This one is really really going to work this time. I promise!
Last Saturday, Obama unveiled his new stimulus plan — a list of more things for the government to do in order to create new jobs. That means more government spending.
The president’s list includes an expanded program to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, a proposal to give small businesses tax breaks for hiring more workers, a program that would help veterans find jobs, and an extension of tax credits for clean-energy companies.
The Washington Times reports that the cost for this new stimulus plan could be nearly $35 billion. Additionally, much of the parts of this “plan” are recycled ideas from the proposed Jobs Package that hasn’t gained much traction in Congress.
Obama’s new stimulus plan of old ideas seems more like election rhetoric aimed to appeal to voting blocs — veterans, struggling homeowners, green energy, and small businesses. Let’s hope they see through his tired, unpopular ideas.
The State Department last year tried to put off a decision about TransCanada’s first application until after the election, arguing it needed more time to study the issue. That move delighted the president’s environmental allies who fear a future catastrophe, but angered many of his labor union supporters, who say the pipeline will produce jobs.
Congress then passed a bill requiring the president to expedite his decision, and faced with the tighter deadline the State Department ruled against the application.
Now, Republicans said Mr. Obama has a do-over.
Indeed. As I’ve stated in prior posts, passage of Keystone Pipeline project is important because the very fact of a project of this magnitude moving ahead has an immediate effect on the markets by changing the traders’ expectations of future supply.
For the Obama administration, the development has been politically troublesome, pitting environmentalists opposed to increased fossil fuel use and pipelines through sensitive areas against unions and other Democrats who say it will create badly needed jobs in a shaky economy.
With this question coming up within 6 months of an presidential election, it will be interesting to see if Obama continues to pander to his environment base, or appeal to voters who wish to see job creation and economic recovery.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claims to only deal with “hatred of people based on class characteristics,”. So when Charles Cooke of National Review Online decided to inquire if the SPLC would be the watchdog it claims to be and follow and investigate a group of Occupy-affiliated men who planned to blow up a bridge, he was told they would not.
When Mr. Cooke asked for further clarification, he was told the following: 1) “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left”, and 2) We only ever cover left-wing groups when they have a right-wing component . . .for example, “when anarchist groups are infiltrated by those on the right; Neo-Nazis, that sort of thing.”
At least they were open about their flagrant bias.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) was seriously thinking about getting a budget on the table, but according to The Hill, he “bowed to pressure from fellow Democrats on Tuesday and postponed a committee vote on a 2013 budget resolution, most likely until after the November elections
the last time Senate Democrats passed a budget, a gallon of gas cost about half what it does now, the debt was $4.5 trillion dollars less than it is today, and ObamaCare was just a twinkle in the president’s eye,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Meanwhile, Katherine Revello over at Conservative Ntaews Daily, shared a picture from 4/18/12 from the Twitter account of the GOP Senate Budget Committee (@BudgetGOP) . The empty chairs at that meeting belong to the Democrat members of the Committee. Hard to get much done, I would think.
So, as of Sunday, April 29th, we will be officially 1096 days without a budget. 3 full years. Trillions more in debt.
First we had Energy Secretary Chu admit that high gas prices are a good thing. Now, we have the EPA — a darling agency of the Obama Administration — describe on video that the
EPA’s “general philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies.
The video is below.
Senator Inhofe went on to remark that
the video provides Americans with “a glimpse of the Obama administration’s true agenda.”
That agenda, Inhofe said, is to “incite fear” in the public with unsubstantiated claims and “intimidate” oil and gas companies with threats of unjustified fines and penalties – then, quietly backtrack once the public’s perception has been firmly jaded against oil and natural gas.
As I have written here before, the President has been able to effectively pass laws which Congress has not passed through the use of the Executive Order and his government agencies. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seems to be one of his most popular. For instance, limitations on emissions were passed as a set of rules by the EPA, implementing almost the entirety of the cap-and-trade bill which failed in the Congress. Now the EPA strikes again!
long-awaited rules to limit carbon-dioxide emissions from new power plants that will effectively block the construction of new coal-burning plants and make natural gas even more attractive as a fuel for generating electricity.
New power plants have a emissions limitation of 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity produced. This affects new coal plants because they must be fitted with special equipment which catches the emissions and stores them. The cost to do so is extremely expensive, and a pilot program has shown it is not economically viable.
AEP pulled the plug last summer on a high-profile pilot program to capture emissions from one of its plants in West Virginia because the utility couldn’t recover the costs of the program from its customers.
These unnecessary regulations could spell the end of coal-burning plants, which admittedly, is a goal of the Obama administration. Obama is pushing natural gas as an alternative fuel for generating electricity. The demise of the coal industry, however, would be a huge loss of income and jobs for many states, something Obama fails to mention. Apparently, excessive regulations trump the economy. Glad we have the EPA to help us along!
On this two year anniversary of ObamaCare, we must remember a greater anniversary, the sage words spoken 237 years ago today.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
This begs the question. If ObamaCare was such a monumental piece of legislation as the White House claims, why no mention in the news today?
This morning, Rasmussen released the results of its latest poll regarding the Texas Voter ID law blocked by the Department of Justice on Monday. 56% polled opposed the DoJ ruling. However, even more disturbing than the ruling was another item in the report:
… the United Nations is now investigating the fairness of such laws in Texas and other states. But voters in this country still overwhelmingly support voter ID laws and don’t think they discriminate.
The United Nations Human Rights Council is investigating the issue of American election laws at its gathering on minority rights in Geneva, Switzerland.. This, despite the fact that some members of the council have only in the past several years allowed women to vote, and one member, Saudi Arabia, still bars women from the voting booth completely.
Officials from the NAACP are presenting their case against U.S. voter ID laws, arguing to the international diplomats that the requirements disenfranchise voters and suppress the minority vote.
Of course, the UN has no jurisdiction over our laws, and the NAACP admitted as such. Additionally, the Supreme Court upheld a Voter ID law in 2008 by rejecting the challenge presented to SCOTUS.
This line of events opening the door to the United Nations injecting themselves into American laws is a slippery slope we don’t want to go down. Since it has time to focus on the US, this must mean that the United Nations has already done its job in Haiti, Iran, and other places that are working on fair and free elections as well….
Watching Meet the Press this past Sunday was a remarkable experience. Among the roundtable contributors were Peggy Noonan, Al Sharpton, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn. The show was fairly enjoyable throughout most of the program – including a very civil discussion about women.
Then right before the close of the program, moderator David Gregory asks Al Sharpton about his recreation of the old Selma to Montgomery march (1965). Sharpton launches into a tirade about how we need to do this march again because our government is trying to disenfranchise millions of people.
REV. SHARPTON: The message is that with the new voter ID laws being proposed in over 30 states, the Brennan Institute says it will disenfranchise five million people. There has been no established reason to change the laws. There’s no widespread fraud that has been in any way documented. And we do, do not believe that we should have these millions of peoples disenfranchised. This is–has a disproportionate impact on young people, seniors and minorities. And immigration laws in Alabama are horrendous and we think they violate the civil rights of people. And we sought to dramatize, not just to commemorate 47 years ago, but to continue today to fight those issues.
Incredibly, this ludicrous and partisan comment goes unanswered. David Gregory just nods along and doesn’t even respond, and neither does Peggy Noonan. Gregory switches topics and wraps up the program with a quick analysis of the upcoming primary on Tuesday, March 13.
Watching this unfold made the whole program seem like a set-up. Everything was quite civil earlier on, so when Sharpton made his outrageous remark, no one batted an eye or refuted the absurdity. It allowed the program to pretty much end with Sharpton’s statement out there to the audience.
Therefore, I was jaded enough to not even be surprised when, the following morning (Monday), the Department of Justice announced the following:
The Justice Department’s civil rights division on Monday objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.
Texas follows South Carolina as the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over new photo ID requirements for voters.
Should I even be surprised? Sharpton’s Meet the Press commentary seemed to coincide with the announcement of government decisions effecting voters in an election year. There is absolutely no reason why we should not have fair and free elections by requiring identification at the polls. We already require IDs for so many other things that to somehow cry discrimination when it comes to IDs for our sacred electoral process is nothing more than sheer political poppycock.
admitted to a House committee that the administration is not interested in lowering gas prices.
Chu, along with the Obama administration, regards the spike in gas prices as a feature rather than a bug. High gas prices provide an incentive for alternate energy technology, a priority for the White House, and a decrease in reliance on oil for energy.
David Harsayni wrote about this very conundrum five days ago. Now we better understand why Obama nixed the Keystone Pipeline project. As I mentioned earlier, a project of this magnitude moving forward has an immediate effect on the markets by changing the traders’ expectations of future supply. Having more oil available in the marketplace contributes to lower prices for consumers. So when the project was tabled, the markets reacted accordingly.
I guess the White House knows what’s best for us better than we do.
