Obama wants to cut ....... $?

It's time to cut folks.............

Four years ago or so. The President should have addressed the sprawling deficit . That's what I have said before . For four years now  we had no budget from the Federal Government . We had instead massive spending,  on top of the "billions" spent by George D Bush II  which by now amounted to "trillions" of dollars because of  the "war on terrorism" . Our nation just blew money. Yes, Mr. Obama had plenty of time to reduce the deficit . Except he chose to spend nearly a trillion on stimulus plans that bailed out Wall Street .For months now, Washington moderates have accused the president of failing to LEAD, even as he offers compromise upon compromise to Republicans who steadfastly say they that more revenue increases are off the table (while Democrats say entitlement reform is off the table without significantly more revenue). Now hell is about to break loose again.  Anew budget  that the  New York Times calls it "a significant shift in fiscal strategy." The Washington Post calls it a "stark shift in strategy." National Journal calls it "a gutsy change in strategy."As part of his new budget, President Obama will propose cutting Social Security and other government benefits by lowering the cost-of-living adjustment, putting a key GOP negotiating demand into a formal White House proposal for the first time. I was fuming when I read this . Again its' the government putting the burden on the seniors . I know that we need some kind of "reform" with entitlements , pensions . As you know how the mind operates from the Washington CEO's . Its' always about cutting from the less fortunate .  Did any one mention healthcare cuts ? Yes . President Obama is purposing 400 billion in cuts on healthcare programs over ten years  which include payments to drug companies . I read this today from the WSJ . Sure enough I said would some one please hand me a copy of the 'Affordable Health Care law' ?  The President still insists on raising about 880 billion dollars in Taxes . I think that the President's budget plan is extremely confusing .  This  shows why we are all so screwed up financially.  At a time when we are reaching record levels of trillion dollar deficits , our  ***President is proposing LOWERING the RATE OF GROWTH of some programs, and some people view this as a CUT.  And what's worse some Democrats are crying foul because they don't even want this.  All this while we are sinking financially and laying off people that man control towers and others. Can someone explain to me how Social Security & Medicaid can be considered "entitlement programs?" These are programs that Citizens pay in to with deductions from their pay checks; therefore, they are " entitlement  programs" only in-as-much-as we are "entitled" to get what we paid for ?. President Obama, proposed  these cuts? Those are the same  cuts Romney would have proposed. We voted for  Obama to prevent those cuts. Is Obama really  showing signs of a weak, conciliatory President.  People voted for him based on his "conviction" to protect Social Security, and some idealized notion that he was for the underdog, he has betrayed own constituency, and will leave office like a little mouse from the back door of the White House. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 ***Here's what we know about the new plan. It calls for health care cuts over the next decade, particularly by reducing payments to hospitals and other"providers." (Check.) It calls for changing the way we measure inflation, which would raise taxes and cut Social Security benefits slowly for some recipients. (Check.) It calls for replacing the sequester. (Check.) And it calls for immediate additional spending, focused on infrastructure and education aid (Check.).

Mrs. Clinton and 2016.

Mrs. Clinton looks vary stern as Joe Biden looks on.

Well there "rumors" flying that Mrs. Hillary Clinton might make it a goal to run for the White House . For a while Mrs. Clinton has said    she’s undecided on running for president. We all know just by guess work that the Democratic Party is in fact in trouble as much as the Republican Party . The general pool of choice for each part is a dry well by political standards . The next election is 42 months away and already Clinton can’t do anything outside the framework of her potential candidacy. Just two weeks ago Clinton backed gay marriage in a video released by the Human Rights Council, after opposing it through her 2008 campaign. The result has been a spate of “will she or won’t she” stories in the national press, as supporters stand ready at the sidelines, potential rivals look on in wonder, and aides repeatedly assert she hasn’t made up her mind. I speculate that the Democrats are trying 42 months before 2016 to get the steam rolling . They need a poster child it might appeal to the voters in a way that pushed Barak Obama into the spotlight.Hillary Rodham Clinton stayed on safe political ground Tuesday, advocating women’s rights globally in a 12-minute speech, but that was enough to excite fans imploring the former first lady, senator and secretary of state to run again for president three years from now.

What's the Bizarreness  of the polls now is that If Clinton doesn't run 49% of Democrats say they would support Biden to 11% for Warren, 10% for Cuomo, and 7% for Kirsten Gillibrand with no one else above 3%. And if neither Clinton nor Biden runs Democrats have no clue who they want- 22% go for Cuomo and 18% for Warren but the big winner is someone else or undecided at 36%. That alone shows that Mrs. Clinton is only popular by chance .On the Republican side of the ledger, Marco Rubio leads the pack with 21% support, followed closely by Rand Paul (second) and Chris Christie (third) at 17% and 15%, respectively. But most interestingly, Paul’s political star seems to be rising. The next big item is . Is AMERICA READY FOR A WOMAN President? President Obama’s second term, rumors are already swirling about First Lady Michelle Obama’s plans after the White House. After a series of high-profile appearances, some are even speculating about a Hillary Clinton–Michelle Obama ticket in 2016. Already we have read upon some stupid speculation "tickets" that obviously are going to end up DOA before 2016 . If a ticket like that gets elected, it will mean the end of the United States. A match made in hell.

 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 The President is worried the tome will rip the lid off the ugly secrets in his presidency and in his marriage to Michelle.Reports last month claimed Hillary is penning a $20 million tell-all book that will rip the lid off the First Family’s dirty secrets — as payback for the insults and humiliations they heaped on her and her dying hubby Bill. “The President and First Lady cruelly backstabbed the Clintons even as they loyally battled to keep the Obamas in the White House,” a source said.“So Hillary is going to get revenge.”

Obama's Easter Sermon.

Why Religion and Politics don't Mix.

President Obama seems to find himself in limelight of controversy when it comes to whom he picks as his Pastor(s).The Easter sermon President Barack Obama and his family heard Sunday, delivered at a church near the White House, took to task the "religious right" for backward-looking policies. It disgusts me every time I hear endorsements of any political party, candidate, or politics being preached in the pulpit; that is certainly not the place for it.The Rev. Luis Leon, speaking at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, based his sermon on the Gospel of John.The criticism of conservative Christians was worked into an Easter sermon on the resurrection. Before the critique, León was telling his audience to move forward and not dwell on the past. Jesus told Mary, he said, not to hold on to the past: "you cannot go back." He said this: "It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back ... for blacks to be back in the back of the bus ... for women to be back in the kitchen ... for immigrants to be back on their side of the border," Leon said.According to a press pool report of Leon’s sermon, the minister criticized what he called ”the captains of the religious right.” People often want things to go back to the way things used to be, before “work got difficult and faith got confused, and life got more confusing,” Leon said, according to the pool report. The church is just blocks away from the White House and is sometimes referred to as the "church of the presidents." Obama was sitting in the pews with his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Sasha and Malia. They do not attend services at St. John's on a regular basis, but they have attended the church on many occasions. But if by the "right" Rev. Leon means Republicans, he needs to learn his history. The people who sent African Americans  to the back of the bus were Democrats, not Republicans.  Democrats passed discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws. It was the Democrats who, just a few years ago elected former Klansmen, Sen. Robert Byrd president of the Senate. It was Alabama's Democratic Governor, George Wallace who stood in front of the doors of the University of Alabama, blocking blacks from entering the school. And now it's Democrats in Alabama who are, ironically, fighting to keep poor black kids in failing schools. Even the Democrat's own party website isdevoid of specific examples of the "advances" they claim to have made for "civil rights." The Democratic Party of slavery and segregation can't hold a candle to the Republican's history on civil rights.  **No, the law upholds the legal right to "debate the issue," for the church, on any political issue, or any other issue. It is freedom of speech and freedom of religious worship.Mark Tooley, president of The Institute on Religion & Democracy, criticized León for using his Easter sermon to deliver “cheap shots” and a political message. “It’s sad when clergy egregiously politicize worship, especially on an important holy day at an historic church that used to symbolize non partisan unity,” Tooley wrote.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

** What is Amazing   Pres. Obama "reflected"  , or at least rolled out , and sounded like a religious leader of the sorts. His weekly address to the nation . What  bothers me that any American President has to sound like he is really religious of sorts when the Commander in Chief  is not supposed to be. Keep in mind this is what Obama said :

In his weekly address to the nation, Obama noted the Christian and Jewish holidays afford people an opportunity to take a break from their “busy and noisy lives” and “slow down and spend some quiet moments in prayer and reflection.”

“This week, Jewish families gathered around the Seder table, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt and the triumph of faith over oppression,” Obama said. “And this weekend, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I will join Christians around the world to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hopeful promise of Easter.

“As Christians, my family and I remember the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for each and every one of us — how he took on the sins of the world and extended the gift of salvation. And we recommit ourselves tofollowing his example here on Earth.

“To loving our lord and savior. To loving our neighbors. And to seeing in everyone, especially ‘the least of these,’ as a child of God.”

The president noted “those values are at the heart not just of the Christian faith; but of all faiths. From Judaism to Islam; Hinduism to Sikhism; there echoes a powerful call to serve our brothers and sisters. To keep in our hearts a deep and abiding compassion for all. And to treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves.”

He called it “the common humanity that binds us together.”

The Defense of Marriage crying game.

Time Magazine cover says " Gay Marriage already won"
is it more about Taxes than Civil Rights?

Well , Ed Schultz said it right. " I find it ironic in the holiest week of the year in the Christian faith, this is what the Supreme Court is talking about,  **Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. " Marriage is, in fact, a civil AND religious status. Unfortunately, our country historically made the mistake of codifying religious status into civil statute AND even awarded ministers and priests CIVIL authority to grant that status.  My self  can't believe how our government wastes it's own self in legal matters . Reason DOMA became a law is because the Dems convinced the stupid Republicans that they would vote for this, but would not vote for a Constitutional amendment. Now you can see how trustworthy a liberal is. There is always a legal catch-22 . ## I believe that it's not the governments job to regulate marriage , nor it as much to sanction religion . When President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law in 1996, after it passed overwhelmingly in Congress -- by a 6-1 margin in the Senate and 342 to 67 in the House. Of those 85 votes in the Senate, 32 came from Democrats. (Who knew so many were right wingers?!). Over in the House, more than a third of the votes, 118, were cast by Democrats. (Ditto!) The Democrats of today cannot claim to be the historic pioneers of the emancipation of slaves, nor of women’s rights: their entire history is devoid of the pursuit or defense of freedom. So in recent years, Democrats have hijacked traditionally conservative values and achievements, specifically “civil rights” and “freedom.” This was not only to gain more power and influence among the populace, but to cloak one cause in particular – gay marriage. This has led conservatives to believe gay marriage is a conservative cause because it promotes freedom. This has also led Americans to believe that gay rights are akin to civil rights by conflating the black struggle during the civil rights movement to the homosexual’s struggle for gay marriage. Only, the civil rights struggle and the “struggle” for gay marriage are incomparable, and gay marriage does NOT promote freedom.  SO no one is seeing the obvious connection in how uncle sam is also going to be collecting MORE taxes from all of these gay couples if this actually passes while they continue to cut benefits scross the board for everyone? This is actually about money people (as usual) not rights, plenty of examples throughout history of this including how the Rockefellers actually FUNDED the Women's liberation movement back in the 70's NOT to give women more rights as is claimed but in order to tax the women half of the population and further indoctrinate our children into government sponsored thinking all while breaking up the family..all part of more devious agendas here and gay 'rights' are no exception. If the gov. doesn't serve to profit in some way shape or form they really wouldn't care or even be considering something that AT THE VERY LEAST should be decided ON THE STATE LEVEL not the FEDERAL LEVEL....systematic demoralization and 'fleecing of the flock' is happening as we speak and gay rights are the biggest hot button issue the supreme court can spend it's time on . Yes it's all about Taxes .

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

** A lot of Obama/Yes-on-8 voters? The Associated Press exit polls showed that African Americans and Latinos backed Proposition 8 in good numbers. Details here from AP:

California's black and Latino voters, who turned out in droves for Barack Obama, also provided key support in favor of the state's same-sex marriage ban. Seven in 10 black voters backed a successful ballot measure to overturn the California Supreme Court's May decision allowing same-sex marriage, according to exit polls for The Associated Press.

More than half of Latino voters supported Proposition 8, while whites were split. Religious groups led the tightly organized campaign for the measure, and religious voters were decisive in getting it passed. Of the seven in 10 voters who described themselves as Christian, two-thirds backed the initiative. Married voters and voters with children strongly supported Proposition 8. Unmarried voters were heavily opposed.

## The legal issues surrounding same-sex marriage in the United States are complicated by the nation's federal system of government. Prior to 1996, the federal government did not define marriage; any marriage recognized by a state was recognized by the federal government, even if that marriage was not recognized by one or more other states (as was the case with interracial marriage before 1967 due to anti-miscegenation laws). With the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, a marriage was explicitly defined in federal law as a union of one man and one woman.^[19]

On the Democrats.....

Democrats are looser's  too.

When we voted the Democrats into power ( over and over again ) , we thought we were getting progressive leadership. So far we have had "political dead ends". So the political pundits, as always, want to know:  ^^ What's wrong with the Democrats?We all assumed with the election of Barack Obama that some how we would have affordable healthcare . Some jumped the gun on it, yes they believed that they were getting a healthcare system like Canada's . ** Wrong , we did not.  The Democratic party had it's real boost with former President Clinton  who in all respects was a "genius" , perhaps the last of the good ole boys of the Party. Like the Republicans . The Democrats are in trouble , they have no body to take up the mantle in 2016 .Watching the Democrats stumbling around in search of a "message" is the only thing more agonizing than watching the Republicans destroy this country. Pres. Obama is is their last poster boy . Why I am saying it . I just feel that both parties have out did themselves , and the American public has gotten really tired of both Democrats and Republicans. The two party state is a failure . What we got was watered down bills and spineless leadership. Leadership is as important as intelligence and good policies. To get anything done in Washington requires beating the Republicans and getting the message out, and the Democrats have failed repeatedly to do that. As Anthony Weiner put it, the “Democrats come to a knife fight with library books.” The fault lies with leadership in both the House and Senate.The Democrats are highly to blame, but let’s not forget the Republicans. Republicans were given an opportunity they are squandering, by sitting on their hands and doing nothing.The result is that the Democrats have a real image problem. They came in with great promise, raising hopes for change, and now they are shown that they aren't especially more efficient than the Republicans were. The Democrats appear to have compromised too much, and having compromised with the Republicans, the Democratic leadership in Washington have bought into much of the Republican disaster. Why has this image developed? Look at the way the politics look. The Democratic leadership clearly feels that they have to cater to both groups, and more to the late deciders than to the political junkies if they are to win elections. It is not enough that a politician be correct. First he or she has to get elected. The result is that the Democratic leadership is not doing anything to rock the boat. Rocking the boat makes it more likely that the politician will lose the election. Unfortunately, more and more of the American public wants change, and change means rocking the boat.The satirical Onion headline earlier said it all: “Democrats Vow Not To Give Up Hopelessness.” If the voters turn to the Democrats in 2016, it will only be as the lesser of two evils. America needs a less self-destructive Democratic Party, if just to keep Republican officeholders on their toes.The Democrats’ fundamental weakness is that even after four decades of their strenuously celebrating the moral supremacy of every organized minority, our political system remains, more or less, one of majority rule. It’s hard to win a majority if you don’t personally want to be part of the majority because your ego centers around visualizing yourself as better than the average American. If you don’t like the American majority, either in principle or in person, the majority won’t like you. The long-term trends are almost all bad news for the left wing of the party. If Democrats are doomed – then Republicans are damned.

NOTES AND COMMENTS: 

^^ The problem with Democrats is that they're too liberal. Or not liberal enough. They talk too much (or not enough) about abortion or torture or gun control. They're too condescending, too cosmopolitan, too secular, too wonkish, too weak. They've been captured by their interest groups, their contributors, their pollsters, their consultants. They're on the wrong side of a demographic revolution.** Health insurance companies across the country are attempting to increase their premiums for customers by over 25 percent - even though Obamacare was introduced to stem the rising cost of health careAt risk from the rising rates are small businesses and those who do not have their health care plan offered by their employer and are left to find their own insurance.In California, Anthem Blue Cross wants to hike the cost of their premiums by 26 percent and in Florida and Ohio, some insurers want to raise their prices by at least 20 percent - leaving customers several hundred dollars a month worse off.

The "weak" GOP.

For the GOP are they going the way of the
Dinosaurs ?

The Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan wrote recently how the Iraq war may have damaged the Republican party as a whole. The Truth is far from the war. The Republican party it's self is "burned out" , if you look at some of the Republican's themselves with the exception of Mitt Romney , they all sound like Sarah Palin . If that's the case the GOP is full of young Reagan wannabees who have 
" conservatism" so wrapped up like a Gordian knot that the party has no flexibility on any issues. Conservatives are doubling down on the same thing they've done for the last four years. Their biggest problem isn't the President, their biggest problem is the rift in the party that is being caused by American demographics and social views shifting towards more Democratic views while "Tea Party" types are pulling in the opposite direction. One side of the Republican split is going to have to give up on these issues and secede them to the Democratic Party which has the electoral calculus on its side. Given the Republican warming to immigration reform that virtually mirrors the President's plan, it seems the TP Republicans are the ones that are going to have to put a sock in it. Next, it'll be bills like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and same-sex marriage, unless the courts manage to save Republicans the trouble and declare DOMA and Prop 8 unconstitutional.

Peggy Noonan added :

NOONAN: You know, I tend to think that the go GOP's central problems have to do with things we don't talk all that much about. One is what happened in 2008 and the continuing repercussions of the crash. The repercussions where the party stands, what its positions are on how to create growth, that is becoming in part within the party, a rising disagreement -- not disagreement, but a rising difference of emphasis between those who are saying the way we have to go is growth right now and those who are saying we've got to handle this debt and deficit thing. They're sort of different approaches.
Another is that I think the Republican Party has to make clear what its foreign policy is. It has had two wars for the past 12 years, people are still settling in and thinking -- I mean, the voters have said, we don't like that. We're not for that. The Republican Party has to make clear what it stands for and it's going to have to have a little bit of debate to get there.So I think those two big things, and the policies that spring from them, will make all of the difference and so will an eventual compelling presidential candidate, somebody who is involved right now is going to work his way through. At the end of the day, it is the candidates who resolve a lot of unresolved things by taking a stand and speaking for forcefully for it.

The Voter's sent a message with the Obama
win .

Most of  all the GOP has  a lot of weak candidates that ran for  for office . Read a few statistics about the "Red" States.  They are the least educated, the fattest, the most divorced, have the highest poverty rates and suck the most assistance out of the Federal Government...consistently taking more out than they pay in.  So you can add to those statistics.."the most ignorant" . Most all the dirty laundry has been at the GOP's door step . Recently . The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating alleged "improprieties" in Michele Bachmann's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, according to the Daily Beast's John Avlon. I always get a chuckle when I see the words Senate and Ethics combined in the same sentence. It seems that the Party has fizzed out . In today's Washington Post, Republican scribe Michael Gerson makes yet another case for Republican reform: A Republican recovery in presidential politics will depend on two factors. First, candidates will need to do more than rebrand existing policy approaches or translate them into Spanish. Some serious rethinking is necessary, particularly on economic matters. In our Commentary essay, we raise ideas such as ending corporate welfare, breaking up the mega-banks, improving the treatment of families in the tax code, and encouraging economic mobility through education reform and improved job training. Whatever form Republican proposals eventually take, they must move beyond Reagan-era nostalgia.

So I beat up the GOP here, next I am tell you about The Democratic Party. Until then............

NOTES & COMMENTS:

The war bankrupted the country, financially at home and politically on the world stage; confirmed the Middle East's worst fears of American imperialism and anything-goes-in-the-name-of-oil; gave haters reason to hate us; and gave a new generation of otherwise moderate Middle Easterners a reason to grow up disliking and mistrusting us, and to not feel terribly upset when American men, women and children were killed there or elsewhere. The war also marked the extreme rightward tilt of the Republican party (thank you for noting how the warmongers attacked the anti-war folks as unpatriotic. In retrospect, those who stood up to this were the true patriots, and those who beat the drums of war - especially those who profited from it, were the real traitors). The economic calamity at home that followed was exacerbated by the financial misadventure of the war, and gave the extreme right wing's anti-government voice the opportunity to further hobble those things that government can and should do well. Imagine how much weaker support for Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden would have been had there been no Iraq! Imagine how many hundreds of billions of dollars could have been saved, and how many thousands of lives could have been saved, had we not provided so much fuel for the Bin Laden hate. Imagine how much more achievable Middle East peace would have become. Imagine the hundreds of billions of dollars that could have instead either never been spent, or could have been invested in America's future (affordable college, early childhood intervention [healthcare, literacy, etc], repair of crumbling infrastructure).

So many of the challenges we'll face for the next generation will be traced back to this war as the tipping point where Republicans (and Democrats too) sold out America. It will be seen as the moment America lost her way trying to serve as the world's oil-protecting policeman, all while the rest of the world invested at home to educate their kids to kick our butts on the world economic stage.

It's time for Republican's and Democrats alike to admit that blind ideals of American exceptionalism are counterproductive to our future. We're fast becoming a third rate country by so many measures: graduation rates, literacy, math skills, the number of engineers/scientists/mathematicians graduated per year, infant mortality. Wake up people. Better days are ahead only if we own up to what needs to be fixed.

Closer to a budget "deal".

In order to avoid a government shutdown . Congress and the House was left to scramble a "deal" about the budget just to avoid a government shutdown. The Senate passed a short-term budget measure this afternoon to fund the government beyond March 27, which would avert a government shutdown but keep most of the budget cuts under sequestration in place.

Passing the Senate on a 69 to 30 vote, the Continuing Resolution would fund the government for the next six months, and it’s widely expected to pass the House tomorrow. It makes a number of select adjustments to the $85 billion in spending cuts that took effect March 1, attempting to soften the blow of the across-the-board reductions. The changes including higher funding levels for a handful of different programs, including meat inspection and tuition help for military service members, in addition to tweaks to military and defense that the House included in its original CR. The U.S. House narrowly approved a conservative budget plan authored by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, 221-207, on Thursday on a largely party-line vote.The fiscal blueprint does not have the force of law but outlines the GOP's priorities over a 10-year budget window to reduce the deficit and overhaul the Medicare system.No Democrats voted for the plan. "House Republicans decided to double down on the failed policies that the American people rejected just a few months ago," said Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash. The bill doesn't reverse the sequestration cuts that have hit federal agencies, including the Defense Department, across the board. It does, however, give the Defense Department and other domestic programs extra funding. Additionally, an amendment was added to stop from furloughing meat inspectors. The Senate, however, rejected an amendment that would have allocated money to keep White House tours from shutting down -- one of the unpopular effects of sequestration. Nobody in Washington has earned the right to pat themselves on the back for ANYTHING, and That includes Obama, Congress and the Senate.! Instead of a pat on the back; every last one of these dunderheads should get hit in the head with a shovel as they flee Washington for another unearned vacation. "We the People" need to keep in mind that; in addition to paying for our own destruction; through the stalling machinations of these corrupt politicians;are also paying them to take these vacations. I think it's about time Americans demand that; for every dollar we send to Washington, we should get our moneys worth from these jerks. This is the way it will be from now on in the United States. Neither major political party is capable of putting together a reasonable budget because they own their allegiance to various business groups but do not want to alienate too many voters so they will just continue with the funding bills and thereby dodge the difficult issues that would be necessary to address our continued defict spending. The Democrats refuse to cut spending and the Republicans refuse to increase revenue. There is currently an impasse and it will never, ever be resolved. Plan your life accordingly.