The Opinionator

And the Hits Keep on Coming...From the CBO that is

Yesterday we learned what just about any economist who is not a partisan first and an economist second already knew; raising the minimum wage costs jobs. Most people understand the reason why this happens when someone explains it to them. However, it is an unfortunate fact of life that most people think raising the minimum wage is just peachy in general terms. After all, how can it not sound like a good idea to give some poor folks a raise? It is only after they learn that doing so will end up causing someone to lose their jobs that they give pause as they realize that the individual will be worse off and they will be supporting them moving forward. 

Similarly, a few weeks ago let us know that the ACA will cause the displacement of the equivalent of 2.5m jobs. Democrats, in a bit of spin that goes beyond shameless, contended that this was a good thing. No more job lock! Go ahead and work less they say. Get a subsidy to defray your healthcare costs! Riddle me this Batman: How is it good that we take self-sufficient people and turn them into dependents of the State? Whay is so grand about most of us having to pay for someone else's decision to spend more time with family or to pursue their becoming an Underwater Basket Weaver?

In short, Obama's policy prescriptions will end up taking 3m people out of the workforce. Given that we are already at 40-year lows for Workforce Participation one has to wonder if his motivation is to drive as many as possible into the bosom of government at the expense of those that are stupid enough to keep maximizing their income.  And what if they decide to stop doing so?

It's On!

So the SCOTUS decided that despite Administration claims to the contrary, the Mandate in ObamaCare was a tax and therefore permissible. Well I have news for Democrats out there; It.Is.On.

We who value our freedom know that this is bullshit and we will make you pay at the polls in November. Want to raise $1.7T in taxes? Great because we will let the voters know all about it. Now that the shock is wearing off, you will find that we are energized. We will take the White House and grab the Senate and then ram this down your throat just like you did to the American people. You will rue this day.

It's on!

P.S. How badly did you miscalculate? So badly that I am back to blogging!

Heath Shuler Retires...Or...The Importance of Voting

Heath Shuler has always been a bit of a conundrum in western North Carolina. He was a Democrat, albeit more Conservative than your average one, in a very Conservative area of the state. And like his fellow members of the "Blue Dogs" he was usually fell in line to support Pelosi and Company after much public "Discussion" that helped make him look more Conservative than he is in actuality. Now his time has come and he will be retiring at the end of this Congress. However, this is not the result of a popular uprising in Asheville even though the Tea Party is active in that area. Rather it illustrates the importance of voting and highlights one of the most overlooked results of the 2010 elections; the takeover of several state legislatures by Republicans just in time for re-districting. 

In North Carolina, Republicans took control of the legislature in the 2010 elections and this has allowed them to drive Brad Miller and now Shuler from office. The Congressional delegation will be more representative of the state in general as Republicans get their chance to gerrymander. As a resident of NC-4, a district set up to be Democrat district forever, I am a beneficiary of the Republican majority as I will now be in NC-2 represented by Renee Ellmers. This is a great thing as is the retirements of Miller and Shuler. And David Price in NC-4 will be where he belongs, in Chapel Hill and Durham. 

The lesson for all of you that are complaining about our potential nominee in the race for POTUS and threatening to stay home (I am looking at you Newt supporters) is to get out and vote no matter who that nominee is in November. Not only can we send Obama back to Chicago, we can extend our control over state houses and local politics which is vital as I am seeing firsthand in North Carolina. 

Cross-posted at Red State. 

 

Rush is Right...Barack Obama is the Problem

Amen brother Rush! 

None of the Republican candidates are responsible for the 16% real unemployment in this country. They are not responsible for the increased fuel and food costs. They are not responsible for any of this. That would be Obama, who pretends to care about the middle class but lives like a king at the public trough. Mitt Romney's not the problem. Newt Gingrich is not the problem. Rick Santorum is not the problem.

Stuff I See on Facebook or Idiotic Things Leftists Post

We belong to a few groups on Facebook, including a couple of political ones. The things I see make me shake my head in wonderment. You know all of those crazy things that people say but you think no one really believes about Conservatives, they do. First of all, the confuse their strongly held opinions and gross generalizations with fact. And every thing they have seen on DailyKos, HuffPo, Addicting Info, etc., is considered factual. And once they post something from one of these sites, they completely lose it if you post something from Heritage, Fox News or any conservative blog to refute their assertions. Even when the post has links to the underlying data so they can view it themselves. 

With that as the background, in the group Cons vs. Libs, (where they are very unhappy it is not an echo chamber), the creator of the group posted the manifesto below. Since I did not wish to out him but he goes by two first names, I shall call him "Ricky Bobby". What I will be doing is responding to each of these assertions as time permits. I post them here in total as they are very instructive as to what the far left thinks. Enjoy!

Why would anyone vote Republican? Well, here are 10 reasons.
1. You are a bigot
It's true that not all Republicans are bigots. But if you ARE a bigot, the Republican party will be much more your group than the Democratic party. Remember that there are lots of ways to be a bigot: You could be a racist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, or lots of other things.

2. You like eating, drinking and breathing poison.
Many Republicans are calling for or voting for shrinking or eliminating agencies that protect us against poison. They seem to think that the corporations will do the right thing, without any pressure from the government. Uh huh. Read The Jungle. Look at the way Monsanto is hiding facts about Round Up. Look at food safety and outbreaks of E. Coli. 
Corporations exist to make money. They will do so any way they can. The government needs to stop them from doing so in ways that hurt people.

3. You think the rich don't have enough money
The idea that giving more money to rich people (via tax breaks) will help poor people is nonsensical and has been shown wrong time and again in history. Huge tax breaks for the rich (a la George Bush) don't work.

4. You don't support our veterans
The Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's Association (IAVA) rates every member of congress on how well they support our veterans. In the Senate, 9 people got A or A+: All were Democrats. 30 got D or F: 29 Republicans and one Democrat. More on this

5. You like big deficits
Since the end of WW II the ratio of debt to GDP for the nation has gone down in 9 administrations (3 Republican and 6 Democratic) and up in 7 administrations (6 Republican and 1 Democratic). The largest increases by this measure were GW Bush's 2nd term; GHW Bush, and Reagan's first term. The largest decreases were the three terms right after the end of WWII (Truman and Eisenhower). The last decrease under a Republican was in Eisenhower's 2nd term
source

6. You don't believe in free speech.
The American Civil Liberties Union is the premier defender of our civil liberties, including the right to free speech. That's free speech for EVERYONE; from Nazis to Marxists to Fred Phelps to anyone else. They rate politicians, including governors, senators and representatives. 12 people got a 100 rating: All were Democrats. 65 people got a score of less than 10: All were Republicans. Only 6 Democrats got a score under 50 (Joe Donnelly, Michael Ross, Collin Peterson, Joseph Shuler, Mark Critz and David Boren). Only 2 Republicans got scores over 50 (Olympia Snowe and Mark Kirk) Full list

7. You like big government
The Republicans like to claim they are against big government. It's a lie. They only object when government helps people. But they are supporters of the Patriot Act; they want the government to say who you can marry; they want the government to forbid abortion; they want the government to be able to spy on you without restraint. Unfortunately, many Democrats agree with them on some of these, but to find opposition to these big government ideas, you have to look to the Democrats.

8. You want government to hurt people, but not help them
This is really just a summation of some other points.

9. You are greedy, short sighted and rich
You really have to be all three for this to work.
If you're rich but not short-sighted, you know that, in the long run, when there is huge income inequality, it leads to things like stock market crashes and revolution, and everyone loses. In a revolution, it is often the rich who lose most.
If you're rich but not greedy, you recognize that helping others is a good thing, and that the government assuring that people have a safety net is a good thing as well.

10. You like torture
The Democrats don't exactly shine here, but the Republicans are much worse. It was, after all, Dick Cheney who bragged in his memoir about being a war criminal. It was Don Rumsfeld who opined that a problem in Abu Ghraib was that they weren't torturing prisoners enough. And it is mostly Democrats who have objected to torture.
Torture is wrong. It's also stupid. It doesn't work. People who are tortured will say ANYTHING (true or not) that they thing their torturers want to hear

Day by Day is on the Mark...Again

It is the Day by Day fundraiser and once again, Chris Nuir hits one out of the park. Enjoy and stop by DbD to donate!

Krugman's "No Shit" Moment

Paul Krugman writes this,

And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.

I’d argue that Mr. Gingrich is wrong about that: proposals to guarantee health insurance are often controversial before they go into effect — Ronald Reagan famously argued that Medicare would mean the end of American freedom — but always popular once enacted.

No shit. I like birthday presents too. Medicare is popular with those receiving free or nearly free healthcare paid for by the government, which in reality is you and I. Who does not like to be given things, even those which you could afford to buy yourself. And that is the issue with this healthcare reform bill; Who is going to pay for all this largess? You cannot grant large swaths of the population free goodies from the government without eventually taxing the producers to the point that they can no longer support the system. Medicare is going broke and has cost over a trillion dollars. Much more than the $10B originally forecast. If the healthcare reform bill is not seriously tweaked, we will see our economy enter a period in which growth and unemployment looks more like Europe than our traditional rates. And that is not a good thing.

ObamaCare is the Equivalent of Racial Desegregation?

Mark Barabak of the LA Times compares ObamaCare with the Civil Rights Act because we all know that a huge government takeover of our nation's healthcare systems is analogous to ending segregation. It would appear that there are no ends to what Obama supporters...er...the media, will do to rehabilitate the Democrat brand and re-write history as the November elections approach.
After healthcare vote, Democrats turn to damage control - latimes.com.

He's Going To Do It...

It appears that President Obama is prepared to use reconciliation to pass his monstrosity of a healthcare bill. He has given some lip service to Republican suggestions and will tell the public that it is perfectly normal to use the reconciliation process to pass this bill. A study of tort reform? Please...

Fortunately for him, most Americans have no clue as to what reconciliation is and what it was intended to be used for. He will say that President Bush used it for his tax cuts, which is true. However, it is perfectly fine to use it for a budget item like tax cuts which is why reconciliation exists. There is a tenuous relationship with the budget process involved here. And the idea that this bill will reduce the deficit is just plain balderdash. It is going to be a long few years until 2012.

President Obama to Say Democrats Will Use Reconciliation to Pass Senate Health Care Reform Fix, If Not Given Up or Down Vote - Political Punch.

Bill Whittle: They Stole Our Future, But They Cannot Break Our Will

Bill Whittle really lays down the gauntlet at PJTV. I love it and so will you. He is absolutely right; we used to be a nation in which we believed all was possible. It is time to reclaim this and not let the collectivists and cynics win!

They Stole Our Future, But They Cannot Break Our Will