What is a Phony Scandal?

Since the President started his new “Phony Scandal” line of speechifying last week I have been thinking hard about the scandals that have been the hallmark of his Presidency and just what makes them Phony.  At first I wondered which scandals he was talking about. Today, White House Spokesman and resident tool, Jay Carney, identified the two that he thought the most important – Benghazi and the IRS.

So after having the two pointed out I finally figured it out – so let’s take a look!

Benghazi – What do we know as a fact? We know that four Americans died at the hands of a terrorist led attack on our consulate and base of operations in Benghazi. We know that at the outset of this attack that the diplomats, military leaders, and the administration knew it was an organized terrorist attack. So where’s the Phony part of this?

It’s that the administration and the officials appointed by the President (Sec. of State, Sec. of Defense, CIA, NSA, etc.) came up with a phony set of reasons for the attack based on the phony notion that the Phony Attack originated due to the reaction of the mob to an internet video.  

We also know that these phony talking points flew directly in the face of the Libyan President when he immediately said it was terrorism. That led to the Libyan President restricting the FBI’s access in country and allowed the press to go over the consulate weeks before the FBI and also led to leaders in places like Tunisia to restrict FBI access to the suspects they had in custody.

In the end I’m afraid the President might have something right. I mean even though we lost four dedicated Americans, not to mention the President’s direct representative to Libya, he was right in labeling this a “Phony Scandal!”

The IRS – What do we know about this scandal? We know that throughout history the IRS has, at times, been used for political purposes and the delays over the last few years in granting tax-exempt status to Conservative groups has been another in a long line of Political targeting by an administration. We know this happened and that it was more than just a few rouge field agents in the Cleveland office.

So where is the Phony Scandal here? I guess that goes to the President saying he would get to the bottom of this and then allowing the claims that it was only a few agents in Cleveland to be permeated throughout the press in an attempt to minimize the conspiracy throughout the IRS and his administration.

Then to have one of the prime players take the 5^th after she had already made a statement was ridiculous. But then you have liberal congressmen attack the IG who showed no partisanship as he also identified liberal groups with the same issue; albeit conservative petitions were blocked at a more than 20 to 1 ratio.

Those are merely the only two “phony scandals” they want to discuss. I wonder about the rest. There are others but I think it’s a good starting point to discuss these alone.

But move along folks, the scandal clearly falls on the shoulders of those doing the investigating and the accusing, not those doing the cover up. I mean we have more important things to look forward to. Like ObamaCare coming online in 2014….what’s that….oh he moved it…..coming online in 2015.

Things like a new jobs stimulus plan to tackle shovel ready jobs like bridge building and such….wait….didn’t we spend like a trillion dollars on shovel-ready stimulus stuff already…..MOVE ALONG!

Or things like job stimulus….lower education cost….Quantitative Easing (aka – money printing)….Keystone pipeline obstruction (what the hell, let the Chinese have it)….Solyndra (wait, that is sooooo 2012)!

Man….the list just keeps on coming!!!

I need a Tylenol!

Bill

My New Politically Incorrect Rant

In my new-found quest to remove the barriers created by the politically correct morons of our time, I am feeling a little chippy tonight and thought I would write a powerful and direct to the point rant. So I sat down and wrote this instead! I hope you enjoy it.

1.       When President Obama was first elected President he promised a transparent and open government the likes we have all wanted and not seen in this country; however, his Royal Transparency has once again missed the date to submit his annual Budget to the congress. Nothing like missing a constitutionally mandated requirement four out of five years that he has been in office. But with all his transparency, it’s really not necessary to worry about the legalities of everything.

Did someone just here a drone fly by?

2.       President Obama also promised the most color blind, all inclusive cabinet in the history of the presidentdom (I just coined a new word). To be honest, he tried hard his first term. Of course George W. Bush holds the record for minority appointments closely followed by Bill Clinton. But Barack has made up for that shortfall by nominating all white men this time around.……… Hmmm, heartwarming!!

3.       The Coalition for American-Islamic Relations, CAIR for short, was eight ways of upset with the Coca-Cola television ad from the Super Bowl. Their spokesmen got on all manner of airwaves to say how upset Islamic folks were with the proliferation of the stereotype of Arabs riding Camels and such. Of course his complaints sound credible until you realize CAIR is an organization of like almost 400 people founded by three members of the Islamic Association of Palestine, who has had a hard time since being reportedly linked with other groups raising money for Hamas. You remember Hamas, that silly group trying to destroy Israel and all traces of Western Civilization. Personally, I thought the Vegas showgirls in the ad were awesome!!

4.       Warning for smokers, Under ObamaCare your health insurance is going to go up by 50% according to various insurance companies and the Government Accountability Office. Woo-Hoo, Now to get after those pesky drinkers!!

5.       So let me get this straight. Most illegal aliens come to America because they are looking for a better life and don’t trust government – RIGHT! So as part of the “Pathway” to citizenship proposed by the President and Congress (aka the government), these same people have to turn themselves in, pay their back taxes plus a fine, and then get in the back of the immigration line. GEE, with their trust, or distrust of government I wonder how many of these folks will get past step number one – BRILLIANT!!

6.       Bouncy lip-synced the National Anthem at the Inauguration and sung at the Super Bowl. I could have cared less about her lip-syncing but after listening to her sing live at the Super Bowl, I think she should have lip-synced there too.

7.       Mr. Global-Warming himself, Al Gore has sold his liberal-spewing Current TV to the Al Jazeera, the network built by the oil-rich global warmers and used for terrorist propaganda proliferation! On the Bright side for old Al, now he has an estimated fortune in the neighborhood of $300 million; or about $70 million more than Mitt Romney – But who’s counting!!

Well that’s all for tonight. Have a nice sleep as you ponder my politically incorrect wisdom!!

Night Y’all,

Bill

New Rant for Y’all

Well I’m sitting here watching the first presidential debate and I thought I would just hit you with a short little rant!!

1.       Just a short note on taxes, you can raise more money by building a larger tax base far easier than by raising taxes – PERIOD. You can raise taxes on businesses, and small business owners but that just prevents them from hiring new people who in turn will be a bigger drain on government entitlements. So if you keep taxes low and allow those business owners to take that money and invest it, then they will hire new employees who will pay taxes thereby growing the tax base by generating more revenue in businesses and with more people earning an income instead of receiving entitlements.

2.       Yes we need regulations in the marketplace; but when they are so strict that they limit business at every step of the way, then they are too restrictive. Currently bureaucratic government regulatory efforts are stifling new business. This must change!!

3.       In the world of the never-ending nightmare, United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was once again shown to be running an ill-prepared-to-handle-the-world organization as exposed by the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. It seems that the company in charge of the security there (Blue Mountain Libya) could not get the support and aide from their parent company (Blue Mountain UK) and requested help from a third party but the state Department’s Contract Officer would not approve that and said the threat was not that bad. Now they will not let the FBI in to investigate the scene because they said it was too dangerous – imagine that!!

4.     When will liberals understand that the states are better prepared to handle what goes on with programs that serve their constituents more than the federal government? EXAMPLE…..I doubt the cost of living is the same in Texas as it is in Massachusetts. My family and I can live comfortable on $100,000.00 a year in Texas, but I bet I would be struggling in Boston. The same plan that will work in Massachusetts WILL NOT work for the entire nation as a whole. Oh and by the way, the plan in Massachusetts did not raise taxes; ObamaCare (did you know Microsoft Word autocorrects for ObamaCare) has at least 22 new taxes in it.

5.       By the way, while we keep talking about comprehensive bills addressing issues like medical care, immigration, energy, taxes, and others; the true way to address them is by individual bills that address specific issues, not one all encompassing, comprehensive bill. There has NEVER been a successful Comprehensive bill ever!!

Well that’s it for right now. I am going to watch the last 30 minutes of the debate and then take four aspirin and hit the sack before I get sick!!

Ya’ll hang in there; we just have a short time to go until we are done with the election!!

Where’s that Aspirin?

Bill

Some ObamaCare Taxes for You!!

Since its inception, ObamaCare has been advertised as saving Americans money while costing the taxpayer nothing. To be honest that sounds great but how can it be? Well, to put it honestly it can’t. The President and Democrat leaders in Congress sold this to the American Public with the claim that there would be no rise in taxes but that simply is a play on words.

While it might not be paid for simply by raising income taxes, the Congressional Budget Office has made it clear that there are at least 22 new or increased taxes that will affect us all. Here is a list of five new or expanded taxes for you to consider. By the way, according to the CBO, these five taxes alone will cost the American Public a minimum of $257 billion in the next decade.

1.       ObamaCare creates a new 2.3% tax on the gross sales of all medical equipment. And that means everything from pacemakers to prosthetics to Band-Aids to medicine to operating tables to bedpans to those little bowls they put under your chin to throw-up in – EVERYTHING! Guess who will be picking up the tab for those taxes? Each and every one of us will pay for those taxes through higher prices for each of these items. Minimum Total Cost to the Taxpayer – $20 billion.

2.       Currently, out-of-pocket medical expenses can be deducted from your income tax once they reach 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. Under ObamaCare they cannot be deducted until they reach 10% of your gross adjusted income. By the way, this mainly affects senior citizens. Minimum Total Cost to the Taxpayer – $15 billion.

3.       Flexible Spending Accounts or FSA’s have always been a great way for people to save and build money to pay for everything from braces to surgery to special-needs tuition. Currently, money put into an FSA is tax-free as an incentive for people to save and use this sort of fund. Under ObamaCare only the first $2,500 would be tax-free. Minimum Total Cost to the Taxpayer – $13 billion.

4.       Under ObamaCare, Capital Gains Tax Rates for ALL AMERICANS will rise from 15% to 20% in 2013 (conveniently after the election), while dividend tax rates will go up from 15% to 39.6%. Also under the ObamaCare Surtax the top Capital Gains Rates will go to 23.8% and the top Dividend Rate will go to 43.4%. This will affect anyone with investments, retirement accounts, and any other type of nest egg. Minimum Total Cost to the Taxpayer – $123 billion.

5.       Lastly, the new ObamaCare Medicaid payroll Tax. This will affect everyone earning an income and conveniently takes affect only after the 2012 election. Minimum Total Cost to the Taxpayer – $86 billion.

 So there you go, put into simple terms these are only five of the new or expanded taxes that ObamaCare will unleash on the American Taxpayers. So next time you here the President or any of his Liberal surrogates say that ObamaCare will save the taxpayer money just take a look at these five items.

The Good, the Bad, and the ObamaCare!

Much has been written over the last few years about ObamaCare so it would stand to reason that more people would know more about the law. But then again much has been written and said about last Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare so it would stand to reason that there would be more Court Scholars there are out there by now. But in reality there are good parts, there are bad parts, and then there is the fact that no comprehensive bill will ever work – ObamaCare is no exception.

Both sides of the political aisle have their opinions on the subject and most people are only too happy to give their opinion. Having been in the Navy, on my own as an independent contractor and covered under my wife’s healthcare plan; I can honestly look at all the different methods of coverage and I have a fairly good idea of how they all work – Not well. But for the purposes of this blog entry, me the Republican, took a look at the law without the bloated partisan talking points and just looked at the facts from the website recommended by one of my Democrat friends.

So the good, everyone likes to start with the good. Most people will agree that many of these items are good and have needed to be handled many years ago.

1.       Keeping kids on parents insurance until they are 26.

2.       No denials of insurance based on pre-existing conditions.

3.       Better approval policies for the FDA of generic drugs.

4.       Prevention screenings that do not count against your deductable (some with a small or no co-pay).

5.       The eventual elimination of yearly and/or lifetime spending limits.

These are some good things that have needed to be done for a while and there are more; however, there are some that are not productive and will have a detrimental effect on the economy and people’s welfare.

1.       Insurance companies can’t refuse to cover children. This sounds like a great idea and it is; however, the law allowed companies to drop their independent children’s coverage by a certain date in 2011. Most of them did leaving independent children’s coverage to the government thereby limiting most families choices to Medicaid or out-of-pocket (this one I know from personal experience).

2.       Businesses with more than 50 employees will be required to offer employer sponsored health-insurance (government approved of course). How many small businesses will stifle expansion in the face of this mandate?

3.        Places a limit of $2,500.00 on tax free spending for a Flexible Spending Account (FSA). More people will be less likely to have an FSA as this has long been a benefit in that a person would be more interested in investing in an FSA due to its tax-free status.

4.       New taxes on Pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment to help pay for ObamaCare. Who actually pays those taxes, the company or the end-user?

5.       A new tax on healthcare companies based on market share. Making health care companies less likely to expand services for fear of increasing their tax load.

6.       A new tax of so-called “Cadillac” health plans. These are the very same plans John McCain proposed taxing during the 2008 election. The same tax that then candidate Obama said was going to wreak havoc on the middle-class and would cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. Of Course during the election Obama said it was a bad idea because it would affect the middle-class worker (aka Union Worker), and now he claims it only affects the “Fat-Cats”.

MISSING IN ACTION – and lastly, one thing that needed to be in the bill but wasn’t, Tort Reform. Talk to ANY doctor and they will explain it that clearly their biggest concern outside of the actual patient’s health is the fear of an unwarranted malpractice suit.

So there you have it, a short list of the good and the bad, both are abridged for this blog so don’t think this is a complete list or argument against ObamaCare. No doubt about it, Health Care Reform in this country is needed, but it must be done in steps that work for the greater good and not one giant comprehensive bill. There are good parts to ObamaCare and not so good. Yes nothing is perfect, but we should strive for something that is of benefit to the most people possible and one giant cookie cutter approach will NEVER work for the entire country.

Each of these items could be passed independently of each other but aligned to work in conjunction with each other. Using this approach compromises would be easier to come by, decisions would be much effortless to make, and the conclusions would provide for better feedback and be less stressful to correct. A single item can be corrected easy in government, but correcting a comprehensive bill is difficult at best as every item in some way affects another.

In short, there is a need to come together and create legislation that provides solid solutions consisting of insurance renovation, Medicaid/Medicare renovation, improved cost control systems, and Tort Reform. But like everything else with the present state of politics, the art of compromise and good governing has been lost on most of the current slate of elected officials on both sides of the political spectrum. Healthcare is a serious issue in the United States and desperately needs to be fixed, but ObamaCare is not that fix and regardless of what is written, there is still much to be done.

I need an aspirin now!

Bill

ObamaCare and the SCOTUS!

So this week we got the news that ObamaCare was constitutional because the individual mandate was legal based on it being exactly what President Obama promised us it was not – A TAX!

That’s right, the same thing the president ran around swearing it wasn’t is exactly the only way the Supreme Court said it could possibly be legal. But in reality is this what anyone wanted? NO!

Both Democrats and Republicans are going to claim some sort of victory but in reality NO ONE wins. The Democrats are faced with a law that may turn out to be the single greatest single rise in middle class taxes in history and slaps the very voters Obama said would not be affected; those making less than $250,000.00 a family.

To the Republicans the very fact that the law was left standing is hard to deal with; and not because it was constitutional, but because the constitutionality of it was so hard to find. In Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion he doesn’t even speak to the constitutionality of it until page 52 of his 63 page opinion. That alone shows that this was a result of much digging in the tax code to find something to stand on. And that much digging must have been a strain on the justice, I mean the IRS code is 70,000 plus pages.

But in reality what did the Supreme Court’s ruling actually do? Let’s look at the implementation.

Well, besides the preliminary groundwork for ObamaCare, little else has been done by the states or the federal government to prepare for the execution of ObamaCare. As a matter of fact, it’s doubtful anyone will move on it for a while; at least until November.

That’s because the Supreme Court’s ruling put the proverbial future of ObamaCare ball in our hands. That’s right; the voters are the ones who will make the decision. So regardless of whether you agree with ObamaCare or you are against it, it is up to you and every American to get out and vote this November to help determine the future of ObamaCare; as well as the future of America.

The sad part is that there are good provisions in ObamaCare; however, like all comprehensive bills ObamaCare tries to cover too much and runs all over itself with contradictions and miscalculations in funding and expenses. In short, there has never been a comprehensive bill that has ever accomplished what it was designed to do. ObamaCare is no different than any of those comprehensive bills and anything 2,700 pages can’t be good (unless it’s a Lord of the Rings Book).

Covering those with preexisting conditions and keeping children on their parent’s coverage until their 26 are two of the items the President will tout as positives of ObamaCare – and they are. But in actuality, both of these could have been done with a small five or ten page bill that could have passed a very simply. But these were two planks that the Pelosi/Reid team needed to use to make the entirety of the bill seem palatable.

To repair healthcare in America more needs to be done, but it cannot be done in one comprehensive bill. It must be done in a series of bills that work independently of each other while still working in-line with each other as well to benefit us all. This way there isn’t one large monstrosity that must constantly be amended but a series of laws that could be negated if they fail to work as designed.

Maybe this can be done once the elections are over in November, but until then we shall hear plenty on this subject and regardless of your feelings on this week’s ruling, the choice of whether ObamaCare stands or falls is in the hands of all of us voters in November.

Remember to Register to Vote!!

Bill

Rant for the third week of 2011

Thanks for all the nice emails. I am glad someone out there is reading this as I thought I was writing with no readers. Kind of begs the question; if you write it and no one reads it is it really a blog?

Here we go!!!

1. China’s President Hu has come for a visit this week and has been attacked by President Obama, Hillary and Harry. Be careful my liberal friends, I mean after all, our Chinese friends could have come over here to foreclose on us.

2. About one year ago, 219 house members voted for Obamacare. Today 245 voted to repeal it. And yesterday House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC that the reason there was so much negativity towards Obamacare was because it did not go far enough – HUH? Yeah, that’s it Nancy.

3. Late last week Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that she is stopping the construction of the “Virtual Fence” on the Mexican Border. Two years ago she proclaimed the virtual fence the end all beat all in border security. So what could she have up her sleeve that will trump the virtual fence? Wait for it…….She has a plan that will address the concerns for each region of the border and provide a “new path forward” for border security; however, she had no details, None, Nothing, Nada…..Oh I feel safer already!!!!

4. More new jobs have been created in Texas than in any other state in the union in the last few years. As a matter of fact, more jobs have been created in Texas than in all the other states combined. So rather than being proud of job creation in the Lone Star State, our Democrat friends are only too eager to pounce on the fact that a majority of these are minimum wage jobs. So let me get this straight, Democrats would prefer to have people jobless and on welfare rather than being paid the minimum wage they set at $7.25 an hour.

5. How about the next time there is an opening on the Supreme Court we put an English scholar on the high court. Since everyone seems to have such a difficult time understanding the 230 year-old document, maybe having an expert in English on the court instead of having lawyers on the court would lead to an easier time understanding the true meaning. After all, nothing says a member of the Supreme Court has to be a lawyer.

Well I think that takes care of this week’s Rant. Hope you all enjoyed it and it makes you think a little. Wonder how much a used border security camera is going for on eBay?

Until next time, stay safe!!
Bill