obama’s actions. While introducing his new budget director he singled out farm subsidies for the rich as a program that he would cut out in order to trim the budget.
This is an idea that I approve of, and I hope that the president-elect keeps his word about this. However this is also an idea that I approved of when the Farm Bill came up for a vote earlier this year. You know, back when Barack Obama berated the president for vetoing the bill for holding the same position that Obama now claims to hold.
President Bush actually sought a $200,000 annual income cap on subsidy payments, but Congress couldn’t bring itself to vote on anything below $750,000. And even that got killed by the likes of Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, who as it happens helped Mr. Orszag get his current job running the Congressional Budget Office. The Members ended up passing a $300 billion bill in which nearly every crop, from corn to sugar, won subsidy increases. Mr. Bush vetoed it in May but was overridden.
President Bush actually vetoed the Farm Aid bill because the cap on subsidies was too high, a position that Barack Obama now claims to hold. The veto was over-ridden by Democrats in congress. If Barack Obama had bothered to vote on this bill, which he didn’t, I am sure based on his recent comments that he would have voted against it also, right?
And he then went on to rake Mr. Bush and John McCain (who opposed the bill) for “saying no to America’s farmers and ranchers, no to energy independence, no to the environment, and no to millions of hungry people.”
He blasted President Bush for “saying no to hungry people” by not signing the bill that gave farm subsidies to the rich and now, after he failed to vote on the issue, he wants to revoke the subsidies he berated the president for vetoing. The same subsidies that his party voted into policy for the next five years.
Barack Obama holds the same position as President Bush on this issue but while he was running for president he didn’t want anyone to know. Now that he will soon be president he is either more comfortable letting people know where he stands on issues like this or he is too stupid to realize that he has contradicted himself.
I don’t think that he is stupid so it must mean that he is beginning to become more comfortable in letting the American people know where he stands on the issues that he was so vague on as a candidate.
Bill Clinton to Replace Hillary as New York Senator?
According to this article there is a possible fire storm brewing that can only be doused by New York Governor David Paterson naming BIll Clinton as Hillary’s replacement if Mrs. Bill Clinton indeed becomes Secretary of State.
But what I find most interesting about this article is not whether this is an option or whether Bill Clinton would be interested, but rather the reason why the authors of this piece think that Bill Clinton is the only possible successor to Hillary.
Those mentioned include six sitting members of the House of Representatives (three of each sex), Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Caroline Kennedy and her cousin Robert Kennedy Jr., Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown (an African American), and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr. (who is Hispanic). In this no-win competition, Paterson has to balance claims of gender, race, ethnicity and geography. He could wind up gaining one grateful ally while alienating not only all the losers but also millions of members of the disparate constituencies that each represents.
The authors are splitting Americans up into different groups based on race and sex, they are more worried about how the pick will look from a politically correct standpoint rather than choosing the most qualified candidate. So what is the author’s answer? Bring in the white guy.
But seriously, this is what bothers me the most. (Aside from having to listen to both of the Clintons for the foreseeable future.) Here we have the perfect example of political correctness run amuck. There are 20 or so qualified people in office who are legitimate contenders to take over Hillary’s seat if she becomes Secretary of State, but instead of looking at who is the most qualified regardless of race or sex Democrats need to look at race and sex first. It is more important to them to make the politically correct choice than the correct choice. Maybe the correct choice would be a woman. Maybe the correct choice would be African American, or maybe the correct choice would be Hispanic. Or maybe the correct choice would be a white guy. But the reason that any of these people would be the correct choice would not be because of what they look like but because of what they believe.
If we can assume that all of these candidates have basically the same ideology than it makes sense to give the senate seat to the person with the most experience, regardless of sex or race. Why is it that Democrats look at people and immediately put them into categories? This is the party that is supposed to be color blind yet every decision they make seems to have some basis in race.
America will never totally get past race until we stop seeing African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and whatever other hyphenated-Americans you can think of and just see Americans.
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there. I hope everyone has a great day filled with friends, family and laughter.
As we sit around the table today and enjoy our holiday and remember all that we are thankful for let us not forget the brave men and women who are not able to sit down with their families today because they are fighting for our protection so that we may enjoy Thanksgiving.
They may be far away in body, but in the minds of their families I am sure they are sitting right there next to them.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Obama Denies Abandoning his Promise of “Change”
As I wrote about here, president-elect Barack Obama has drawn some criticism from the left while getting some praise from the right for some of his cabinet picks. His choices of several political insiders for his cabinet have drawn the ire of some of those on the left who believe that he is breaking his promise of “change.”
The voices must be getting loud enough because president-elect Obama has had to publicly deny that he has abandoned his “change” promise.
Barack Obama defended his decision to pack his new Cabinet with veteran Washington insiders and former Clinton officials yesterday after a campaign in which he promised change.
His biggest critics so far seem to be coming from the left who feel that by choosing Washington insiders Barack Obama has deserted the message that he sent to them.
There have been mounting concerns, particularly from the liberal wing of his Democratic Party, that Mr Obama has pivoted sharply to the centre-right with his choice of top Cabinet posts.
The ironic part about this is the fact that all of the insiders that Obama has chosen are from the Clinton administration. The left has for years told us how much better the country was when Bill Clinton was president so why would they be opposed to bringing back most of the team that Bill Clinton had? The truth is that Barack Obama needs to surround himself with people who have experience to make up for his lack of experience and that is what he is doing.
“What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking,” Mr Obama said at his third press conference in as many days. He said he would be foolish, at such a “critical time in our history”, to pick people who “had no experience in Washington whatsoever”.
When the people elect a man with no experience we better damn sure hope that he aligns himself with people who have some experience, even if we feel their policies are wrong. Somebody in the administration needs to have experience to draw from and it isn’t Obama.
But there is one more interesting aspect to this whole issue and that is how the right suddenly seems okay with Obama’s choices of Clinton insiders. Barack Obama is drawing most of his criticism from his base but the right seems more content with his choices so far. Did Barack Obama set the bar so far to the left that Clinton administration appointees seem middle of the road enough to please the right? Did they think that his cabinet picks would be so far to the left that they actually can get on board with his more moderate choices so far?
I think that that has allot to do with both the criticism from the left and the acceptance from the right. Barack Obama promised change, but he also promised to bring the country together. He promised to unite us. The far lefts idea of unity is to drag conservatives kicking and screaming over to their side. They are not willing to make concessions and when Barack Obama won the presidency they felt as though the whole country had to bow down to them and agree with them in the name of country unity. There is no give and take. So now that president-elect Obama has chosen Washington insiders for his cabinet they feel betrayed.
Did they really think that he was going to fill his whole cabinet with Washington outsiders, if so they are just naive. Or did they just want him to fill his cabinet with far leftists? That might be a popular decision with the far left but if Obama did that he would stand no chance at uniting the country.
Barack Obama promised change but he also promised unity. He is walking a tight-rope between holding on to his far left base while also trying to gain the confidence of the moderate to right leaning Americans. He is trying to strike a balance and for that the far left is getting anxious.
Obama Adviser Was Payed Millions by Citigroup
President-elect Obama likes to talk about eliminating “golden parachutes” for executives and he also advocates regulating how much an executive can be payed. During the election he said that he was in favor of capping a private employees salary but when you look deeper into his campaign staff you will find an adviser named Robert Rubin.
Who is Robert Rubin? Just a man who served on the board of directors for Citigroup. He was one of the highest payed executives on the group that just got bailed out by the United States government.
Robert Rubin, a key economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama who served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton Administration, has been one of the highest paid executives at the now twice bailed-out financial giant Citigroup.
Rubin, who has been associated with the bank since 1999, served as its interim chairman from November to December 2007.
And for as much as Obama likes to claim that executives need to have their potential salaries capped he didn’t have a problem with Rubin making millions working for a company that has now been bailed out by the feds.
Rubin has been well compensated for his advice, earning $17.3 million in 2006, according to Citigroup’s SEC filings. Rubin earned $16.4 million in 2005, $16.5 million in 2004, and $16.6 million in 2003.
Apparently Obama doesn’t find anything wrong with this man making millions upon millions of dollars. But it gets better, Ruben also worked for Ford and Goldman Sachs. This man has hit the trifecta and here he is sitting on Obama’s economic team. Doesn’t that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling?
Obama’s hypocrisy is on full display here.
GOP Senator Says Republicans Haven’t Learned Their Lesson
An anonymous Republican United States senator has said that Republicans haven’t learned their lesson and that if they don’t do so soon than they will lose more elections. I agree with him that Republicans haven’t learned their lessons, but I disagree with the lessons that this man thinks that we need to learn.
This GOP senator claims that Republicans need to become more like Democrats if they want to win.
He talks a little about immigration. He is a moderate on immigration, which is to say he is out of step with most of his party. He says the Republican hard line on immigration hurt the party with Hispanics.
Excuse me senator but wasn’t John McCain the author of the amnesty bill that President Bush was in favor of passing? The man who won the nomination of the Republican party was willing to sell out our country, the country that he once defended, to illegal immigrants that DO NOT BELONG HERE!
This senator also embraces big government.
Small government — the mantra of the Republican Party ever since Ronald Reagan — will not work anymore, the senator says.
“We can’t revive the ghost of Ronald Reagan,” he says. “People want government in times of need.”
According to this senator Republicans need to embrace big government, he claims that people want bigger government. This senator does not sound like a Republican to me.
What does this Republican think about people owning their own houses?
“Homeownership?” the senator says eventually. “That’s not so good, is it?”
Is this where our party is headed? Are we to become the illegal alien amnesty granting, big government, no private property party? How is it possible for the Republicans to regain their base, the base that abandoned them in the last two elections for forgetting who they were if they continue to blur the line between Republican and Democrat? The answer to the Republican party’s problems is not to become more like Democrats it is to distinguish differences between the parties and let the people decide.
John McCain tried the philosophy that this senator employs, he ran as a Democrat lite, he courted moderates and Democrats and abandoned his base and we saw what the result was. And now this senator wants to continue this lunacy? This is a recipe for disaster.
I have to say that I couldn’t disagree with this senator any more than I do. He speaks about winning votes by listening to, and one can presume, using campaign rhetoric to tell voters what they want to hear instead of sticking to beliefs and winning over votes based on ideals. What good does it do to regain power if the way you regain power is to change who you are and what you believe?
If Republicans believe that the only way to win elections is to become more like Democrats and they do become more like Democrats than what difference does it matter who you vote for? If you are going to vote for either a Democrat or a faux Democrat you might as well vote for the real deal.
It is time for Republicans to get a clear, consise message, it is time to highlight the differences between Republicans and Democrats and let the voters decide. If we continue to run Democrat lite candidates like John McCain for offices we will continue to lose. It is not time to hide in the shadows and hope we are not seen, it is tome to come out fighting for what we believe in and take back the country.
I just hope that there are not too many more Republicans, politicians and voters, who believe what this senator believes. I hope that there are a vast majority of Republicans who believe what I do and that is that we must show the country our policies and not the policies that we think will help us win. It is not time to blur the line between parties, it is time to draw the line between parties. If we don’t do that than this senator is right, we haven’t learned our lesson. However it is the exact opposite lesson than the one he thinks we should have learned.
John McCain is living proof about what happens when you run a faux Democrat against a true Democrat. That should be a lesson to all Republicans.
We must take our party back.
Barack Obama to Delay a Tax Hike on the Rich
President-elect Obama hasn’t said it out loud but his current position on taxes proves to us that John McCain was right about taxes. During the campaign John McCain continually said that raising taxes in an economic slowdown was a recipe for disaster even as president-elect Obama continued to promise to stick it to the rich to appease his far left base using class envy to incite jealousy among the American people.
Now however it seems that president-elect Obama is changing his tune from campaign rhetoric to economic reality and he may be ready to suspend his tax increases on the rich for the very reasons that John McCain said these tax increases wouldn’t work.
Aides later said the plan would not include any of the tax increases Obama, as a candidate, had said he would impose on taxpayers who make more than $250,000.
Obama’s economic advisers say he will not propose any tax increases in the economic plan he unveils in January. It is to be focused entirely on job creation and economic recovery.
This begs the question, if raising taxes in a bad economy isn’t good for the economy how can raising taxes in a good economy be good for the economy? The answer is, it isn’t. Raising taxes is always bad for the economy. That was the point that John McCain feebly tried to make. When people keep more of their own money they spend more of their own money, it really isn’t hard to understand.
So while I am happy that Obama appears as though he will not be raising taxes, at least for now, and I am happy that he has maybe seen the light and realizes that higher taxes are bad, I have to wonder how many of his supporters feel duped when they hear this news.
Barack Obama’s campaign position on the economy was that Bush’s failed economic policies, including tax breaks for the richest Americans, was what was responsible for the economic crisis we now face. He promised to roll back the Bush tax cuts that supposedly put us in this bind. Now as president-elect he is willing to keep in place the same policies that he claimed put us in this mess in the first place? If rolling back the Bush tax cuts is now off the table because of the negative effect a tax increase would have on the economy than how can the Bush tax policy of lower taxes be responsible for the economic downturn? How stupid does he think that we are?
So now while Barack Obama adopts the Republican philosophy of lower taxes for all one has to wonder if his supporters are happy about this. I know that I am, but I don’t begrudge anybody from making as much money as they can. But the far left does, and that is Obama’s base. He played the class envy card perfectly and was able to win the presidency doing it. Now that rhetoric meets reality it is a different story and Obama admits that he needs to stall his idea of sticking it to the rich for the good of the overall economy.
All of the issues that I wrote about endlessly with Barack Obama’s past, his associations, his anti-second amendment stance and his pro-infanticide positions didn’t matter to the far left. None of it mattered. But this? His failure to stick it to the rich, that could be unforgivable to the left.
Barack Obama’s shift to the center continues, the left can’t be happy.
New York City Orders Churches to Stop Sheltering Homeless People
This is just unbelievable. New York City has told twenty two churches that they may no longer shelter homeless people.
Let me write that again in case you thought that you misread it.
New York City has told twenty two churches that they may no longer shelter homeless people.
City officials have ordered 22 New York churches to stop providing beds to homeless people.
With temperatures well below freezing early Saturday, the churches must obey a city rule requiring faith-based shelters to be open at least five days a week — or not at all.
Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, a nonprofit that serves as a link with the city, said he had to tell the churches they no longer qualify.
He said hundreds of people now won’t have a place to sleep.
I am not sure how the separation of church and state, that Thomas Jefferson wrote about to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 which was somehow subsequently interpreted into the constitution, would allow the state to tell a church that they can no longer help the homeless. But that is what they have done.
Perhaps the government is jealous because somebody else is able to help those that can’t help themselves. The government wants to be the sole provider of those who are less fortunate. That is what the big government nanny state is all about, government control through government dependency. They view the church as providing something that the government wants the people to rely on them for and they feel threatened. So they must stop the church from providing shelter to the homeless so that these people will have to look toward Big Brother for help.
Where these people go for help really should be of no concern to the government if they truly believed in helping them but they don’t. They only want them dependent on the government to insure building a voter base. I find this disgusting.
They care more about potential votes than the actual welfare of the people.
