Tag: oppression

Rand Paul’s moment of glory.

9:09 am

Rand Paul’s moment of glory.

Then there’s this: Will the left finally get the Tea Party now?

As [the left] seethes in outrage and confusion that it took a Republican to question the constitutionality of drone attacks, it is important to remind our friends on the other side that it wasn’t just any Republican, but a–gasp!–Tea Party Republican who spoke “truth to power.” Not only that, but the Senators who were first to offer their assistance were also Tea Party Republicans–the so-called McCarthyist Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco “Water Break” Rubio of Florida. All three of these Senators won their primary elections against candidates favored by the Republican establishment. All three have been attacked by the left and smeared as racist and extremist for belonging to the Tea Party. Yet without them, no one from either party would have questioned a policy that the left once saw as a dangerous abuse of executive power.

I personally am disappointed that the filibuster has ended. All told it was just a bit of sound and fury signifying nothing, as John Brennan’s nomination for CIA director will still get approved and our decline towards tyranny will continue.

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One week before the sequester cuts took effect, the TSA issued a $50 million contract for new uniforms.

9:14 am

Someone’s lying: One week before the sequester cuts took effect, the TSA issued a $50 million contract for new uniforms.

I find these quotes from the article most interesting:

The TSA employs 50,000 security officers, inspectors, air marshals and managers. That means that the uniform contract will pay the equivalent of $1,000 per TSA employee over the course of the year.
…
The TSA provides uniforms to new employees, but requires its employees to buy their own replacements. “You will be measured for your new uniforms at your first orientation session,” the fact sheet says. “TSA will provide your initial uniform issue consisting of 3 long sleeve shirts, 3 short sleeve shirts, 2 pairs of trousers, 2 ties, and one belt, sweater, socks, and jacket.”

$1,000 per uniform? And only for first time employees? At a time Janet Napolitano is claiming they will be forced to lay off workers because of sequestration? As I said, someone is lying. Or they are so incompetent words fail me.

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More reporters admit to being threatened by the White House.

7:29 pm

More reporters admit to being threatened by the White House.

What is shameful about this is how willing these reporters — some of whom are quite powerful — to tolerate this abusive, intolerant, and even oppressive behavior from this White House. Imagine if an official in the Bush White House had done the same? Would these same reporters have simply shrugged their shoulders and made believe it didn’t matter? Not on your life.

In other words, these mainstream reporters are nothing more than boot-licking lackeys for Obama and the Democratic Party. They will tolerate any abuse in order to support their liberal policies and to remain their friends.

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The Obama administration today released more than 700 pages of new regulations to implement parts of Obamacare.

7:46 pm

Finding out what’s in it: The Obama administration today released more than 700 pages of new regulations to implement parts of Obamacare.

Won’t it be nice to have to deal with the equivalent of the Motor Vehicle Administration whenever you have to see your doctor in the future?

To me, the most irritating thing about this might not be the law itself, but having to hear people who voted for Obama complain about it. And they will complain. Everyone will. I guarantee it.

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The Democratically controlled Senate is about to mark up its first budget in four years!

7:20 pm

Gasp! The Democratically controlled Senate is about to mark up its first budget in four years!

It appears that sequestration and the expiration at the end of this month of the most recent continuing resolution is finally forcing the Democrats to act responsibly and actually do their job. If (and that’s a very big word) the Republicans stand firm in the House, they might be able to force the Democrats in the Senate to write a reasonable budget. For one thing, if a real budget is passed instead of the continuing resolutions we’ve been stuck with for the past four years — because of the Senate’s refusal to pass a budget — we might finally be able to stop paying for Obama’s so-called onetime 2009 stimulus bill, year after year after year.

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Hail Armageddon

8:59 am

“Hail Armageddon.”

The Obama administration has every incentive to make the sky fall, lest we suffer that terrible calamity — cuts the nation survives. Are they threatening to pare back consultants, conferences, travel and other nonessential fluff? Hardly. It shall be air-traffic control. Meat inspection. Weather forecasting.

A 2011 Government Accountability Office report gave a sampling of the vastness of what could be cut, consolidated and rationalized in Washington: 44 overlapping job training programs, 18 for nutrition assistance, 82 (!) on teacher quality, 56 dealing with financial literacy, more than 20 for homelessness, etc. Total annual cost: $100 billion-$200 billion, about two to five times the entire domestic sequester.

Are these on the chopping block? No sir. It’s firemen first. That’s the phrase coined in 1976 by legendary Washington Monthly editor Charlie Peters to describe the way government functionaries beat back budget cuts. Dare suggest a nick in the city budget, and the mayor immediately shuts down the firehouse. The DMV back office, stacked with nepotistic incompetents, remains intact. Shrink it and no one would notice. Sell the firetruck — the people scream and the city council falls silent about any future cuts.

After all, the sequester is just one-half of 1 percent of GDP. It amounts to 1.4 cents on the dollar of nondefense spending, 2 cents overall.

The only reason sequestration will cause a shut down of government services will because Barack Obama and his administration choose to do so. Keep that in mind if you discover that lines at the airport have suddenly grow to hours.

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A bill in Congress would strip the Constitutional rights from any Americans being prosecuted by an American Indian tribe under Indian law.

9:14 am

Whose side are they on? A bill in Congress would strip the Constitutional rights from any Americans being prosecuted by an American Indian tribe under Indian law.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the language in this Senate bill, if enacted, means that “the Constitution will not apply” to Americans tried by Indian tribes for alleged acts of domestic violence. These Americans, according to the CRS, will not have recourse to the Bill of Rights.

In truth, Congress does not have the right to pass any law that voids the rights outlined in the Constitution. But this law will force citizens to go to court to fight for those rights.

More details about the law, which has already passed the Senate, here. It appears that the Republicans are once again folding like a house of cards on this battle.

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A wonderful montage of people refusing to answer questions at Border Patrol checkpoints.

12:16 am

A wonderful montage of people refusing to answer questions at Border Patrol checkpoints.

I’ve embedded the montage below the fold. I especially like the one near the end, where the man driving the motor home expressly tells the officer that he is not exiting his vehicle and that they are not getting inside without a warrant. The officer eventually has to back down because that is exactly right: without a warrant they have no right to search his vehicle.

The best however is the last.
» Read more

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Bob Woodward said today that a senior White House official threatened him for his critical reporting of Obama concerning sequestration.

11:41 pm

Transparency! Bob Woodward said today that a senior White House official threatened him for his critical reporting of Obama concerning sequestration.

A more detailed report can be found here, with this quote:

The Obama aide, Woodward told Politico, “yelled at me for about a half hour” as well. “I’ve tangled with lots of these people,” Woodward said. “But suppose there’s a young reporter who’s only had a couple of years – or 10 years’ – experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, ‘You’re going to regret this.’ You know, tremble, tremble, tremble. I don’t think it’s the way to operate.”

Update: The White Office has backed down, making public an email written by that senior official to Woodward, apologizing for the above-mentioned threats.

Update #2: Meanwhile, partisan Democrat Lanny Davis has said that he too has been threatened by a senior White House official for writing columns that are critical of Obama.

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A new GAO report says that Obamacare will increase the federal government’s long term debt by $6.2 trillion.

11:45 am

Who woulda thunk it? A new GAO report says that Obamacare will increase the federal government’s long term debt by $6.2 trillion.

The worse part of this is that these government predictions of debt are always wrong, but in the wrong direction. If this is the prediction, the actual increase in debt caused by Obamacare is likely to be far higher.

Note also that this is no surprise to the Republicans who opposed this bill. It also proves just how much Obama was either incompetent or simply lying when he said this:

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future,” Obama told a joint-session of Congress in September 2009. “I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.”

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Even as Democratic lawmakers scream for more gun control laws, the enforcement of the current laws by the Obama administration has declined by 40 percent.

10:36 am

Incompetence: Even as Democratic lawmakers scream for more gun control laws, the enforcement of the current laws by the Obama administration has declined by 40 percent.

The Syracuse study found the number of federal weapons prosecutions fell from about 11,000 in 2004 to about 6,000 under the Obama administration in 2011 — and ticked up to 7,770 in 2012. The GOP letter also cited data from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), which found in 2010, of 6 million Americans who applied to buy a gun, less than 2 percent — or 76,000 — were denied. Of those, the ATF referred 4,732 cases for prosecution. Of them, just 44 were prosecuted, and only 13 were punished for lying or buying a gun illegally.

Gee, if these idiots really care about “the children,” maybe the first thing they should do is handle the responsibilities they’ve already given themselves?

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