FORMER NAVY SEAL REBUKES OBAMA

President Barack Hussein Obama - STOP using the Navy SEALS as a campaign ploy. Because with all due respect, (what little I have for you), you do NOT speak for me.

 

 

You have a movie about SEALS within the past year trying to identify with me, with the navy SEALS, and with anything that might improve your polling numbers...and yet it is all a sham to hide a weak un-American man desperate to claim the victories of others for his own.

You Sir are trying to take the credit for what the American People have achieved in killing Bin Laden. Your use of the SEALs accomplishment as a campaign slogan is nothing less than despicable. I, as a former Navy SEAL do not accept your taking credit for Osama Bin Laden's death. The American Military accomplished that feat.

Yet now that it is useful, you Mr. President, continue to refer to the event as if it were YOU and you alone which accomplished the worthy task of slaying one of America's greatest enemies. You say "I directed", "I Continued", "My Intelligence Community", "My national security team", "I determined that I had enough....", "My direction..."

Yet reliable sources continue to report that not only did you attempt to stop or delay Bin Laden's demise, you did not even leave the golf course for the situation room until 20 minutes before SEAL Team 6 took out Osama Bin Laden. Even the clothes you wore in the situation room betray this fact. This is a Commander in Chief? A man who takes credit for actions largely taken while he was out golfing?

We men who have taken the oath, say ENOUGH. You do not speak for me, a former Navy SEAL, or any one of the league of men whom I have earned the right to be among. You are simply a man running for an office. Yet you behave as a glory-hoarding ruler. You campaign to be our leader, yet in reality you wish to be our Master.

The American people are the ones who got Bin Laden... You did Not! We have fought wars and slugged it with Vast Terror Organizations to get to the man you say YOU killed. The United Sates of America has won you a title sir and you have spent the last three years trying to beg, borrow and bow as you GIVE IT ALL AWAY. You just happened to be president of the USA when WE THE PEOPLE got Osama Bin Laden. We do not see you as heroic or stoic, we see you as the guy who let America Go. We got fat and weak and you gave it all away. That is your credit - you bow to foreign leaders and pander to the press. You do not represent me as a Military Man. You do not represent me as a SEAL. You do not represent me as an AMERICAN!

You do not speak for me or any American military man because though you may now be Commander in Chief, you are not the man to whom we can point our sons and say "This is the American dream, this is American exceptionalism, this is what I wish for your future", because you Sir are NONE of these things. You Sir, are the antithesis of American Exceptionalism. Your idols are Saul Alinksi and Karl Marx and your revolutionary dreams and anti-American ideals poison your every policy. Your every action betrays the fact that in your soul you do not understand what it is to be an American, not what America truly is. Your agenda from the beginning has been to get rid of and kill everything that is and ever was American. You who so easily dismisses America's greatness and bows to foreigners... YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE NAVY SEALS. YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE MILITARY MAN AND you SHALL NOT claim as your prize that which you have not earned. The Navy SEALS are NOT a campaign slogan to be bantered about for play. Nor are our accomplishments, including the demise of Osama Bin Laden, yours to claim.

So you DO NOT speak for me. And I will not stand for your use and abuse of my brethren the SEALS.

For Liberty,

Benjamin Smith

 

Former Navy SEAL, Benjamin Smith took an oath to defend our Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. That oath has no expiration date. As an author, speaker, political strategist and ardent Constitutionalist, Benjamin Smith continues to battle tyranny and defend the freedoms that enabled American exceptionalism. Benjamin is a regular contributor to multiple news outlets including Breitbart and Fox News.

Obama As Farce

Great article by American Thinker

Karl Marx said history repeats itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce."  Barack Obama has reversed that.  His first term was certainly farce; his second will be tragedy.

Obama has Forrest Gumped his way through his presidency, except without the success, charm, and endearing sweetness of the original.  He has given America three and a half years of farce, even if no one is laughing. 

He is an adumbrated president, desperate about his re-election prospects.  Sold as a bipartisan moderate, a post-racial healer, a transformative leader -- we were told he would not just solve our problems, but heal the earth and save humanity. 

The president has governed as a hyper-partisan, race-baiting, barely present tyrant with absolutely no leadership skills and little regard for the constitution.  His daily ululations paint anyone who dares to disagree as evil and un-American.  People are either pro-Barack or an enemy of the nation -- there is no in-between. 

It is the intangible aspects of the presidency where Barack Obama is most adept: entertaining, vacationing, and golf.  The parties are legendary and extravagant.  Bringing the NBA to the White House, or the NFL or Motown or Broadway -- when he feels like it, the party comes to him.  The vacations are even more extravagant, and the golf...everyone knows about the golf.  He may not be good, but at least he puts in the time. 

America has to pay for it all, but this is an opportunity to see the true Barack Obama, surrounded by minions and sycophants constantly telling him how great he is.  Is it any surprise he wants four more years of this? 

Obama hagiographer Davis Guggenheim has said, "I mean, the negative for me was there were too many accomplishments."  Barack wholeheartedly agrees; after all didn't he recently say, "My entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism"?

Popeil's Pocket President, brought to you by Ronco, or Rahm Emanuel -- one of those.  At least the Pocket Fisherman worked.  Barack doesn't work; it's all parties, vacations, and golf -- in between, he practices verbal assassination of anyone who disagrees.  Chin up, he turns away and looks off in the distance, à la Mussolini, as the applause and adulation reverberate from the rafters. 

"No, please," he pleads, "I do this for you."     

In less than four years, he has reduced America to the laughingstock of the world.  We are threatened by Iran with nuclear Armageddon, while he lines up a putt and tells us what his imaginary son would look like. 

He talks of "flexibility," while he plots both unilateral disarmament and the scrapping of missile defense.  With no deterrent and no defensive capability, the nation will be defenseless and impotent.

Unemployment has ravaged America; economic stagnation has destroyed families and futures.  Good people have been demonized simply for being successful; business has been terrified by threats of confiscatory taxation and the relentless assault of regulatory fiat.  Obama's trillion-dollar stimulus stimulated nothing, except the wallets of political backers and crony capitalist pals.  It actually made the economy worse by diverting money from productive business investment into the Obama for President slush fund, which is really all the stimulus ever was. 

ObamaCare, so named because he does care, is more unpopular with every passing day, while the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn the entire abominable mess.  Using procedural trickery, our transformational tyrant and his minions, Nancy and Harry, rammed it down America's throat, eking out a victory without a single Republican vote.  It's farcical that he would claim that it passed with a "strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." 

As part of this comedy of errors, standing with the president of Mexico and the Canadian PM last week, Barack Obama couldn't help but channel his inner Chevy Chase in The Three Amigos.  Our president, once a professor of constitutional law, made statements showing how ignorant he is about the Constitution, judicial review, checks and balances, and the separation of powers.  He's tried to walk those comments back, but it's hard to walk back idiocy.   

People have died from his policies, although hundreds of white Hispanics in Mexico who perished as a result of his administration's Fast and Furious program apparently don't count.  Ever faster and much more furiously, the administration is done talking about gun-walking.

Our president, who believes himself the living embodiment of American exceptionalism, veers wildly between bragging about how successful he is and puling loudly about how unfairly he is being treated.  Every jeremiad from the man is laced with an unsaid but implied "you people don't appreciate me, even after all I've done for you."  Although at times, he skips the unsaid and the implied. 

He boasts of his accomplishments, which amount to nothing more than brazenly redefining abject failure as success, or taking credit for things he had nothing to do with.  Is there anything funnier than hearing the most anti-oil president in the history of the nation take credit for oil production?  He stands in front of some pipes and makes a speech, and suddenly, he is the "Energy President."  Could he look more desperate?

To hear Barack tell it, no other president has done more for the fossil fuel industry, cut taxes for the middle class, been more supportive of business, cut regulation, or done more to increase employment and help the economy recover.  Did you hear that Osama bin Laden is still dead? 

Most laughable is his assertion that no president has ever done more to control spending, despite the $5 trillion in debt he has added in less than four years.  With a second term, he is on track to add more debt in eight years than all the presidents who came before him combined.  His budgets are a joke, with last year's failing in the Senate 97-0, and this year's losing in the House 414-0.  Even Democrats won't vote for them.

It is Obama's version of the "big lie," a lie told so often that it is accepted as truth.  The Obama variation entails many lies, big and small, told over and over again in mellifluous tone, with aggressive confidence and a joking manner that implies that anyone who doesn't believe all he says is an idiot. 

To him, Americans are morons, so intimidated by his brilliance that they will buy into his bull, become backers of Barack, and re-up on hope and change this November.  The secret to his success is that he is able to convince people that if they believe him and not what they see with their own eyes, they are geniuses, just like him.

As a rule -- with everything Barack tells us about what he has done and what he will do -- the truth is always the exact opposite.  On Seinfeld, it was called "bizarro world."  We live in Barack's backwards bizarro world. 

Unemployment, at over 8%, is at the highest protracted level since the Great Depression.  The economy is moribund, with the worst recovery from a recession, also since the Depression.  Government spending, as a percentage of GDP, is the highest since WWII.  The percentage of people employed is at its lowest level in 30 years; gasoline prices are the highest ever.  America, internationally, is at its greatest risk since the fall of the USSR.  Yet Barack constantly talks about how wonderful things are and how great he has been.  Sadly, many people believe him, and these people will vote to give him an opportunity to try again.  Scary, isn't it? 

America is circling the drain, and despite the farce that has been Obama's first term, he has his hand on the handle...and with re-election, he is going to flush.

Mark Twain said that truth is always stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.  Watching Barack Obama campaign for re-election should be funny, but it's hard to laugh when realizing how tragic four more years of this president will be for America

Original article

25 Horrible Statistics About The U.S. Economy That Barack Obama Does Not Want You To Know

 

The human capacity for self-delusion truly is remarkable.  Most people out there end up believing exactly what they want to believe even when the truth is staring them right in the face.  Take the U.S. economy for example.  

Barack Obama wants to believe that his policies have worked and that the U.S. economy is improving.  So that is what he is telling the American people.  The mainstream media wants to believe that Barack Obama is a good president and that his policies make sense and so they are reporting that we are experiencing an economic recovery.  A very large segment of the U.S. population still fully supports Barack Obama and they want to believe that the economy is getting better so they are buying the propaganda that the mainstream media is feeding them.  But is the U.S. economy really improving?  The truth is that it is not.  The rate of employment among working age Americans is exactly where it was two years ago and household incomes have actually gone down while Obama has been president.  Home ownership levels and home prices continue to decline.  Meanwhile, food and gasoline continue to become even more expensive.  The percentage of Americans that are dependent on the government is at an all-time record high and the U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars under Obama.  We simply have not seen the type of economic recovery that we have seen after every other economic recession since World War II.

The horrible statistics about the U.S. economy that you are about to read are not talked about much by the mainstream media.  They would rather be "positive" and "upbeat" about the direction that things are headed.

But lying to the American people is not going to help them.  If you are speeding in a car toward a 500 foot cliff, you don't need someone to cheer you on.  Instead, you need someone to slam on the brakes.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was four or five years ago.

We have never come close to recovering from the last recession and another one will be here soon.

The following are 25 horrible statistics about the U.S. economy that Barack Obama does not want you to know....

#1 The percentage of Americans that own homes is dropping rapidly.  According to Gallup, the current level of home ownership in the United States is the lowest that Gallup has ever measured.

#2 Home prices in the U.S. continue to fall like a rock as well.  They have declined for six months in a row and are now down a total of 35 percent from the peak of the housing bubble.  The last time that home prices in the United States were this low was back in 2002.

#3 Last year, an astounding 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

#4 Back in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer.  Today, that number is above 30 percent.

#5 When Barack Obama first became president, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was 2.6 million.  Today, it is 5.3 million.

#6 The average duration of unemployment in the United States is about three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.

#7 Despite what the mainstream media would have us to believe, the truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is not increasing.  Back in March 2010, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  In March 2011, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In March 2012, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  So how can Barack Obama and the mainstream media claim that the employment situation in the United States is getting better?  The employment rate is still essentially exactly where it was when the last recession supposedly ended.

#8 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#9 In 1962, 28 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.  In 2011, only 9 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.

#10 In some areas of Detroit, Michigan you can buy a three bedroom home for just $500.

#11 According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.

#12 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the price of gasoline has risen by more than 100 percent.

#13 The student loan debt bubble continues to expand at a very frightening pace.  Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

#14 Incredibly, one out of every four jobs in the United States pays $10 an hour or less at this point.

#15 Household incomes all over the United States continue to fall.  After adjusting for inflation, median household income in America has declined by 7.8 percent since December 2007.

#16 Over the past several decades, government dependence has risen to unprecedented heights in the United States.  The following is how I described the explosive growth of social welfare benefits in one recent article....

Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages.  In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages.  Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.

#17 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.

#18 Right now, more than 25 percent of all American children are on food stamps.

#19 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, today 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives some form of benefits from the federal government.

#20 Over the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars.  That comes to $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#21 During the first quarter of 2012, U.S. public debt rose by 359.1 billion dollars.  U.S. GDP only rose by 142.4 billion dollars.

#22 At this point, the U.S. national debt is rising by more than 2 million dollars every single minute.

#23 The U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day that Barack Obama first took office.  In a little more than 3 years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.

#24 The Federal Reserve bought up approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.

#25 The Federal Reserve continues to systematically destroy the value of the U.S. dollar.  Since 1970, the U.S. dollar has lost more than 83 percent of its value.

But the horrible economic statistics only tell part of the story.

In communities all over America there is a feeling that something fundamental has changed.  Businesses that have been around for generations are shutting their doors and there is a lot of fear in the air.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent interview with Richard Yamarone, the senior economist at Bloomberg Brief....

You have to listen to what the small businesses are telling you and right now they are telling you, ‘Hey, I’m the head of a 3rd or 4th generation, 75 or 100 year old business, and I’ve got to shut the doors’ or ‘I’ve got to let people go. And if I’m hiring anybody back, it’s only on a temporary basis.’
Sometimes they do this through a hiring firm so that they can sidestep paying unemployment benefit insurance. So that’s what’s really going on at the grassroots level of the economy. Very, very, grossly different from what you’re seeing in some of these numbers coming out in earnings releases.”

All over the country, millions of hard working Americans are desperately looking for work.  They have been told that "the recession is over", but they are still finding it incredibly difficult to find anyone that will hire them.  The following example is from a recent CNN article....

Joann Cotton, a 54-year-old Columbus, Mississippi, resident, was one of those faces of poverty we met on the tour. Unemployed for three years, Joann has gone from making "$60,000 a year to less than $15,000 overnight." Her husband is disabled and dependent on medicines the couple can no longer afford. They rely on food stamps, which, Joann says, "is depressing as hell."

Receiving government aid, however, has not been as depressing as her job search. Joann says she has applied for at least 300 jobs. Even though she can barely afford gas, she drives to the interviews only to learn that the employers want to hire younger candidates at low wages.

The experiences have taken a toll: "I've aged 10 years in the three years that I've been looking for a job," Joann told us. "I want to get a job so I can just relax and exhale ... but I can't. After a while you just give up."

Meanwhile, Barack Obama and his family continue to live the high life at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.

Even many Democrats are starting to get very upset about this.  The following is from a recent article by Paul Bedard....

Blue collar Democratic voters, stuck taking depressing “staycations” because they can’t afford gas and hotels, are resentful of the first family’s 17 lavish vacations around the world and don’t want their tax dollars paying for the Obamas’ holidays, according to a new analysis of swing voters.

It simply is not appropriate for the Obamas to be spending millions upon millions upon millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars on luxury vacations when so many Americans are deeply suffering.

But Barack Obama does not want you to know about any of this stuff.

He just wants you to buy his empty propaganda one more time so that he can continue to occupy the White House for another four years.

Original article by End of The American Dream

 

Obama's Giveaway: Oil-Rich Alaskan Islands to Russia

The Obama administration, despite the nation’s economic woes, effectively killed the job-producing Keystone Pipeline last month. The Arab Spring is turning the oil production of Libya and other Arab nations over to the Muslim Brotherhood. Iraq is distancing itself from the U.S. And everyone recognizes that Iran, whose crude supplies are critical to the European economy, will do anything it can to frustrate America’s strategic interests. In the face of all of this, Obama insists on cutting back U.S. oil potential with outrageous restrictions.

Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.

The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake.

The State Department has undertaken the giveaway in the guise of a maritime boundary agreement between Alaska and Siberia. Astoundingly, our federal government itself drew the line to put these seven Alaskan islands on the Russian side. But as an executive agreement, it could be reversed with the stroke of a pen by President Obama or Secretary Clinton.

The agreement was negotiated in total secrecy. The state of Alaska was not allowed to participate in the negotiations, nor was the public given any opportunity for comment. This is despite the fact the Alaska Legislature has passed resolutions of opposition – but the State Department doesn’t seem to care.

The imperiled Arctic Ocean islands include Wrangel, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta. Wrangel became American in 1881 with the landing of the U.S. Revenue Marine ship Thomas Corwin. The landing party included the famed naturalist John Muir. It is 3,000 square miles in size.

Northwest of Wrangel are the DeLong Islands, named for George Washington DeLong, the captain of USS Jeannette. Also in 1881, he discovered and claimed these three islands for the United States. He named them for the voyage co-sponsor, New York City newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett. The ship’s crew received a hero’s welcome back in Washington, and Congress awarded them gold medals.

In the Bering Sea at the far west end of the Aleutian chain are Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rock. They were ceded to the U.S. in Seward’s 1867 treaty with Russia.

Now is the time for the Obama administration to stand up for U.S. and Alaskan rights and invaluable resources. The State Department’s maritime agreement is a loser – it gives us nothing in return for giving up Alaska’s sovereign territory and invaluable resources. We won the Cold War and should start acting like it.

The Obama administration must stop the giveaway immediately.

Author’s addendum, Feb. 17, 2012: This is not a new issue. In fact the Bush and Clinton administrations are directly at fault for the same inaction. A maritime agreement negotiated by the U.S. State Department set the Russian boundary on the other side of the disputed islands, but no treaty has ratified this action. Consequently, it is within the president’s power to stop this giveaway. The Alaska delegation’s failure to put pressure on the administration is inexplicable. State Department Watch, an organization that assisted with this article, has confronted each administration and is currently confronting the Obama administration — and has been met by silence. I’m hoping this piece will help reinvigorate efforts to stop this handover.

Joe Miller was the 2010 Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Alaska. He is a West Point graduate and decorated combat veteran from the first Gulf War. A former judge, Joe graduated from Yale Law School and was later awarded an advanced economics degree from the University of Alaska. He is presently chairman of Restoring Liberty Alaska PAC and Restoring Liberty Action Committee.

Original article at WND

ICE Admits Releasing Accused Illegal Alien Child Rapist

Obama needs to save what little face he has left and fire Director of ICE, John Morton and DHS Director Janet (The Nazi) Napolitano. They are rogue players who need to be kicked off the team - the losing team at that.

Wake Up America!

Original article

Stand With Arizona has chronicled Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) outrageous new directives, instantly removing between 300,000 and 1.4 million illegal aliens from the “enforcement priority” list – in effect granting them indefinite amnesty from deportation, without any authorization from Congress whatsoever.

The rationale given for this lawless amnesty from ICE Director John Morton is that he would  have a “sustained focus on criminal offenders“.

Instead we have chronicled one failure after another by ICE to detain or even keep track of criminal illegals and repeat offenders who present imminent risks to the public – such as  Carlos Montano – three times released by ICE after DUIs – who went on to kill a Benedictine nun while drunk driving again in Virginia in 2010.

But ICE has now made a complete mockery of its new “enforcement priorities” by releasing an accused serial child rapist in Cook County, IL:  Amado Espinosa-Ramirez, who has been charged with 42 counts of “predatory sexual acts”, including  children.

After his arrest last August, Espinosa-Ramirez was at the time charged with a 6 counts of sexual assault (the other 35 to be discovered in the weeks to come), and was given a ridiculously low $100,000 bond amount by Circuit Court Judge Maria Kuriakos-Ciesil, of the notorious sanctuary refuge for illegals, Cook County. This meant a $10,000 payment would bail him out of jail – an outrage in itself.

However, after a “friend” did in fact bail him out, ICE did in fact take possession of Espinosa-Ramirez, as is standard under “immigration detainer” regulations.

But ICE then inexplicably let him go – “released the same day pending a hearing before an immigration judge“. But like the vast majority of illegal aliens given a court hearing date, Espinosa-Ramirez vanished into thin air.

Except he was not like any other illegal alien criminals we can ever recall…

A publicly available inventory of the charges against Espinosa-Ramirez lists multiple counts of sexual relations within the family, multiple counts of sexual assault with the use of force and multiple counts of sexual assault involving a minor less than thirteen years old.

Forty-two counts of “predatory sexual acts” from this monster. And now he is on the loose once again – thanks to ICE.

When is Congress going to step in and stop the gross incompetence of this organization and its – for lack of a better term – leadership? We are still waiting for Congress to challenge the Obama/ICE virtual amnesty that – without any authorization whatsoever – canceled deportations for over a million illegal invaders.

Nor has Congress challenged DHS’ Napolitano’s unilateral decision to terminate the 287(g)  program for Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maricopa County, AZ, and for ALL of Alabama – putting the public at increased risk in childish retaliation for their passing laws to enforce existing Federal laws against illegals.

This Administration is out of control on immigration – all in a cynical attempt to secure the Latino vote by sowing racial discord. If this latest outrage does not light a fire under the butts of Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), or Government Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), and force them to DO SOMETHING about it – then nothing will.

---

ACT NOW: Call Congressional Leaders and demand they haul ICE Director John Morton and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano before them and demand answers as to why serial child rapist Amado Espinosa-Ramirez was set free to victimize more children.

• House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX): (202) 225-4236 | FACEBOOK
• Government Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA): (202) 225-3906 | Email (f0rm) |  FACEBOOK
• Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA): (202) 224-3744 | Email | FACEBOOK

We would give you the contact info for Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), but it would be as useless as calling the Mexican President.

Obama's Cost Estimate For Health Insurance Aid Rises By $111B

Buried deep in Obama's budget was an increase of ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN BILLION DOLLARS for his health care insurance aid program that they tried to slip in without notice. When questioned about it, Barry O's inept administration officials tried to explain away the increase as "..budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program."

Since when did $111,000,000,000 of your tax payer money become "NOT significant?"

Wake Up America! 

Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated ten-year cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent. 

Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program. 

The revised numbers, buried deep in the president's budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials for most of the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes. 

At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that will open for business in 2014. 

Last year's budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2011. This year's budget puts it at $478 billion over the same time period. 

"This staggering increase ... cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions regarding the program's ... costs," Camp wrote Friday in a letter to Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. 

Republicans say they're concerned that either the estimated cost of the insurance has gone up, or that the administration has determined many more people will be losing employer coverage and going into the new government-subsidized markets, which will be called exchanges. 

Administration officials say the big increase from last year's estimates is no cause for alarm and that the administration is not forecasting an erosion of employer coverage or higher insurance costs. 

About two-thirds of the increase is due to effects of newly signed legislation that raises costs for one part of the health care law, but still saves the government money overall. The rest is due to technical changes in Treasury assumptions about such matters as the distribution of income in America. 

"The estimates do not assume changes in what exchanges look like, the cost of insurance, or the number of Americans who will get their insurance in this new marketplace," Treasury spokeswoman Sabrina Siddiqui said in a statement Friday. 

That explanation has drawn skepticism from Ways and Means Committee Republican staff members.

Fox News

Green Company Gets $390 Million In Government Subsidies Then Lays Off 125 While Giving Raises To Top Execs

Another Department of Energy Debacle? Taxpayers, you should be proud of Obama's  inept appointee, Steven Chu; this time your loss is only a quarter of a billion dollars.  Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Wake Up America! 

Your hard earned tax dollars are like dust in the wind with that bungling bunch of idiots.

A123 Systems, an electric car battery company once touted as a stimulus "success story" by former Gov. Jennifer Granhom, D-Mich., has laid off 125 employees since receiving $390 million in government subsidies - but is still handing out big pay raises to company executives.

The Department of Energy gave the battery company $249.1 million in grant money, while the Michigan government provided A123 with another $141 million in tax credits and subsidies, according to the Mackinac Center.

"[T]he company has laid off 125 employees and had a net loss of $172 million through the first three quarters of 2011," the Mackinac Center for Public Policy reports, observing that the company's primary customer, Fisker Automotive, is also struggling financially. "Yet, this month A123’s Compensation Committee approved a $30,000 raise for [Chief Financial Officer David] Prystash just days after Fisker Automotive announced the U.S. Energy Department had cut off what was left of its $528.7 million loan it had previously received."

This month has seen significant pay boosts for other A123 executives, as well:

Robert Johnson, vice president of the energy solutions group, got a 20.7 percent pay increase going from $331,250 to $400,000, while Jason Forcier, vice president of the automotive solutions group, saw his pay increase from $331,250 to $350,000. Prystash’s raise was 8.5 percent, going from $350,000 to $380,000.

"It looks like they are trying to pad their top people’s wallets in case something really bad happens," Paul Chesser, associate fellow for the National Legal & Policy Center, suggested.

Washington Examiner

America's Per Capita Debt Worse Than Greece (Graph)

Think America Can't Burn Like Greece? Think Again!

 

 

Under Obama's Plan, Gross Federal Debt Alone Soars to $75,000 Per Capita in 2022

Obama Administration Invested Billions in Companies Supported by Energy Department Insiders

 If you think the incestuous glad handing within the Obama clique at the DOE ended with the exposure of Solyndra, think again. This time, Barry O's cronies - or friends of cronies - are set to receive another 4 BILLION DOLLARS of your taxpayer money for their pet projects. 

If it looks like a rat, and smells like a rat..it IS a rat.

Wake Up America!

Following on the Solyndra controversy, the Department of Energy under President Barack Obama is now accused of funneling billions of dollars in funding to companies that have connections within the department.

An investigation by The Washington Post found that the Energy Department has approved nearly $4 billion in federal grants and financing to 21 companies supported by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.

Of this amount, $2.46 billion flowed to nine businesses that have ties to VantagePoint Venture Partners, a venture capital firm where Sanjay Wagle, an Energy Department adviser, worked before coming to Washington.

The other four officials identified by the Post include Assistant Secretary David Sandalow, who previously worked for Good Energies, a company that received $737 million from the Energy Department; and Steve Westly, a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur and now a member of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s advisory board. The Westly Group took in $600 million in federal financing.

The Obama administration says that the Energy Department employees and advisers took no part in grant-making decisions, which would mean that these business windfalls were just happy coincidences.

AllGov

Obama’s Made-Up Jobless Numbers. Its' Nice To Be Dictator

 

When it comes to the unemployment rate, it’s nice to be president.

Sure, it wasn’t so nice for President Obama in October 2009, when the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics declared the rate was 10 percent. But exactly a year from Election Day 2012, the rate began a precipitous plunge, first to 8.9 percent, then the next month, to 8.7, then to 8.5. And just last week, the BLS said the rate had fallen all the way down to 8.3 percent.

If the spectacular “recovery” keeps up at the same pace, the rate will be 6.3 percent by Nov. 6. It hasn’t been that low since — well, all but four of the 96 months George W. Bush was in office. But you get the point. America is back!! 

Woo-hoooo!!

So, spectacular news for the president, yes? And fantastic news for America, right? Uh, yes. And absolutely no.

See, the BLS boys, no doubt at the president’s direction, are busy rewriting the rules, and they’re in uncharted, and unchecked, territory. The federal government Friday declared that the U.S. had created — not “saved,” mind you, “created” — 243,000 jobs. Amazing, right?

But wait, what’s that little asterisk here? A record 1.2 million Americans left the labor force? 1.2 million?! Well, where’d they go? Oh, just left? Well, OK. But no, wait. What does that even mean?

Zerohedge.com’s Tyler Durden precisely spelled out the government version of “Project Mayhem”:

“A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55 percent. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: It appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non-institutional population increased to 242.3 million, meaning those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30-year low of 63.7 percent as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.”

The labor force rate — all workers more than 16 years old — climbed above 66 percent in October 1988. It stayed there throughout the term of President George H.W. Bush, and topped 67 percent for 40 consecutive months during President Clinton’s two terms. The rate stayed above 66 percent for almost all of President George W. Bush’s two terms.

But the month Mr. Obama was elected, the rate dropped to 65.8 percent. By the end of his first year in office, the BLS said the labor participation rate was just 64.6 percent. And last month, for the first time in nearly 30 years, the rate dropped all the way down to 63.7 percent.

Still, month after month, the mainstream media laps up reports of a falling unemployment rate. “U.S. Jobless Rate Falls to 8.3 Percent, a 3-Year Low,” blared the New York Times. “The nation’s unemployment rate dropped for the fifth straight month, to 8.3 percent, its lowest level in three years, the Labor Department reported Friday, with widespread hiring across the economy,” declared the Washington Post.

Clearly, they hadn’t read the major financial papers the month before. When the unemployment rate dropped to 8.5 percent in December, the Financial Times wasn’t convinced. “According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.”

And they must have ignored the Gallup write-up the month before: “The sharp drop in the government-reported unemployment rate for November and the sharp drop in jobless claims during the most recent reporting week have combined to create the perception that the job market may be improving … . In contrast, Gallup’s data suggest little improvement in the jobs situation.” The organization concluded: “It may be wise to exercise caution in interpreting the drop in the government’s most recent jobless claims numbers.”

No one in the mainstream media, busy rewriting the government’s press release on Friday, will bother to question the newest number, or explore what trimtabs.com CEO Charles Biderman said that very day: “Actual jobs outstanding, not seasonally adjusted, are down 2.9 million over the past two months. It is only after seasonal adjustments — made at the sole discretion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics economists — that 2.9 million less jobs gets translated into 446,000 new seasonally adjusted jobs for January and December.

“No one I know has any idea as to how the BLS does this seasonal adjustment,” he said.

When Project Mayhem has run its course, Tyler Durden looking out across the city, where banks and financial institutions are about to implode, says: “Out these windows, we will view the economic collapse. One step closer to global equilibrium.”

Indeed.

Article by Joseph Curl, Washington Times

Bruins Goalie Tim Thomas Declines White House Visit – Does Not Agree With Barry O’s Politics

Boston Bruins goalie, Tim Thomas, is our new sports hero! He had the cajones to let Obama know his fancy (and hopefully short-lived) residence is not reason enough to compromise his beliefs. If only the rest of the team would get on board...

Boston Bruins' star goaltender Tim Thomas skipped Monday's White House visit by the Stanley Cup champions due to political differences with President Barack Obama.

Thomas, a Flint, Mich., native and one of only two American players on the Bruins' Stanley Cup roster last season, was the only Boston player to decline the invitation.

"I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People," Thomas said in a statement.

"This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government," he wrote.

"Because I believe this, today (Monday) I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL."

Thomas, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in last year's playoffs, is known to be a political conservative and has publicly stated he is a fan of right-wing commentator Glenn Beck, according to Boston sports radio website WEEI.com.

"Everybody has their own opinions and political beliefs and he chose not to join us," team president Cam Neely said, according to ESPNBoston.com. "We certainly would have liked to have him come and join us, but that's his choice."

In brief remarks, President Obama noted Thomas' stellar play on the title run, even though the netminder appears unlikely to return the compliment.

"This Stanley Cup was won by defense as much as by offense," Obama said. "Tim Thomas posted two shutouts in the Stanley Cup Finals and set an all-time record for saves in the postseason and he also earned the honor of being only the second American ever to be recognized as the Stanley Cup playoffs MVP."

Thomas also won the Vezina Trophy last season as the league's top goalie, helping the Bruins raise the cup for the first time in 39 years.

Article by FoxNews

The Truth About ObamaCare (Video)

In case you haven't educated yourself about Government Health Care Bill H.R. 3200, it might be worth your while to watch this video. ObamaCare is Socialism at its worst.

Wake Up America!

Barack...You've Been Punked!

Vice President Biden Says He Doesn't Know Who Van Jones Is. Well Joe.. He Is A Radical Commie. Now You Know

Senile Joe is obviously being kept in the dark by Obama and his Marxist buddies. He is not even aware Barry O. once had the radical commie, Van Jones, as his "Green Czar" and still keeps him around as a trusted insider. 

This administration is more dysfunctional than the Addams Family.

Wake Up America!

In a radio interview Tuesday, Vice President Biden said he didn't know who Van Jones, the former so-called White House "Green Czar," who resigned amid controversy in 2009, is.

Biden was asked about the Tea Party and Van Jones' organization while talking to Tampa radio station 970 WFLA. Jones recently announced he was creating a movement out of the "Occupy Wall Street" group which has been protesting the financial sector in New York City this week.

"I really don't know about the Van Jones group, except what I read in the press," the vice president said when asked.

He went on to say, "There's a great frustration here in America that the two parties haven't been able to get very much moving. We have been in this period where there is just nothing but fighting, and so you have on the one hand Van Jones' guys. whoever he is."

Host Jack Harris then interrupted and pointed out Jones used to work in the Obama administration, at which the host and Biden briefly laughed.

"Oh is that - alright," Biden said.

The Jones group has been presenting its ideas this week at a conference in D.C. Over the weekend, Jones announced he would be launching an "October Offensive" out of the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street protests as a chance to counter the influence of the Tea Party.

Biden was in Florida touting the American Jobs Act and said how it would help jobs for teachers.

As for the Tea Party, Biden actually had some positive things to say, even connecting their mission to Jones'. "And, by the way, I don't disrespect the Tea Party, I think the Tea Party and the Van Jones folks are part - different halves of the same concern, there's an overwhelming frustration," he said.

"The point is talking about the excesses of Wall Street and there's some truth in what he [Jones] says and the Tea Party, there's some truth in what they say, I don't have a disagreement."

Jones left his position as "Green Czar," which was a new administration position, after there were questions raised about his political past, including allegations of ties to a group in the 1990s that associated with Marxism, and his name appearing on a petition for the so-called 9/11 "truther" movement, which questions what happened and if the government actually was covering something up or mischaracterized what happened on September 11th.

Article by Kimberly Schwandt, Fox News

Where's That Green Jobs Revolution Obama Promised?

When Obama first came into office in 2009, he did so on the back of a promise to usher in a green jobs revolution of sorts -- with an intent to employ 5 million people in sectors like clean energy and efficiency improvement retrofitting. And while he did manage to secure the largest sum of funding for clean energy research and green initiatives in the stimulus bill that year, needless to say, no such 'revolution' has happened. Strides have been made, but 10% of the nation is still unemployed, and clean energy -- though growing faster than most other industries -- remains relatively small-scale. So what happened?

Politico offers an unsatisfying take:
 

President Barack Obama heads to an energy plant in North Carolina today to talk once again about the job-creating power of a green economy. The catch? Nearly three years into Obama's presidency, the White House can't point to much solid evidence that significant numbers of Americans are scoring the green jobs the president has been touting.

 Monthly Labor Department employment reports say nothing about the new clean energy workforce, while an effort to document how many Americans actually make a living in the "green collar" field may not be done by November 2012. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers suggests 225,000 clean energy jobs were either created or preserved through the third quarter of 2010 thanks to more than $80 billion in the economic stimulus package. But those are estimates at best.

Politico's article is rather silly, because the 'lack of evidence' it refers to isn't due to a lack of actual green job creation, but lack of good statistics. By the CEA's count, the stimulus created or saved around one million jobs in its first year. And there's no doubt that tax relief for green projects is helping spur the boom in cleantech -- and making it one of the nation's fastest-growing industries.

But there is a reason that we haven't seen the kind of 'Green New Deal' that many were hoping for to help get the nation's unemployed back to work and nascent clean energy industry kicked into high gear -- a lack of adequate, sustained funding. Top economists (even some of Obama's advisers) routinely called for a larger stimulus package back in 2009, and Obama didn't heed them -- largely due to immense pushback from the GOP, which was overwhelmingly opposed to the idea. Like the rest of the stimulus, the green jobs initiatives included in it were simply too small to make any transition towards a cleaner economy seem palpable.

So despite consistent gains and progress in the sector, those gains never felt front and center to the American public. And they simply weren't big enough drastically alter the nation's employment picture. If we want green jobs to take root, we're going to have to either a) direct a major, sustained boost of stimulus investment in cleantech, building efficiency, and renewable energy sectors or b) price carbon. Stripping subsidies from fossil fuel companies would help. Barring that, we won't be seeing that green jobs revolution anytime soon. 

Article by Brian Merchant, TreeHugger