Supreme Court Smacks Down Obama's EPA

Unanimous Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Property Owners in Sackett v. EPA
Ilya Somin * March 21, 2012 1:41 pm

The Supreme Court today issued a unanimous decision in favor of the property owners in the important case of Sackett v. EPA [HT: GMU law student Matthew Roberts]. The opinions in the case (an opinion for the court and two concurring opinions by Justices Ginsburg and Alito) are available here. Justice Alito's concurring opinion includes a particularly clear description of what was at stake:

"The position taken in this case by the Federal Government - a position that the Court now squarely rejects - would have put the property rights of ordinary Americans entirely at the mercy of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees.

The reach of the Clean Water Act is notoriously unclear. Any piece of land that is wet at least part of the year is in danger of being classified by EPA employees as wetlands covered by the Act, and according to the Federal Government, if property owners begin to construct a home on a lot that the agency thinks possesses the requisite wetness, the property owners are at the agency's mercy. The EPA may issue a compliance order demanding that the owners cease construction, engage in expensive remedial measures, and abandon any use of the property. 

If the owners do not do the EPA's bidding, they may be fined up to $75,000 per day ($37,500 for violating the Act and another $37,500 for violating the compliance order). And if the owners want their day in court to show that their lot does not include covered wetlands, well, as a practical matter, that is just too bad. Until the EPA sues them, they are blocked from access to the courts, and the EPA may wait as long as it wants before deciding to sue. By that time, the potential fines may easily have reached the millions. In a nation that values due process, not to mention private property, such treatment is unthinkable."

Just SOME of the truth about ObamaCare

"My plan will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year," Mr. Obama said.

The average cost of a family's private health insurance premium rose $1,482 last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.  When the law goes fully into effect in 2014, the cost of private insurance will be 88 percent higher than it would have been without Obamacare, CMS actuaries predict.

Obamacare is "a huge burden on businesses and employers," says the president of the National Business Group.  It's having a "crushing impact" on them, small business owners say. The costs it imposes could "totally wipe out" the restaurant industry, said the CEO of a fast food chain.

Obama's Calculated Deception

By Peter Ferrara on 2.1.12 @ 6:08AM

 

He thinks you're really stupid. But Paul Ryan has his number.

 

Calculated deception as a central public manipulation strategy practiced by President Obama involves the President taking advantage of what he thinks the average person doesn't know and won't be told by a compliant media. Such calculated deception was central to last week's State of the Union Address. That address is useful only as an outline of the President's reelection strategy.

 

A powerful practical answer will come at the end of March in the form of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's 2013 budget proposal, which will be passed by the Republican-controlled House. That budget, which all the Republicans will run on, and the President's State of the Union Address will frame the 2012 election debate.

 

He Thinks You're Stupid

 

The Obama SOTU exhibited again Obama's core "progressive" conviction that the average American is hopelessly stupid. Obama bemoans America as "a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by." You may identify with that statement, as it correctly applies to Obama's America today. But not to Reagan's America, or my America.

 

As Henry R. Nau explained in the January 26 Wall Street Journal, "the U.S. grew by more than 3% per year [in real terms] from 1980 to 2007, and created more than 50 million new jobs, massively expanding a middle class of working women, African-Americans and legal as well as illegal immigrants. Per capita income increased by 65%, and household income went up substantially in all income categories."

 

But Obama continued last week, "Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores." Mr. Obama, let me introduce you to Mr. Nau, who, unlike you, is a real professor. The 25-year Reagan boom from 1982 to 2007 added 50 million jobs. The recession began in December, 2007, and it is your policies that have prevented America from recovering from it.

 

Obama recalled, "[T]he basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement." He said, "The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important."

 

Actually, that debate is over, Barack. Reagan already showed us how to do it. As Professor Nau also explained: 

 

Yes, "the middle class has shrunk," as Mr. Obama said while campaigning last month. But not because it's getting poorer, but because it's getting richer. According to Stephen Rose of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, fewer people live today in middle-class households with incomes between $35,000 and $105,000, while the percentage of households making less than $35,000 has remained the same. Where did the missing households go? They became richer. In the past three decades [1980 to 2007], the percentage of households making more than $105,000 in inflation adjusted dollars doubled to 24% from 11%.

 

Where were you from 1980 to 2007, Mr. Obama? Sleeping? In Indonesia? In an ideologically induced stupor?

 

But Obama continued to drone on with his fairy tale bedtime stories in the SOTU. He proclaimed, "But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on the economic crisis in the first place." One of Obama's top fairy tales is the calculated deception that he has been trying so hard to get the economy to recover, but he has been "obstructed" by the "Republican Congress."

 

But there is no "Republican Congress." Obama is certain that you are too stupid to know that while the House of Representatives is firmly in Republican control, the Democrats still hold a majority in the Senate. Moreover, that Republican House has been busily passing good legislation that would help to restore the economy, from the repeal of Obamacare on day one, to the Ryan 2012 budget, that would cut $6.2 trillion in federal spending in the first 10 years alone, balancing the budget, and ultimately actually paying off the national debt, if continued long enough.

 

Moreover, the Ryan 2012 budget would do that while slashing income tax rates to 10% for those making less than $100,000 per year, and 25% for those making above, with the federal corporate tax rate slashed to 25% as well, which along with Reagan monetary and regulatory policies would restore the Reagan economic boom.

 

But the Democrat Senate has refused to even take up any of this legislation passed by the Republican House. Indeed, the Democrat Senate has refused to even pass any budget for 2 years, in violation of federal law. Which raises the question, if Harry Reid and his Senate Democrats don't have to obey the law, why should the rest of us have to?

 

Moreover, Obama is also certain that you, or at least your friends and neighbors, are too stupid to know that during the first two of his three years in office, the Congress was completely controlled by Democrat supermajorities that were able to give Obama anything he wanted. Congressional Republicans during those years were reduced to hapless bystanders, which is how Obamacare was passed.

 

Fairy Tale Bedtime Stories

 

But let us not pass over Obama's staunch opposition "to the very same policies that brought on the economic crisis in the first place." Obama's second biggest tall tale is that the financial crisis of 2008 was caused by the Reaganomics policies of deregulation and tax rate cuts begun 30 years ago.

 

But as readers of this column know, the real causes of the financial crisis were government policies of overregulation and cheap dollar monetary policy, as thoroughly documented in such books as Paul Sperry's The Great American Bank Robbery: The Unauthorized Report About What Really Caused the Financial Crisis (Thomas Nelson, 2011), Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner's Reckless Endangerment (Times Books, 2011), John B. Taylor's  Getting Off Track (Hoover Institution Press, 2009), and my own book, America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb (HarperCollins, 2011). The minimal interest rate, cheap dollar monetary policy of the Fed pumped up the housing bubble. Overregulation mandated the looting of the banks, forcing them to trash traditional lending standards because they were "discriminatory" to the poor who couldn't afford their own home, which further pumped up the housing bubble and ensured that the banks were maximally vulnerable to the bubble. Government backing for the securitization of these toxic mortgages by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ensured this vulnerability was spread throughout the financial community of the U.S., and the entire world.

 

These policies of overregulation and cheap dollar monetary expansion were the opposite of Reaganomics. For years, the ultra-leftist Obama himself had been promoting precisely these very policies at the root of the crisis. The opposite policies of Reaganomics, opposed in detail by Obama, were the causes of the Reagan boom discussed above. As Professor Nau explains, 

 

What were the policy trends that produced this Great Expansion? Precisely the free-market policies of deregulation and lower marginal income-tax rates that Mr. Obama decries. President Reagan's decision to reverse the high tax, loose-money, and interventionist government policies of the 1970s brought an end to the painful "stagflation of that decade….Sadly, [Obama's] policies resemble those that brought on the stagflation of the 1970s, not those that ignited the Great Expansion.

 

But the all time whopper of calculated deception that Obama tells is the fable of the Great Hustler Warren Buffett. As Obama regaled us in the SOTU, "Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary….Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes."

 

The picture of America's tax policy that Obama paints is the opposite of reality, and the American people will suffer the loss of the American Dream if they fall for it. In 2007, before President Obama was even elected, the top 1% of income earners paid 40.4% of all federal income taxes, about twice their share of income. In fact, the top 1% of income earners paid more in federal income taxes than the bottom 95% combined! This is all as reported in official IRS data. This was after nearly 40 years of the policies of Reaganomics!

 

Moreover, this does not count the burdens of the corporate income tax, which is how not only Obama but dishonest liberal Democrats across the board create the phony statistic about Buffett and his secretary. They just ignore the existence of the federal corporate income tax entirely, with its 35% rate. The Wall Street Journal reported the actual facts on January 26, saying, "In fact, the Congressional Budget Office notes that the effective income tax rate of the richest 1% is about 29.5% when including all federal taxes such as the distribution of corporate taxes, or about twice the 15.1% paid by middle class families."

 

The capital gains tax is paid on top of the corporate income tax, not instead of it. Investment income is taxed once by the corporate income tax, and then by the capital gains or dividends tax when it is passed through to the individual. That makes for a total effective rate on investment income of 45%. Bringing it down to the 30% of Obama's Buffett Rule would require further tax rate cuts.

 

But what Obama is proposing would actually double the capital gains tax rate to 30%, leaving America with the third highest capital gains rate in the developed world. That would be on top of the second highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. And it would be on top of all the tax rate increases already scheduled to go into effect next year under current law, with the Obamacare taxes becoming effective, and the Bush tax cuts scheduled to expire. Obama calculates that the average American doesn't know anything about that.

 

Obama and the Democrats play-acting as if they don't understand the corporate income tax leaves America uncompetitive and falling behind in the world. It means fewer jobs and declining income for you and your friends and neighbors. But they don't care as long as their calculated deception can trick enough voters to get them past the next election.

 

As for Mr. Buffett, a higher capital gains rate will not affect the tax shelter fund that has made him a billionaire. It would only make it more attractive as a tax shelter alternative. So he prospers by calling for higher taxes and a reduced standard of living for the rest of us. In fact, he is lionized in the leftist media and by President Obama as a result. The wily, 82-year old coot will be hustling America until his dying day.

 

Is This Fair?

 

Obama proclaimed in his SOTU that his goal is "to restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules." Everyone would play under the same set of rules under a flat tax, where Warren Buffett would precisely pay the same tax rate as his secretary.

 

But that is not what Obama is for. He is for the nation's small businesses, job creators, and investors paying almost all of the federal income taxes, and his supporters in his political machine paying nothing. That would be the result of adding still further tax increases on disfavored taxpayers.

 

But are the results of Obama's policies really fair? The recession started in December 2007. Since the Great Depression recessions in America have previously lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously lasting 16 months. When President Obama entered office in January 2009, the recession was already in its 13th month. His responsibility was to manage a timely robust recovery to get America back on track again.

 

Supposedly a forward-looking progressive, Obama proved to be America's first backward-looking regressive. His first act was to increase federal spending, borrowing, deficits, and the national debt by nearly a trillion dollars to finance a supposed "stimulus" package, based on the proven failed Keynesian theory left for dead 30 years ago holding that increased government spending, deficits, and debt are what promotes economic growth and recovery.

 

As should have been long expected, Obama's trillion dollar Keynesian stimulus did nothing to promote recovery and growth, and almost surely delayed it. That is because borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend a trillion back into it does nothing to promote the economy on net. Indeed, it is a net drag on the economy, because the private sector spends the money more productively and efficiently than the public sector.

 

After the stimulus, Obama veered steadily left. Through Obamacare, he increased future federal taxes and spending by trillions more, adopting or wildly expanding three entitlement programs, on top of the entitlement crisis America already suffers. Through the EPA, Dodd-Frank, and other regulatory expansions, he wildly rocketed up regulatory costs, burdens, and barriers. He has already enacted in current law increases in the top tax rates of virtually every major federal tax for next year. And as in the SOTU, every time he speaks he calls for and threatens still more tax increases, especially on the nation's job creators and investors.

 

The National Bureau of Economic Research scored the recession as ending in June 2009, the longest on record. Yet, today, in the 49th month since the recession started, there has still been no real recovery, not like recoveries from previous recessions in America.

 

Unemployment actually rose after June 2009 and did not fall back down below that level until 18 months later in December 2010. Instead of a recovery, America suffered the longest period of unemployment near 9% or above since the Great Depression. Even today, 49 months after the recession started, the U6 unemployment rate counting the unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers is still 15.2%. And that doesn't include all the workers who have fled the workforce under Obama's economic oppression. The unemployment rate with the full measure of discouraged workers is reported at www.shadowstats.com as a depression level 23%. Is this fair, Mr. Obama?

 

Today, more than four years since the recession started, there are still almost 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. That includes 5.6 million who are long-term unemployed for 27 weeks, or more than six months. Under President Obama, America has suffered the longest period with so many in such long-term unemployment since the Great Depression. Is this fair?

 

Indeed, African Americans have already long been suffering another depression under Obama, with unemployment today, 49 months after the recession started, still at 15.8%. Black unemployment has been over 15% for two and a half years under Obama. Black teenage unemployment today is over 40%, where it has persisted for over two years as well.

 

Hispanics have also been suffering a depression under Obama, with unemployment today still in double digits at 11%. Hispanic unemployment has been in double digits for three years under President Obama. Over one-fourth of Hispanic youths remain unemployed today, which also has persisted for years. Is this fair?

 

The Census Bureau reported in September that more Americans are in poverty today than at any time in the entire history of Census tracking poverty. Americans dependent on food stamps are at an all-time high as well. Real wages and incomes have been falling so steadily under Obama and his confused, throwback, Keynesian/neo-Marxist Obamanomics, that the Census Bureau also reported that real median family income in America has fallen all the way back to 1996 levels. Is this fair, Mr. Obama?

 

Obama apologists cannot argue that this is because the recession was so bad, because the historical record in America is that the worse the recession the stronger the recovery. Based on historical precedent, we should at worst be finishing the second year of a booming recovery by now.

 

Ryan's Salvation

 

In March, Paul Ryan will again propose to restore traditional, American, world-leading prosperity and growth, with a budget that will cut federal spending by trillions over the next 10 years, leading to a balanced budget, and sharply reduced national debt. Like last year, that budget will again include tax reform, reducing rates to restore prosperity, and long-term entitlement reform. With restored Reagan regulatory and monetary policies, this would reignite the Reagan boom.

 

And that is what the election this year will be all about. Do we want the traditional, real America, with world leading economic growth and prosperity? Or do we want to trash all that for Obama's neo-Marxist vision of robbing from job creators and investors to buy votes through still more government dependency, resulting in the fairness of the equal sharing of misery, and the decline of America to become just another country? 

 

 

About the Author

 

Peter Ferrara is Senior Fellow at the Carleson Center for Public Policy, Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute, and General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is the author of America’s Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb, now available from HarperCollins.

Liberal Media Bias Like You've Never Seen Before!

We all know that the media is liberal and that they always bend the news in that direction, but this takes the cake...

Watch this video to see them at their absolute worst... 

 

EPA's first salvo in their war on CO2

This is one promise Obama has kept (click this link before reading story below)...

By Rick Moran

The US sits on the largest reserves of coal in the world. But after the EPA gets its way, the fuel won't be worth the trouble to get it out of the ground.

Washington Post:

The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants as early as Tuesday, according to several people briefed on the proposal. The move could end the construction of conventional coal-fired facilities in the United States.

The proposed rule -- years in the making and approved by the White House after months of review -- will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO₂ per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

Industry officials and environmentalists said in interviews that the rule, which comes on the heels of tough new requirements that the Obama administration imposed on mercury emissions and cross-state pollution from utilities within the past year, dooms any proposal to build a coal-fired plant that does not have costly carbon controls.

"This standard effectively bans new coal plants," said Joseph Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton and Williams and represents several utility companies. "So I don't see how that is an 'all of the above' energy policy."

Electricity costs are going to go up - perhaps way up. It depends on the economy and how it manages to make up for the lost power generation. Efficiencies elsewhere may keep the increase manageable. More likely, that process will lag a few years and rates will skyrocket.
Consumers will blame the power companies for the increases, not realizing it is their own government that wants them to pay sky high prices for electricity and has fashioned policies to see that it happens.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/epas_first_salvo_in_their_war_on_co2.html at March 27, 2012 - 11:08:45 AM CDT        

 

Unicorn Farts as the Fuel of Tomorrow

Posted by Erick Erickson

Monday, March 19th at 4:46AM EDT 

On Friday, the President of the United States accused his Republican opponents of being members of the Flat Earth Society because of their demands that the nation increase drilling.

In no small bit of irony, the President who bitterly lamented the rise of ATM’s and internet travel options accused the GOP of wanting to bitterly cling to the past.

But what of Barack Obama’s energy policy? He likes to tout wind and solar technologies and batteries, but it seems while he accuses the GOP of being flat earthers, the reality is that the President is himself anti-science when it comes to the reality of domestic energy needs. 

His solution to fueling our cars amounts to using unicorn farts as gas — which has just as much a chance of happening as the mythic battery powered cross country run.

The facts are pretty simple. As a matter of both science and reality, battery technology is neither good enough nor cheap enough to supply American needs relating to transportation. Even were there batteries available for vehicles, the cost of conversion for the tens of millions of cars on the road right now would be cost prohibitive and increasing fuel standards, resulting in smaller and smaller cars, penalize families. Try piling a family of four in a Prius for a trip to grand mom’s house for Spring Break. The luggage and leg room will make for an exciting time.

Even beyond the family car, a battery will not put an 18 wheeler on the road, a 747 in the air, or a locomotive on its rails. Americans depend on crude oil right now and in the future. To cling to the hope of a battery that can meet American automotive needs is anti-science and as realistic as fueling our future with unicorn farts. See Charles Lane at the Washington Post for more on the President’s crusade against science.

This President’s policies have done everything possible to drive up the price of crude oil in hopes that some mythical unicorn fart, solar panel, or battery will come online quickly enough to meet American needs. It is not happening. Going back to May of 2009, the President insisted on discouraging the “overproduction of oil” as potentially damaging to our national security. If only we had a President who understood supply and demand.

Under Barack Obama’s administration, domestic exploration on federal lands and seas is down 40% 14% (new non-partisan numbers are out and have revised the number down from 40% to 14% decrease in production, though the decrease in federal permitting is higher). The gains we have seen have come largely from one new find, Thunder Horse, approved by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The exploration on land has come on private land Barack Obama could not stop.
For stability, the oil market depends on an excess supply of 1 million to 2 million barrels a day. The Keystone XL Pipeline would have provided an additional 700,000 barrels a day by itself. Barack Obama stopped it.

The reality is the President’s polling is going down because the logical outcomes of his policies are coming to pass. Now the President is left to demagogue the GOP instead of actually doing anything because he really does not want lower gas prices. He wants, instead, to continue using government stimulus funds to explore unicorn farts, solar, etc. as an energy source. After spending over $15 billion, there are only 3,545 jobs to show for it and a lot of bankruptcies and wasted money.

Meanwhile, the oil and natural gas sector of the economy is creating 20% of the good jobs in America. Imagine how much lower unemployment could be if Barack Obama were not so hostile to real energy.

An Oil Rich Nation After All

The President has been traveling on Campaign Tourapalooza 2012 this month and seeking to explain rising oil and gas prices. One of his favorite tag lines has been to say that you “can’t just drill your way to lower gas prices.” (And he’s partly correct there, but more on that later.) But he’s also tossing out another figure when he makes these remarks.

“With only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” he said. “Not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil.”

So is that actually true? Are we an oil barren nation? As John Merline points out at Investors Business Daily, it’s not even close to being accurate unless you’re really picking and choosing your terms. This is because the figure that Barack Obama is quoting relies on estimates of proved reserves.

But the figure Obama uses — proved oil reserves — vastly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country is awash in vast quantities — enough to meet all the country’s oil needs for hundreds of years.

The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of proved reserves, a little less than 2% of the entire world’s proved reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration. But as the EIA explains, proved reserves “are a small subset of recoverable resources,” because they only count oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields.

When you look at the whole picture, it turns out that there are vast supplies of oil in the U.S., according to various government reports.

Proved reserves is a valuable number to keep track of, no doubt. It gives you a good snapshot of the amount of oil you’re currently tapping into, and that allows you to develop solid estimates of what’s going to be entering the pipeline each season. But by the same token, it’s not any sort of reflection of what your total assets are. That’s like saying that Bill Gates only has $20K of liquid cash in his primary checking account this month so he must be close to filing for bankruptcy. Here’s a more complete picture for you:

• At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered
• About 24 billion barrels in shale deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA.
• Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale deposits in Alaska’s North Slope
• Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR, according to the USGS.
• As much as 19 billion barrels in the Utah tar sands
• A stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil shale the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming

The main problem is that most of these resources are roped off. Just knowing the oil is there comes as little comfort if there are never going to be anyleases issued by the government for energy companies to explore. And our ability to access the shale oil – while technically well withing our capability today – will be significantly hamstrung as long as activists continue to fight fracking and horizontal drilling.

But before we get too carried away, it’s still worth noting that one part of Obama’s claims is actually true. Even if we opened the floodgates and were able to jack up our domestic production by 20% overnight, it wouldn’t do much to move the needle on gas and oil prices in general. That’s because, as we’ve noted before, the idea of “energy independence” is something of a misnomer. Energy is traded on a global market, not compartmentalized by nation. When we produce more than we need, the rest is immediately sold as exports with few exceptions. When we don’t produce as much, we import more. It’s just the way the free market works.

Obama's Second Term

From a long time Senator and national political observer...

 

Illinois is Obama’s model for America.  I lived in Illinois for 60 years and want to be sure voters understand what living in Obama's America for a second term, when he will be immune from public pressure, will be like.  

Now jailed Governor Blagojevich made up new state programs with no authorization from the legislature and spent money not appropriated.  When Obama was a State Senator he supported ignoring the constitution and supported Governor Blagojevich’s shenanigans.  Sound familiar in the Obama administration?  By the way, 4 of Illinois’ last 7 governors have gone to jail. 

Illinois hasn’t had a balanced budget since the last century.  That is unconstitutional, but in Illinois, they don’t care about the constitution.  Illinois is buried in debt!  The budget increases many times faster than the rate of inflation and huge new programs with no real source of funding are added on a regular basis.  The state, with no legal authorization, covers health care for families making almost $90,000/ year.  Past insolvent, not one penny has been trimmed from the budget since the last century. Sound familiar in the Obama Administration?   

Illinois is #1 in unfunded pension liabilities, failing schools, jailed judges, jailed aldermen and jailed government workers.  Illinois has one of the highest unemployment rates in America and it is going up, not down.  There were more jobs in Illinois in 2000 than today and their solution was to raise the income tax 67% to go with the nation’s highest sales tax.  Like Greece and America Illinois borrows money to fund day to day operating expenses.  Illinois buried itself in more debt to pay for massive stimulus spending on public infrastructure.  Taxes and regulations are unbearable so the Democrats give special tax breaks to their friends but let small business folks hang.  Crony capitalism any one?  Sound familiar in the Obama’s administration?

Education reform? Chicago brags the dropout rate from its schools is down to 50%!!!  Big city public schools across America, all of them run by hard core liberals are the face of institutional racism as they force minority kids into failed systems that will guarantee the kids are not employable.  The Obama administration has lowered educational standards in over 20 states already to make the failure of many public school systems dominated by Obama’s allies, the teachers unions, less obvious.  Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

In the corruption capitol of America, Illinois’ Attorney General is a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil state embarrassment who refuses to investigate or prosecute public corruption! There has been no investigation of the massive mortgage fraud involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Illinois or the crony capitalism.  Obama allies Rahm Emanuel and the state’s former Democrat Attorney General, Neal Hartigan, were board members of Freddie Mac during the worst of the accounting fraud.  No investigation.  Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

The Chicago Transit Authority, once a model for the nation, is now continually bankrupt and is getting deeper into debt daily.  There is no attempt to control the rapidly escalating costs.  The unions have free rein.  The governor and the state legislature continue to support an obscenely expensive proposed high speed rail line.  Everyone admits it will never come close to breaking even, but who cares?  There will always be a federal subsidy, right?  Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

Unions go unchallenged at all levels.  Government employees either pay union dues or they are fired!  In Chicago government there are three union locals with only 1 member!  Union officials are allowed into the public pension funds even though they don’t work for the public!  Government union members can retire at age 50 with full pensions and health care!  Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

Chicago remains the nation’s most segregated city and Democrat politicians regularly split ethnic and racial groups apart regardless of how it affects the city and state as a whole.  There are no elected Republicans in the city.  Yet White Democrats accuse the Republicans of racism and the Black Wards vote 95% Democrat!  Any opposition is bitterly attacked, usually with lies and even complete fabrications to try to destroy them.  Sound familiar in the Obama administration?

Chicago has the toughest anti gun laws in America.  The U. S. Supreme Court overturned them in a land mark case but it had no effect on how Chicago deals with guns.  Similar to Obama’s DOJ Fast & Furious program to sell Mexican drug cartels modern American guns to undermine private ownership.

Radical leftists and domestic terrorists like Bill Ayres and his wife Bernardine Dohrn are high society in Chicago.  Despite their alleged criminal past, both were granted tenure at major Chicago universities.  Dohrn’s law license was forfeited yet she is a faculty member of Northwestern’s law school!  The public schools are dominated by radical leftists protected by the all powerful teachers unions.  Sound like the Obama administration?

This is the model Barack Obama politically “grew up” in.  Michelle Obama’s father was a Democrat patronage workers in the legendarily corrupt Chicago Machine.  Obama was a loyal member of that machine.  Democrats use their own racism as a political tool.  Illinois is a basket case and getting worse.  Is this what you want for 4 more years?

I still find it hard to believe America’s voters elected a politician from Illinois.  Either party!  Don’t they realize what is going on in Chicago and Illinois?  If this is the model of what you want, vote for another 4 years of Barack Obama.

How Many Times Has Obama Lied to the American People?

By Ron Reale

So, the man that lied when he promised not to accept public funding of his campaign;

the man that lied when he said no abortions would be covered by his health care scheme;

the man that lies every time he speaks about the amount of oil at this countries disposal;

the man that lies when he says a President can’t do anything to reduce the price of gas, and then plans an October Surprise release of our emergency oil to temporarily do just that;

the man who proves his own lies when a temporary release of oil has a diminutive, symbolic reduction in the price, but he insists a daily flow of our own oil form our numerous sites (which he now has off-limits) would have no effect on oil prices (no link, just common sense economics);

the man who lied when claiming unemployment would never go above 8%, and who now lies every day about the real unemployment numbers;

the man who lied when he claimed to barely know the unrepentant, racist, anti-American terrorist that helped start his political career;

the man who lied when he claimed no one would lose their doctors or health plan under his healthcare bill;
the man who lied about “shovel ready” jobs;

the man who lied, along with many others, about his supposed birth certificate;

the man who lied when he claimed he did not vote three times to let infant survivors of abortion die of neglect, forbidding their treatment;

the man who lied when he swore to uphold the Constitution, and has belittled it, complained of its “constraints”; and who has ignored it by taking private property and giving it to his union thug friends (GM); or using recess appointments when the Congress is not in recess, or deciding he has the right to kill Americans at will; or start wars with an OK from the UN, but no Congressional approval;

the man who lied when he swore to uphold our laws, and then appointed a black supremacist who is intent on ignoring any civil rights violations against whites; who is intent on protecting every national border but America’s from harm; who has been a willing accomplice in the scheme to defraud Americans into giving up their borders and Second Amendment gun rights, but has succeeded in getting American agents killed instead (and their underhanded roles have been discovered);

the man who lied about not taking money from lobbyists and giving us a more transparent government;

THIS is the man we are supposed to believe, the man whose Secretary of Energy owns no car and has expressed a desire to see our fuel prices to rise to the level of Europe’s;

this is the man whose finger we are supposed to accept being wagged in our faces, as he claims he wants to do, or would ever do, anything to lower oil or fuel prices in any realistic, long term way?

PUH-LEEZZE!

Santorum Goes Over the Top

By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on March 23, 2012

Running for president is an exhausting experience.  It frequently leads candidates to see things through a distorted prism and to say things they would like to take back as soon as the words form in the air outside their mouths.

I hope that's what happened when Rick Santorum suggested, yesterday, that the U.S. might as well re-elect Obama rather than vote for Romney.

Total nonsense!      

Here's the difference, Rick:

Romney will end Obamacare.  Obama won't.

Romney will cut spending sharply.  Obama will increase it.

Romney will block grant Medicaid and food stamps and stop their growth.  Obama won't.

Romney will cut income taxes.  Obama will raise them.

Romney will stop EPA regulation of carbon dioxide.  Obama will step it up.

Romney will stop the NLRB from forcing unionization.  Obama will continue it.

Romney will do all he can to help Israel stop Iranian nukes.  Obama won't.

Romney will appoint conservative judges.  Obama will name radical ones

Romney will crack down on Chinese currency manipulation.  Obama is afraid to.

Romney will starve Chavez by curtailing purchase of his oil.  Obama won't.

Romney won't bow to the Saudi monarch.   Obama did.

Romney will restore defense cuts.  Obama will disarm us.

Romney will approve Keystone and off shore drilling.  Obama won't.

Romney will push for school vouchers and choice.  Obama killed it in D.C..

Romney will not cut Medicare to finance Obamacare.  Obama is.

Romney will reform Medicare by using competition.  Obama won't.

Romney will stop debasing the dollar by printing more and more.  Obama will print money.

Romney will encourage photo id laws.  Obama will veto them.

Romney will appoint anti-terrorists to the Justice Department.  Obama does the opposite.

Romney will call Islamic terrorists, Islamic terrorists.  Obama doesn't.

Romney will reduce the capital gains tax.  Obama will increase it.

Romney will turn America around.  Obama hasn't, won't and can't.

Either Santorum or Romney or Gingrich or even Ron Paul would be a better president than Obama and don't let us forget it!

California

California's gas, sales and income taxes are already among the highest in the nation. Just 1 percent of California taxpayers are already providing 45 percent of the state's income tax revenue. And such income taxes now fund half the budget. But unfortunately, in recent years the number of upper-income earners in California has radically shrunk -- by a third between 2007 and 2009 alone. Apparently, wealthy Californians are either fleeing to nearby no-income-tax states or have become less well-off after years of economic downturn, higher taxes, and overregulation of business.

The once-utopian visions of 1970s California -- unionized public employees, more state lands off limits, more regulations, higher taxes on the wealthy, vastly expanded social services, de facto open borders -- have at last mostly come true, but apparently not in the fashion anticipated by most Californians of those long-ago times.

Check Your Mailbox

Just wanted to let you know that today I received my 2012 Social Security
Stimulus Package.

It contained two tomato seeds, cornbread mix, a prayer rug, a machine
to blow smoke up my ass, 10 discount coupons to KFC and an "Obama Hope
& Change" bumper sticker.

The directions were in Spanish.

Hope you get yours soon.

Where the Hell are the Republicans??

Barack Obama is giving away oil rich Alaskan islands to the Russians

By Suzanne Eovaldi

  

The Obama Administration is looking to give Russia seven oil rich Alaskan Islands that were discovered and claimed for America by American explorers according to Alaska Republican 2010 Senatorial candidate Joe Miller.  “I think the bigger concern here is what natural resources are being lost to Russia,” says one commenter who deplores the secrecy involved with Obama and his SOS Hilary Clinton  gifting Putin with United States land.

Miller blew the whistle on this island give away of billions of off shore oil deposits and rich sea beds in an interview with World Net Daily that literately has cyberspace dripping in anger at this present administration.  But when I called the office of GOP AK long time Senator Lisa Murkowski, her aides told me it’s George Bush the father’s fault, and Obama’s people are just cleaning up long standing agreements.  I was given this direct email address which came back failed three times: matthew_felling@murkowski.senate.gov when I tried to get them to go on the record.  

Miller and blog researchers state that “the purported Agreement for the island give away WAS NOT and IS NOT a ratified treaty according to public record. . .and this Agreement was negotiated COMPLETELY IN SECRET!”    

Famed naturalist John Muir was a member of the U.S. landing party of the U.S. Revenue Marine Ship fleet Thomas Corwin along with other American explorers who were awarded Gold Medals by Congress for theirvaliant discoveries and exploration of the following Islands which already have been given Russian names: Bennett Island, now Ostrov Bennetta; Wrangel Island, now Ostrov Vrangelya; Hennrietta Island, now Ostrov Genriyetty.  

Remaining land give away gems are Herald and Copper Islands and Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rocks. 

   In fact, bloggers and commenters literally are crying over this gifting to Russia. “It breaks my heart. I feel so helpless. This Alaskan Island thing has really infuriated me,” one says.  Another points out that “Russians will get tens of thousands of oil rich sea beds around them.” So as Americans are looking at gas prices going higher than $5.00 a gallon, we see an administration literally giving away oil that belongs to our country! 

 ”The veto of Keystone Pipeline was to allow [Warren] Buffett’s Burlington Northern Railroad to make profit,” says another poster.  And China is in position to drill 70 miles off of Florida’s shores, but Floridians can’t.  Long term Democrat Senator Bill Nelson up for re- election yet again, fears our beaches could be damaged, so he’s keeping his voting base happy.  With our own President and members of Congress either handing over America to other countries or just looking the other way as is happening, how can we survive? Saying it’s George Bush the father’s fault is disgusting.  I asked Senator Murkowski’s aide, “Who in Congress is looking out for America? Who is taking care of us?”  

I’m still waiting for their answers. You can call Congress toll free at 1-877-762-8762.

Forgery-Gate

Ex-communist nations expose Obama 'fraud'

Amid U.S. media blackout, foreign press sounds alarm on 'largest scandal in American history'

 by Chelsea Schilling

Media from former communist nations are once again breaking through the veil of silence surrounding President Obama’s eligibility for office – even when the U.S. media refuse to investigate what is being called the “largest scandal in American history.”

First, it was the Russian news website Pravda.

Then, it was The Voice of Russia – successor of Radio Moscow, the official station of the Soviet Union.
And now it’s the Czech Republic’s Neviditelný pes (The Invisible Dog), a popular news website from Prague, that’s sounding the alarm.


Help Sheriff Joe blow the lid off Obama’s fraud. Join the Cold Case Posse right now!
Likewise, Russia’s Pravda has published a second expose on the issue by Dianna Cotter, a senior at American Military University.

Russia’s Pravda: ‘Largest scandal in American history’
As WND reported, Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse announced there is probable cause indicating the documents released by the White House last April purported to be Obama’s original, long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration card are actually forgeries.

“Pravda called out the U.S. press for its deliberate neglect of the largest scandal in modern American history,” Cotter wrote in a March 29 Pravda commentary. “Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio released credible forensic evidence that Barack Obama, presumed President of the United States, presented to the world a forged Birth Certificate on April 27th, 2011.”

She added, “Since then, the scandal has only expanded. Former United States Postal Service worker Allen Hulton has recently come forward with compelling testimony given under Oath, which leads to only one conclusion: Barack Obama attended College in the United States as a Foreign Student.”

Cotter details results from a WND investigation revealing a retired U.S. Postal Service carrier claims the parents of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers helped finance Obama’s Harvard education – and that Ayers’ mother indicated she believed Obama was a foreign student.

“There is little doubt Mr. Obama has been less than honest with regard to the Ayers family and their significance in his life. As disingenuous as this is, it is by no means the most important revelation,” she wrote. “If correct, and Obama was introduced to Hulton as a Foreign Student, this means Barack Hussein Obama would have been using a Foreign Passport to get and prove his foreign student status for entrance into Occidental College, Columbia, and later Harvard Universities. Because Hulton has signed an Affidavit, this cannot be disregarded as mere hearsay; it is instead evidentiary in nature.”

Cotter also noted that the U.S. media have remained silent about Obama’s Selective Service card.

“Has the wider American media addressed any of this in context?” she asked. “It may be the largest scandal in American history, certainly the most significant constitutional crisis the nation has faced since the end of the Civil War.

“No.

“They don’t dare. …

“To be brutally clear, the power and backing of the United States Federal Government is being used to silence the press about Barack Obama. Either outright or through coercion, the media is complicit in covering up the crimes of the fraud Barack Obama and his unconstitutional government. These patterns are clear and unmistakable.”

As WND reported, Pravda also published a March 7 piece from Cotter on the topic. In that commentary, she accused the American media of being “tame,” afraid to publish news and “deliberately hiding the evidence published on the internet about [President Obama's] defrauding of the American public and the deliberate evisceration of the Constitution of the United States.”

Czech press: More known about ‘birth of Jesus two millennia ago’
Now, Neviditelný pes (translated “The Invisible Dog”), a popular news website from Prague, Czech Republic, has published a two-part series noting that even Americans seeking to apply for a driver’s license must submit proof of their identity.

According to a rough Google translation, the article explained, “It is the responsibility of applicants for the [presidency] to make available documents about his previous life – to present a birth certificate …”
The article continues, “So now we know more about the circumstances of the birth of Jesus two millennia ago than about Obama half a century ago.”

The piece offers detailed background on the eligibility issue and the investigation led by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. A roughly translated version of the series is available here and here.

The Voice of Russia: ‘Obama’s birth certificate may be forgery’
WND also reported when The Voice of Russia – successor of Radio Moscow, the official station of the Soviet Union – published an exclusive interview with Sheriff Joe Arpaio March 26 titled, “Obama’s birth certificate may be forgery.”

“Wherever I go, people commend me for doing this,” Arpaio told The Voice of Russia. “So, naturally this has been probably the biggest censorship and blackout in the history of journalism when no one from the national level will cover the story.”

However, in the recent The Voice of Russia interview, the Russian host argued that the Obama eligibility issue has been covered by “hundreds” of U.S. news outlets for years – after both Donald Trump and Arpaio brought up the question.

“Well, I wish you would tell me who they are. I’m sure it’s not national. CBS, ABC, cable?” Arpaio asked. “Just show me who has been covering it. They haven’t been covering. I’m not going to get into inside sources that say that they don’t want to cover it, that’s another issue when we are talking about the media. But where is all the news? You are calling me, you are dealing with Russia, so I have to talk to Russia to get this story out.”


Listen to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s interview with The Voice of Russia here.
Read the preliminary findings of Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse investigation after six months investigating Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president in “A Question of Eligibility,” co-authored by Jerome Corsi and Mike Zullo.

 

Boys In The Hoodies

It's all about race now

Pat Buchanan: Zimmerman is being 'crucified' in arena of public opinion

If it had been a white teenager who was shot, and a 28-year-old black guy who shot him, the black guy would have been arrested.

So assert those demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

And they may be right.

Yet if Trayvon had been shot dead by a black neighborhood watch volunteer, Jesse Jackson would not have been in a pulpit in Sanford, Fla., howling that he had been “murdered and martyred.”

Maxine Waters would not be screaming “hate crime.”

Rep. Hank Johnson would not be raging that Trayvon had been “executed.” And ex-Black Panther Bobby Rush would not have been wearing a hoodie in the well of the House.

Which tells you what this whipped-up hysteria is all about.

It is not about finding the truth about what happened that night in Sanford when Zimmerman followed Trayvon in his SUV, and the two wound up in a fight, with Trayvon dead.

It is about the exacerbation of and the exploitation of racial conflict.

And it is about an irreconcilable conflict of visions about what the real America is in the year 2012.
Zimmerman “profiled” Trayvon, we are told. And perhaps he did.

But why? What did George Zimmerman, self-styled protector of his gated community, see that night from the wheel of his SUV?

He saw a male. And males are 90 percent of prison inmates. He saw a stranger over 6 feet tall. And he saw a black man or youth with a hood over his head.

Why would this raise Zimmerman’s antennae?

Perhaps because black males between 16 and 36, though only 2 to 3 percent of the population, are responsible for a third of all our crimes.

In some cities, 40 percent of all black males are in jail or prison, on probation or parole, or have criminal records. This is not a product of white racism but of prosecutions and convictions of criminal acts.

Had Zimmerman seen a black woman or older man in his neighborhood, he likely would never have tensed up or called in.

For all the abuse he has received, Geraldo Rivera had a point.

Whenever cable TV runs hidden-camera footage of a liquor or convenience store being held up and someone behind the counter being shot, the perp is often a black male wearing a hoodie.

Listening to the heated rhetoric coming from demonstrations around the country, from the Black Caucus and TV talkers – about how America is a terrifying place for young black males to grow up in because of the constant danger from white vigilantes – one wonders what country of the mind these people are living in.

The real America is a country where the black crime rate is seven times as high as the white rate. It is a country where white criminals choose black victims in 3 percent of their crimes, but black criminals choose white victims in 45 percent of their crimes.

Black journalists point to the racism manifest even in progressive cities, where cabs deliberately pass them by to pick up white folks down the block.

That this happens is undeniable. But, again, what is behind it?

As Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has written, from January to June 2008 in New York City, 83 percent of all identified gun assailants were black and 15 percent were Hispanics.

Together, blacks and Hispanics accounted for 98 percent of gun assaults.

Translated: If a cabdriver is going to be mugged or murdered in New York City by a fare, 49 times out of 50 his assailant or killer will be black or Hispanic.

Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers has told his drivers, “Profile your passengers” for your own protection. “The God’s honest truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these guys are blacks and Hispanics.”

Fernando Mateo is himself black and Hispanic.

To much of America’s black leadership and its media auxiliaries, what happened in Sanford was, as Jesse put it, that an innocent kid was “shot down in cold blood by a vigilante.”

Yet, from police reports, witness statements, and the father and friends of Zimmerman, another picture emerges.

Zimmerman followed Trayvon, confronted him and was punched in the nose, knocked flat on his back and jumped on, getting his head pounded, when he pulled his gun and fired. That Trayvon’s body was found face down, not face up, would tend to support this.

But, to Florida Congresswoman Federica Wilson, “this sweet young boy … was hunted down like a dog, shot on the street, and his killer is still at large.”

Some Sanford police believed Zimmerman; others did not.

But now that it is being investigated by a special prosecutor, the FBI, the Justice Department and a coming grand jury, what is the purpose of this venomous portrayal of George Zimmerman?

As yet convicted of no crime, he is being crucified in the arena of public opinion as a hate-crime monster and murderer.

Is this our idea of justice?

No. But if the purpose here is to turn this into a national black-white face-off, instead of a mutual search for truth and justice, it is succeeding marvelously well.

This is Change You Can Believe In??

After Three Years of Obama, Here's Your "Change"

	January 2009	TODAY	% chg	Source
Avg. Retail price/gallon gas in U.S.	$1.83	$3.44	84%	1
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel)	$43..48	$99..02	127.7%	2
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel)	$38..74	$91..38	135.9%	2
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL	$3.56	$6.33	78.1%	2
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL	$9.66	$13..75	42.3%	2
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. Fob	$13..37	$35..39	164.7%	2
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall	7.6%	9.4%	23.7%	3
Unemployment rate, blacks	12.6%	15.8%	25.4%	3
Number of unemployed	11,616,000	14,485,000	24.7%	3
Number of fed. Employees	2,779,000	2,840,000	2.2%	3
Real median household income	$50,112	$49,777	-0.7%	4
Number of food stamp recipients	31,983,716	43,200,878	35.1%	5
Number of unemployment benefit recipients	7,526,598	9,193,838	22.2%	6
Number of long-term unemployed	2,600,000	6,400,000	146.2%	3
Poverty rate, individuals	13.2%	14.3%	8.3%	4
People in poverty in U.S.	39,800,000	43,600,000	9.5%	4
U.S. Rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings	5	9	n/a	10
Present Situation Index	29.9	23.5	-21.4%	11
Failed banks	140	164	17.1%	12
U.S. Dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate	89.76	82.03	-8.6%	2
U.S. Money supply, M1, in billions	1,575.1	1,865.7	18.4%	13
U.S. Money supply, M2, in billions	8,310.9	8,852.3	6.5%	13
National debt, in trillions	$10..627	$14..052	32.2%	14

Just take this last item: In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation's history.
Over 27 times as fast. Metaphorically speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car rockets past you in the left lane. 
27 times faster, it would be doing 7,555 MPH!

Sources:
(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. Of Labor; 
(7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; 
(13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 33 months -- so you'll have about 7 months to come up with an answer. Every statement in this email is factual and directly attributable to Barrack Hussein Obama. Every bumble is a matter of record and completely verifiable.