Obamacare: Liberal lies and why Americans oppose Obama style health care reform

by politicalcrunch on July 24, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Government, News, Politics

Health care reform is the subject that is on everyone’s minds nowadays and for good reason, as President Obama and the Democrats are intent on passing a Government takeover of the US health care system and they want it passed now, even before the legislation is completed.

It turns out that this might be the only way that they will get it passed as recent polling has shown that 52% of Americans oppose Obamacare while only 42% expressed support for it. 

The reality is setting in and people have had a chance to look at the provisions (that have actually been written) to get a glimpse of just what President Obama and the Democrats have in store for the US health care system.  What they are finding out is very concerning to most and seem to be putting the brakes on the efforts to pass it in the next 2 weeks.

In light of the recent turn in Americans support for Obamacare the President decided to make another prime time address to make a big push for the reforms and the reasons for doing so.  As is usually the case, the President made numerous false claims and contradictory statements that need to be addressed.

Now, six months ago I took office amid the worst recession in half-a-century. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month, and our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

As a result of the actions we took in those first weeks, we’ve been able to pull our economy back from the brink. We took steps to stabilize our financial institutions and our housing market.

  1. Funny, the new mantra on the left when it comes to recent job losses is that they did not know the economy was this bad due to insufficient 4th QTR 2008 data, yet, in the 2008 elections Obama was running around declaring this the worst economy since the great depression (unemployment in 82 reached 10.5% while it was at 7% when Obama was making those claims), then when pushing for his stimulus bill he continued by saying that if it did not get passed unemployment would reach 9% by 2010 but if it were passed it would only get to 8%, we now know that over 2 million jobs have been lost since it passed and unemployment is now at 9.5%.  Obama and the Democrats shamelessly speak out of both sides of their mouths.
  2. President Obama claims credit for stabilizing the financial institutions while most of the efforts and steps taken to do so were done under Bush (Tarp, Bailouts, forced mergers, etc…), if he were a humble & honest man he would have said that he continued to take steps to stabilize the financial institutions.
  3. He claims to have taken steps to stabilize the housing market indicating success in that area, yet, recent reports show the exact opposite:

One in every 159 U.S. housing units have received a foreclosure notice already this year.  Foreclosure filings during the first quarter of 2009 increased 24 percent over the same quarter in 2008, according to the U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The pace also appears to be increasing with 17 percent more default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions reported in March than in February. March 2009 saw 46 percent more foreclosure filings than March 2008. Both the March and first quarter 2009 totals were the highest on record since the report was first published in January 2005.

“In the month of March we saw a record level of foreclosure activity, the number of households that received a foreclosure filing was more than 12 percent higher than the next highest month on record.

President Obama continues:

And we passed a Recovery Act that has already saved jobs and created new ones, delivered billions in tax relief to families and small businesses, and extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who’ve been laid off.

This has to be one of he most absurd claims that I have ever heard a US President make!  After losing 2.5 million jobs since the passage of the Recovery Act & unemployment 1.5% higher than he claimed it would get with its passage & even .5% higher than his worst case scenario if it did not pass, he has the audacity to claim that he saved and created jobs?

It’s an economy that simply wasn’t ready to compete in the 21st century, one where we’ve been slow to invest in clean-energy technologies that have created new jobs and industries in other countries, where we’ve watched our graduation rates lag behind too much of the world, and where we spend much more on health care than any other nation, but aren’t any healthier for it.

  1. Spain is arguably the country that, more than any other, staked their economic future on investment in clean-energy tech, yet, a recent study, released last month by researchers at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, uses data from the Spanish government and European Union to demonstrate that each job created in Spain’s renewables industry costs as much as 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy.  Their current unemployment stands at 9.6%.
  2. Clean energy Government subsidies under Bush were far greater than they were under the Clinton Admin, especially in Ethanol subsidies which turned out to be a total waist of money and resources and all the while ended up proving to have no positive impact on the environment or maybe even causing more harm.
  3. As for graduation rates, education is more of a serious crises than anything in our health care system, we spend far more per child on education than anyone in the world and we score near dead last in every conceivable measure when compared to other nations.  Now, who is it that has a monopoly on education in the US?  the Government, yet, every solution they come up with involves more money, if we would allow student vouchers and inject competition into the system things would turn around in a hurry.  This is a great example of why letting the Gov run health care is a terrible idea, they say they will make it cheaper?  Annual cost per student for Gov schools Avg = $6,857 & private schools = $3,116, enough said!

Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job or change their job. It’s about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage because it became too expensive. And it’s about the fact that the biggest driving force
behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

I’ve also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it. In the past eight years, we saw the enactment of two tax cuts _ primarily for the wealthiest Americans _ and a Medicare prescription program, none of which were paid for. That’s partly why I inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.

  1. Really, I thought the biggest driving force behind our budget deficit was the Bush tax cuts?   We know that is not true as CBO forcasts 1 Trillion deficits for next 10 years even after they expire in 2010.  Well, given the fact that 2 Gov run health care programs are the biggest cause of the deficits, how is it then that Obama and the Dems conclude that handing the rest over to the Gov will not only make the deficits worse but yet make them better?
  2. This years deficit is going to be more like 2 Trillion & with Obama’s $800 Billion stimulus and $400 Billion omnivus spending bill, that is 1.2 Trillion right there & did President Obama forget that the Dems have been in control of appropriations since 2006?  Their problem with Bush was that he did not spend enough, hence that additional $400 billion added to this years budget as soon as Obama took over.
  3. Medicare ended up costing 7 times more than they projected when the program was passed into law, they say Obamacare will cost more than 1 trillion over 10 years, probably safe to assume it will be more than 2 times that projection.
  4. Obamacare does not make it cheaper for those small business’s that can not afford to provide health care coverage to their employees, in fact, he will charge them a penalty for not doing so increasing their costs at a time when they are struggling just to make payroll.  Can you say, more job losses?

Now, if you don’t have health insurance or you’re a small business looking to cover your employees, you’ll be able to choose a quality, affordable health plan through a health insurance exchange, a marketplace that promotes choice and competition.

The House bill has a provision that says "Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won’t be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

So what is the Republican solution one might ask

 

Since we almost all agree that costs are the problem and that we want to make health care coverage more affordable it might be a good idea to focus on what are some of the causes of high health care coverage costs.

    1. There is no national market/competition between health insurance providers, you cannot purchase a plan from an insurer that operates in Utah if you live in California.  Part of the reasoning for this is that states want to be able to mandate what providers cover which leads to the next problem.
    2. Government mandates requiring insurers to cover everything from doctors visits, to aids treatment, to venereal diseases, etc…..  this prices young people out of the market who are generally healthy but would like to have catastrophic coverage that would cover major injuries and health issues and is primarily responsible for the problem we refer to as pre existing conditions, if we allowed younger people to get cheap  catastrophic coverage they would be able to remain insured throughout their lives and would not have that problem as insurers cannot drop you if you continue your policy, which leads to the next problem.
    3. Employers getting the deduction for providing coverage instead of the employee getting it for purchasing coverage, if we gave the deduction to the employee they would have portability as they do with their auto insurance, they would be able to shop around to find plans that are better suited for them personally.

These are 3 areas that if reformed and resolved would go along way to producing more affordable coverage while at the same time providing quality health care to Americans.

If after making these innovative reforms we find that the problems continue we can then look even more seriously at the Gov option that most feel would be a disaster.

Visit my Conservative Politics Twine for a collection of great articles on health care.

Sphere: Related Content

{ 7 comments }

Sotomayor backers urge reporters to go after New Haven firefighter

by politicalcrunch on July 14, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Government, News, Politics

They are at it again, the supposed party tolerance, Democrat backers of Sotomayor are urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the "troubled and litigious work history" of firefighter Frank Ricci. 

 

McClatchydc reports:

On Friday, citing in an e-mail "Frank Ricci’s troubled and litigious work history," the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way drew reporters’ attention to Ricci’s past. Other advocates for Sotomayor have discreetly urged journalists to pursue similar story lines.

Specifically, the advocates have zeroed in on an earlier 1995 lawsuit Ricci filed claiming the city of New Haven discriminated against him because he’s dyslexic. The advocates cite other Hartford Courant stories from the same era recounting how Ricci was fired by a fire department in Middletown, Conn., allegedly, Ricci said at the time, because of safety concerns he raised.

The Middletown-area fire department was subsequently fined for safety violations, but the Connecticut Department of Labor dismissed Ricci’s retaliation complaint.

Frank Ricci has some 17 years of fire department service and has a history of overcoming dyslexia, including having to hire tutors to study for the test that he would have to pass to get his promotion,  and has been sighted with awards for bravery.

So what is the crime of Frank Ricci that has Democrats on the attack one might ask, he dared to exercise his constitutional rights by taking the city that discriminated against him based on his race by preventing his promotion due to the fact that no black firefighters passed the tests and only one Hispanic passed it.

The article continues:

The 35-year-old Ricci was the lead plaintiff in the case Ricci v. DeStefano, challenging New Haven’s refusal to promote white firefighters after African-American and all but one Hispanic firefighters failed to score high enough on a promotion exam.

Sotomayor and a majority of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the city’s claim that it was justifiably concerned about a potential civil rights suit being filed by the African-American firefighters.

"Sotomayor and her panel colleagues were bound by long-standing precedent and federal law," People for the American Way executive vice president Marge Baker said in a June statement. "They applied the law without regard to their personal views."

Last month, however, the Supreme Court overturned the 2nd Circuit by 5-4.

"Once . . . employers have made clear their selection criteria, they may not then invalidate the test results, thus upsetting an employee’s legitimate expectation not to be judged on the basis of race," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The bottom line, as I mentioned before,  is that to say that it is OK to discriminate against white fire fighters by preventing their promotions until the City can develop a test that black people can pass is totally absurd and flies in the face of the very constitution she was sworn to uphold.

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned her ruling it sheds more light onto Sotomayor views as it relates to race, She has been found to have made the following statements in more than 6 speeches (each vary slightly, but they all make the same point, I’m only providing one for an example):

Here is what she said in her 1994 speech:

“Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that “a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion in dueling cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes the line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, if Prof. Martha Minnow is correct, there can never be a universal definition of ‘wise.’ Second, I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.”

Given these statements that clearly indicate a notion that she views her abilities as superior to  white males because she is a Latina woman and the recent ruling on the Ricci case, it seems obvious now, that the Democrats are getting nervous and have decided that they need a distraction and are going to seek to demonize and discredit Frank Ricci who the Supreme Court ruled was a victim of discrimination, who’s only crime was to seek justice, and for that, the Democrats are going to pay him back dearly.

Going after Frank Ricci is clearly a new low in the politics of personal destruction, but then again, what else would you expect from the left?

Sphere: Related Content

{ 1 comment }

What we can learn from the health care mess in Massachusetts

by politicalcrunch on July 12, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Uncategorized

Over at the Wsj.com website they call attention to the problems and unintended consequences that the Massachusetts health care system produces.

Here’s a quote from the study they quoted:

Well, the returns are rolling in, and a useful case study comes from the community-based health plan Harvard-Pilgrim. CEO Charlie Baker reports that his company has seen an “astonishing” uptick in people buying coverage for a few months at a time, running up high medical bills, and then dumping the policy after treatment is completed and paid for. Harvard-Pilgrim estimates that between April 2008 and March 2009, about 40% of its new enrollees stayed with it for fewer than five months and on average incurred about $2,400 per person in monthly medical expenses. That’s about 600% higher than Harvard-Pilgrim would have otherwise expected.

This results from the fact that insurers have to cover pre-existing conditions while the penalty for not having insurance is only $900 making it cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for continuous coverage.

Imagine the negative impacts of 40% of an insurers pool only purchasing a few months of coverage while running up large medical costs will have on those who purchase continuous coverage.

This is a great example of the benefits of Federalism and states rights, other states can learn from the mistakes and/or failures of others states and make adjustments or avoid them entirely themselves.

All the more reason why we must NOT allow Obama and the Democrats create a centralized health care system.

Sphere: Related Content

{ 1 comment }

Gallup polls finds overwhelming opposition to Obama’s closing Gitmo

by politicalcrunch on June 2, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Foreign Affairs, Politics

USA TODAY just released a stunning USA TODAY/Gallup Poll that shows Americans are overwhelmingly oppose closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and moving some of the detainees to prisons on US soil.

By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn’t be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states.

In the survey, Americans were inclined to accept the argument by Cheney and former president George W. Bush that the detention center had made the United States safer. By 40%-18%, they said the prison had strengthened national security rather than weakened it.

For weeks we heard countless calls for Cheney to shut up and go away from the moderates like Powell and the MSM loves to bring them on to attack their own in hopes of demoralizing the base of the Republican party and to provide fire for the Left to use in their attacks of the Right.

Once again their claims, that our opposition of Obama’s policies will harm the Republican party, have been proven to be overwhelmingly wrong and without merit as is usually the case.

Now is the time for the party to come together and fight for what we believe in with confidence and purpose and for the moderates to stop allowing themselves to serve as the MSM’s useful idiots which does in fact harm the Republican party and our ability to get our message across.

Score another one for the Conservatives and Cheney who’s recent speeches have proven to be effective and should serve as example for us going forward.

Sphere: Related Content

{ 0 comments }

Media Bias: Local media targets GOP Senators as hypocrites on notion of Sotomayor filibuster

by politicalcrunch on May 31, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Government, Politics

The MSM is at it again, towing the left wing line to the tee and focusing their attack on the ranking Republican of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.  This time though it is not only the usual national media networks it is also finding it’s way into the local newspaper editorials.

An op-ed published in The Anniston (Ala.) Star on May 28 by Ari Rabin-Havt, the managing director of the left-wing Media Matters Action Network, attacked the new ranking Republican of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. He alleged that if Sessions and other Senate Republicans didn’t commit to taking a filibuster off the table for Sotomayor’s confirmation, they would be guilty of hypocrisy.

The following are quotes from the article:

“However, many conservatives, in a desperate attempt to reclaim relevance, are already calling on Senate Republicans to filibuster Obama’s highly qualified pick,” Rabin-Havt wrote. “Not only would this be one of the greatest acts of hypocrisy in the 220-year history of the Senate, it would be an admission by Republicans that their actions four years ago were nothing more than a political stunt.”

“If Sessions supports a filibuster on Sotomayor’s nomination, he will make it undeniably clear that he is happy to use the Constitution as a political prop,” Rabin-Havt wrote. “We will be made acutely aware that he sees our founding documents as trivial things, to be revered when they are useful and cast aside when the political winds change direction. Such cynicism is far more deplorable than plain hypocrisy.”

“We will learn a lot about Sessions’ character in the coming weeks. Does he believe the Constitution has been amended in the last four years?” Rabin-Havt wrote. “Will he prove to be a hypocrite whose positions are dictated by the political landscape, or a lapdog to the most extreme elements of the Republican Party? Or will he remain consistent in his belief that every nominee deserves an ‘up or down vote?’”

The fact that the media is trying to make the case that the GOP are hypocrites if they were to even talk of a filibuster is funny at best, where were all of the stories expressing concerns about the democrats threats to filibuster Alito?  Where were the claims that the Democrats “viewed our founding documents as trivial things”, etc…?

The part of this story that is the most absurd has to be the fact that the current occupant of the oval office himself back in January 2006 said he would be in favor of filibustering President George W. Bush’s nominee Samuel Alito, before conceding “the effort would be futile” and criticizing his Democratic colleagues “for failing to persuade Americans to take notice of the court’s changing ideological face,” as Jeff Zeleny pointed out for the Chicago Tribune on Jan. 30, 2006.

Where are the MSM articles & news stories decrying Obama’s hypocrisy?  They are nonexistent.

Where was the outrage from the media when Senate Democrats used a filibuster to prevent Miguel Estrada’s nomination from being given a final confirmation vote on the full Senate floor which was only the 2nd time in history that had been done (the 1st prevented an Assoc. Justice from being elevated to Chief Justice) and the 1st time in history that had ever been done to a Circuit Court of Appeals nominee?  Again, they were nonexistent.

To top it all off:

Similar versions of Rabin-Havt’s op-ed appeared in other newspaper, with the names and the quotes changed - one attacking Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in the May 27 Des Moines Register and another in the May 28 Wichita Eagle attacking Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.

Sphere: Related Content

{ 0 comments }

The developing case against the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court

by politicalcrunch on May 31, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Government, Politics

Conservatives are understandably chagrined at the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. The Following is three very concerning areas where GOP Senators should focus their inquiries.

On the judging front the very first and most important qualification for a Supreme Court Justice has to be their understanding the role of the courts and specifically their role as judges, which is to interpret the statutes and constitutional provisions which are before the Supreme Court and to render justice equally and impartially to all who come before it.

Sotomayer was Captured on tape offering us a glimpse into her views on the role of a Supreme Court Justice:

Um, all of the legal defense funds out there, um, they’re looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know. Um, um — [laughter] — I know. I’m not promoting it, I’m not advocating it, and, I’m … you know. [laughter]

The American people need to be assured that she will not seek to legislate & make policy from the bench but in fact will strictly interpret the statutes and constitutional provisions which are before the Supreme Court & render justice equally and impartially to all who come before it.

And that brings us to the second substantial concern about Sotomayor.  Stuart Taylor writes:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001.

The above assertion and the rest of a remarkable speech to a Hispanic group by Sotomayor — widely touted as a possible Obama nominee to the Supreme Court — has drawn very little attention in the mainstream media since it was quoted deep inside the New York Times on May 15.

It deserves more scrutiny, because apart from Sotomayor’s Supreme Court prospects, her thinking is representative of the Democratic Party’s powerful identity-politics wing.

Sotomayor also referred to the cardinal duty of judges to be impartial as a mere “aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.” And she suggested that “inherent physiological or cultural differences” may help explain why “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Sotomayer clearly is suggesting that the experiences of Latino women, would more often than not, lead them to make better decisions than white males.  The expression of such beliefs in a public speech has to raise concerns about her ability to render justice objectively and her ability to remain impartial, in fact, later in the speech she goes on to raise even more concerns on that front by referring to the cardinal duty of judges to be impartial as:

“a mere aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.”

And she goes on to suggested that:

“inherent physiological or cultural differences” may help explain why “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Clearly these statements raise very serious questions as to Sotomayer’s ability to render an impartial and objective judgement in any case that involves members of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and should be addressed in her confirmation hearings.

Ricci v. DeStefano

This case will prove to be the most crucial factor in whether or not Sotomayer is confirmed as it ties together all of the issues discussed above and might shed light on their impact on how she has ruled in the past.

Jennifer Rubin points out in her Pajama’s Media article:

This outlook extends beyond a single speech. This philosophy has permeated her work as a dogged advocate for racial Preferences on campus and as an appellate judge as well. She played a critical role in the New Haven firefighter case (Ricci v. DeStefano) which makes clear her views on racial discrimination. In that case she voted with the majority of the Second Circuit to reject the claim of Frank Ricci, a white, dyslexic firefighter, who struggled for a top grade on a promotion exam, only to have the test thrown out because no African Americans achieved a top score.

Her actions raised the ire of her colleague Jose Cabranes (a Clinton appointee) who questioned why Sotomayor’s panel had issued its initial “perfunctory” opinion with no mention of the hot-button constitutional issues which were clearly germane to the case. The case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Court watchers at the oral argument opined that the Court seemed ready to reverse the Second Circuit’s decision and thereby deal a blow to Sotomayor’s scheme to deprive Ricci of both his promotion and his day in court.

Even Richard Cohen, hardly a conservative, suggested (before Sotomayor’s nomination) that Ricci is a test of sorts:

Blatant affirmative action always entailed a disturbing and ex post facto changing of the rules — oops, you’re white. Sorry, not what we wanted. As a consequence, it was not racists who were punished but all whites. There is no need to cling to such a remedy anymore. There is, though, every need to retain and strengthen anti-discrimination laws, especially in areas such as fire departments, where racial discrimination was once endemic. Sufficient progress has been made to revert to treating individuals as individuals. After all, it is not some amorphous entity called “whites” who will suffer: It is un-lieutenant Ricci.

[. . .]

Ricci is not just a legal case but a man who has been deprived of the pursuit of happiness on account of race. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee ought to be able to look the New Haven fireman in the eye and tell him whether he has been treated fairly or not. There’s a litmus test for you.

The supreme court is expected to issue their ruling on this case by June before Sotomayer’s confirmation hearings which are scheduled to begin in July.  This case is going to prove to be crucial as it ties together so many questions regarding her views on race, judicial activism, & her capacity for impartiality among others.

Update #1  The Wall Street Journal has obtained recordings of the Ricci v. DeStefano case hearings that provide insight into Sotomayer’s views.

An excerpt:  “We’re not suggesting that unqualified people be hired, the city’s not suggesting that,” she told Ms. Torre. But “if your test is going to always put a certain group at the bottom of the pass rate so they’re never, ever going to be promoted, and there is a fair test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more substantive way, then why shouldn’t the city have an opportunity to try to look and see if it can develop that?”

It sounds like she is assuming that the tests were designed to cause certain races to fail or perhaps that they cannot be expected to pass the tests as the others did (which included 1 Hispanic fire fighters and 1 who was dyslexic & hired tutors to help him study for and pass the tests ).

Her question “and there is a fair test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more substantive way, then why shouldn’t the city have an opportunity to try to look and see if it can develop that”  is irrelevant in all reality, who is saying that the city could not seek to update and improve the test in the future?

The fact is the City of New Haven went out of its way to ensure the test was fair (the city hired a firm that specializes in employment tests which were then independently verified to be in accordance with federal law).

There seems to be two disturbing things here, one is that she is arguing that is is OK to discriminate and deny promotions to those who passed the test based on their race solely because no black fire fighters passed it and she assumes the tests to be unfair simply because they didn’t pass the tests, how did the dyslexic fire fighter pass?  How did the Hispanic fire fighter pass?

Which leads to the second disturbing thing here, this line of reasoning seems to suggest that black people lack the ability to study & learn that white people have and hence they can develop a test that only white people can pass, even though in this case, they hired a firm that specializes in employment tests to ensure it’s fairness.

The bottom line is that to say that it is OK to discriminate against white fire fighters by preventing their promotions until the City can develop a test that black people can pass is totally absurd and flies in the face of the very constitution she was sworn to uphold.

Perhaps Sotomayer was not aware of the following:

The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

Update #2 Breaking: Sotomayor Made Same “Wise Woman” Speech In 1990s.  The Plum Line reports:

Here is what she said in her 1994 speech:

“Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that “a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion in dueling cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes the line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, if Prof. Martha Minnow is correct, there can never be a universal definition of ‘wise.’ Second, I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.”

So much for President Obama’s spin suggesting that she misspoke and claiming that  if she could she would have chosen different words.  If you look at the context here she is CLEARLY making a statement of disagreement with the notion that both a man and a woman can reach the same conclusion in dueling cases and goes on to say that “a wise woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion”

So ladies and gentlemen, not only does she think that her Latina heritage will allow her to make better decisions than white males, she also think that her womanhood will allow her to make a better decision than a man would!

Sphere: Related Content

{ 1 comment }

Exposing Liberal Lies: The rich pay greater share of taxes under Bush than they did under Clinton; The poor pay less

by politicalcrunch on May 5, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Economy, News

The data is in and exposes the complete inaccuracy of President Obama’s main campaign theme that the Bush tax cuts largely benefited the rich at the expense of the poor.  The Heritage Foundation is the first to bring us the new CBO numbers that completely discredit President Obama and his fellow Democrats.

They report the following:

According to a report issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the tax cuts significantly increased the share of federal income taxes paid by the highest-earning 20 percent of households compared to their levels in 2000, President Clinton’s final year in office.

In 2006, the latest available year from CBO, the top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3 percent of all federal income taxes, an all-time high.[1] This is an increase of over 6 percent from 2000, when the top 20 percent paid 81.2 percent. During the same period, the bottom four quintiles all saw their share of the federal income tax burden fall sharply:

  • The bottom 20 percent of income earners’ share of federal income taxes fell from –1.6 percent in 2000 to –2.8 percent in 2006;
  • The next 20 percent’s share declined from 1.1 percent to –0.8 percent;
  • The middle quintile’s share dropped from 5.7 percent to 4.4 percent; and
  • The fourth quintile’s share decreased from 13.5 percent to 12.9 percent.

Each of these four quintiles’ shares was an all-time low.

 

So if we were to go back to the tax policies of the Clinton years as Obama promoted heavily the rich would pay a lower share of taxes and the poor would pay a larger share.

Sphere: Related Content

{ 3 comments }

Liberty under Assault: Obama seeks to remove conscience protection for Health Care Providers

by politicalcrunch on April 7, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Liberty, News

An article at The American Thinker reminds us that we have only till April 9th to make our voices be heard on the attempt to abolish the long standing conscience protection for health care providers.

Mary L. Davenport, MD points out in her article:

This basic principle securing the integrity of physician-patient relationships has been threatened of late. In December 2008 the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation clarifying the protections offered by three civil rights laws for health care providers passed by Congress with bipartisan support. However, the Obama administration has stated its intention of overturning the conscience regulation and not enforcing the existing laws.

This is yet another, in a long list of the freedoms that we enjoy in this country, to come under attack of late.  We cannot allow the Government to dictate what services we must perform as a matter of law regardless of whether your a Doctor, Lawyer, Banker or you work in one of the countless other professions, where does this stuff end?

If history s any indicator, Mary provides us with some great examples:

In the 1930’s the medical societies in Germany were Nazified, purging the leadership and ranks of the physicians who did not want to go along with the Nazi program. Cardinal George recently warned that eliminating conscience protections "would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism."

Should medical doctors be forced by government to override personal ethics and moral conscience to serve the utilitarian "common good" as defined by the state?  This is the very matter at stake and is one in the same as that faced by physicians in Nazi Germany, as they were ordered to "exterminate" the handicapped, those with mental disorders and those deemed incurably ill, and then to kill the Jews.   Removing the conscience clause that protects physicians and their patients from imperious rulings by state authorities is indeed the first step on the road to a tragic, totalitarian end.

Please be sure to express your opinion before the April 9th deadline on this very important matter that threatens our  liberty.

Sphere: Related Content

{ 0 comments }

Fannie & Freddie to hand out $210 million in retention bonuses: Where’s the outrage?

by politicalcrunch on April 6, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Economy, News, Politics

It looks as though Fannie & Freddie are going to hand out $210 Million in retention bonuses to their employees, these are the Government sponsored enterprises that arguably played the largest role in the financial & economic crises that were now experiencing.

Get the entire story on Fannie, Freddie, the banks & financial industry as well as the politics of it all  here

In short, Freddie & Fannie did everything possible to facilitate overwhelming growth of the sub prime mortgage market that nearly caused the collapse of our financial system, they bought up any loans that banks made to risky borrowers (AKA: Affordable Housing) then turned around and repackaged them into CDOs and other securitized debt vehicles and sold them throughout the financial sector on wall street, all the while giving the impression that these were safe due to their backing from the Federal Government.

My question is where is all of the outrage from the media, Congress, the Populists?  Where is the act of Congress to punish them?  Where are the Government officials threatening to “out them” so that the mob can harass them?

That’s right, the Democrats were in bed with Freddie & Fannie, they were the ones that refused to pass tougher regulations on them to limit their size and monitor their practices closer, they were the ones that said that the warnings of the threats that Fannie & Freddie posed to our financial system if they were not limited and regulated more closely were ridiculous and in fact were an effort by some to Lynch the CEO of Fannie Franklin Rains!

Certainly the Democrats do not want to bring more attention to this and neither do their friends and allies in the main stream media!

Sphere: Related Content

{ 1 comment }

Have bank loans really dried up? If you listen to the MSM you would think so!

by politicalcrunch on February 10, 2009 · 0 Comments

in Economy, News

Casino Quality

As is usually the case the conventional wisdom from the main stream media is dead wrong and not supported by any real facts.  Thanks to our friends over at the Cato Institute we can get to the bottom of the sky is falling, doomsday, Depression scenarios that they are trying to use to ram through this 700 Billion bail out package on us.

Here’s a few examples of the histeria that they are spewing:

On Sept. 24, Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag warned Congress that "short-term lending was virtually shut down." The following day, The Washington Post reported that "tightening [bank] credit conditions are already affecting some consumers and business." Just before the $700 billion deal was announced on Sunday, an alarmed Fox News anchor said, "McDonald’s can’t even get a loan." (That comment confused a few franchise owners with the company.)

On CNBC Monday, Democrat majority leader Steny Hoyer said the objective of the rescue package is to "unlock the credit" for consumers and business. And a Wall Street Journal editorial writer told CNBC, "Until we get the banks lending again, the economy will continue to contract."

Below you will see the the the actual #s from the Federal Reserve Board, what do you know they actually track these things!

Table One
U.S. Bank Loans (Billions of Dollars)
——————————————–

 

In August, bank loans to consumers were 9.5% higher than they were a year earlier–the fastest increase since 2004. The year-to-year increase in consumer and industrial loans was 15.5%, down only slightly from a recent record high of 21.6% in March. Real estate loans were up 4.1% for the 12-month period ending this August–flat lately, but not down.

Also do not forget that it is election season!

Related articles by Zemanta

Technorati Profile

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Sphere: Related Content

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries