(Before the slower ones read and react to this, it’s sarcasm so don’t flip
President Obama seems to have lost his magic touch with the American people. They used to cheer anytime air passed over his vocal chords. Now, they change the channel. Martha’s Vineyard vacationers once purchased shirts boasting “I Vacationed with Obama.” Now, a hopey-changey picture of George W. Bush saying “Miss me yet?” is the top selling shirt at the M.V. Heck, he used to even be able to scold them for their selfish, excessive ways. Now, they get mad anytime he and his wife take more than five summer vacations. It sure isn’t as much fun being Obama as it was just two short years ago.

However, there’s always a place willing to applaud him for being who he is. Somewhere where Michelle Obama won’t get criticized for saying that America is a downright mean country.  A place where even the Obama’s former family minister Jeremiah Wright doesn’t have to have excuses made for him because they too know that America’s chickens have come home…to roost. That magical place is the United Nations – the Disney Land for Despotic, Tyrannical Governments.

Sure, the UN may have a few bad apples that perform genocide on their own country and seem a little preoccupied with ensuring Israel is wiped off of the face of the earth. Yes, it’s a group that puts nations on their Human Rights Council that routinely assassinate political dissidents or at least lock them up for life and torture them. Sure, a few of the Human Rights Council members turn a blind eye to murderous rampages among different factions in their own nations. But, hey, is the US really better than any of them? (No, I really did actually think we were.)

 According to the Obama administration, we aren’t much better than North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or China. The Washington Times reported that the administration filed a report with the farcical UN Human Rights Council claiming that the US “discriminates against the disabled, homosexuals, women, Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics, and those who do not speak English.” It is well known that Iran does have the best handicapped parking spots in the entire world. Unfortunately, you’re usually handicapped because you disagreed with the ruling Imams. The administration also made it a point to describe the horrible conditions Muslims are forced to live in within the United States. I can only imagine the hell Islamic fundamentalists must go through in the US where a man can’t even kill his daughter because she disgraced the family by getting raped. How do they survive in a country where groups show up to aid them in building a mosque just two blocks from where Muslims killed over 3,000 innocent Americans? The U.S. theocracy must be torture on them…well, maybe not exactly like the torture Muslims endure at the hands of brutal regimes like Iran, you know, the real torture, but living in the US still has to at least be really, really annoying.

 The Washington Times did highlight that the administration’s report wasn’t all doom and gloom. It stated, “our expectation thereof is justified by the proven ability of our system of government to deliver the progress our people demand and deserve.” The Times article explained that for every grievance, there was a federal government, Obama-crafted solution such as health care, housing, or nutrition. (Yes, our nation is pointing out a grievance because we have poor nutrition which is leading to high obesity levels. I wonder how that complaint went over to countries facing famines and rampant hunger.)

 As the Times concluded, they disagreed with the administration’s statement on the report that just because the US filed a report, it didn’t mean they were equating the US with real human rights violators. I’m as skeptical as the Times about that claim. President Obama has just given every two-bit dictator thug all the reason they need to reject anything we ask them to do. Now, the despots of the world have something tangible as evidence that the US is the oppressor-in-chief.

Unfortunately, we brought this on ourselves. When we first accepted President Obama’s pitches of woo toward us, we established a standard level of adulation that he needed from us. Since the magic has started dying and his poll numbers are getting ready to hit into the thirties, he has to go somewhere that hasn’t lost that lovin’ feeling. What better way to make new friends at the UN than by ripping on the US? You definitely can’t spell unfaithful without UN.

 (Seriously, all kidding aside, who does President Obama think he is to equate the US with the world’s worst genocidal thugs? The US has never complied with the UN Human Rights Council because it’s a complete farce. Some of the worst offenders sit on the board judging the rest of the world. The United States should never be compared to Iran or any other bloodthirsty regime around the world. This is completely reprehensible and a man of moral character would relieve himself of office. Remember this Human Rights report when you go to vote in November. If you like seeing your own government indicting you as a bigot, then by all means keep voting Democrat and you can expect to receive future versions of this song and dance. However, if you believe that the US is the answer to human rights violations around the world and not the cause, vote Republican to get all of these leftist creeps out of public office.)

National Review Online has posted this video and it’s been widely discussed on radio and Fox News.

Since the original Tea Party rallies, left-wing groups have encouraged their members to show up to Tea Party events posing as a conservative supporter and behave as a rampant racist. Now that Democrats are heading into massive looming defeats in this November’s elections, expect to see and hear more about racist Tea Party and Republican supporters. However, don’t be fooled, there’s a 99.9% chance that every racist caught on film at these events is really a liberal plant.

This is an article about Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill that I wrote for another website last January during the height of the debate over ObamaCare. After hearing Sen. McCaskill’s response to the overwhelming victory of Proposition C in last week’s election, it’s apparent that she remains dedicated to ignoring the will of her constituents and dismissing their concerns as the result of ignorance. Unfortunately, she is not up for reelection in November so we will have to wait until 2012 to toss her out along with President Obama. However, we must factor her behavior into our decisions at the ballot box this coming November as we decide who will join McCaskill in the US Senate to represent Missouri’s interests. Do we want to add another like-minded shill for the White House?

Be sure to check back soon for full coverage of McCaskill’s response to Proposition C. It’s enough to make your blood boil and serves as a stark reminder why 2012 can’t get here soon enough.

(Article first published January 12, 2010.)

Last September, as the health care debate was heating up, Senator Claire McCaskill assured us that any bill she supported would have to “give people choices, bring health care costs down, and not add to the national deficit.” That same month, she sent a letter to Senator Max Baucus about the importance of bending the health care cost curve down and lowing overall health care spending. She explained, “If we don’t do that, we will have failed.” Throughout the year, she also positioned herself as a guardian of Medicare, promising numerous times that no cuts would affect seniors’ access to care whatsoever. On December 14, McCaskill gave another crystal clear statement about what a bill would have to achieve in order to gain her support. Appearing on “FOX News Sunday With Chris Wallace”, she explained, “My statement all along is [a health care reform bill] has to slow down the increase of health care costs over time, and that is bending the cost curve, and secondly, that it has to be deficit neutral… And if it’s not saving more money for our government than we’re spending, then not only will I not support it, the president said he won’t support it.” Ten days later, Senator McCaskill joined with every other Senate Democrat to pass the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (PPACA) in a strictly party-line vote. Somewhere between her appearance with Chris Wallace and her vote in favor of the bill, she must have altered her requirements because, as Richard Foster, the White House’s Chief Actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS,) confirmed in his report released last Friday, the bill Senator McCaskill voted in favor of fails to keep any of the promises she frequently made during most of last year. By tossing aside her values, Senator McCaskill failed in her fiduciary duty to the taxpayers and betrayed the seniors who trusted her assurances about the security of their health care.

Foster’s report shows that the bill passed by the Senate fails to meet McCaskill’s fiscal requirements. It is not deficit neutral. Instead, it will add $280 billion to the national deficit from 2010 to 2019. However, even that figure is hopeful. The Wall Street Journal points out, “Even that estimate exists only on paper, as Mr. Foster has the honesty to admit. Because ‘most of the coverage provisions would be in effect for only six of the 10 years of the budget period, the cost estimates shown in this memorandum do not represent a full 10-year cost for the proposed legislation.’” The Senate’s bill does not meet McCaskill’s other basic requirement of “bending the cost curve.” Rather, it will increase costs. Foster writes, “The national health expenditure share of GDP is projected to be 20.9 percent in 2019, compared to 20.8 percent under current law…Numerous studies have demonstrated that individuals and families with health insurance use more health services than otherwise – similar persons without insurance. Under the health reform legislation, an estimated 34 million currently uninsured people would gain comprehensive coverage …We estimate that the net effect of the utilization increases and price reductions arising from the coverage provisions of the PPACA would increase national health expenditures in 2019 by about 3.4 percent.”

Perhaps, though, the most egregious betrayal of her supposed values is illustrated by her frequent claims that Democrat plans would save Medicare. The senator’s website currently features a column she wrote on November 4 titled, “Strengthening Medicare Through Health Reform.” In this piece, McCaskill laments that “without adequate reforms, Medicare is on track to cut payments to physicians by as much as 21 percent starting next year which may cause some doctors to drop Medicare patients.” McCaskill claims, “By rooting out more than $400 billion in identified waste, fraud, and inefficiencies, we can make sure Medicare remains solvent for years to come, ensure doctors are paid fairly so that seniors can keep their doctors, and not cut benefits for seniors.” She goes on to plainly state, “Ultimately the assertion that reforms to Medicare would result in cuts is simply not true.” Perhaps Senator McCaskill should meet with the Richard Foster. After all, he is the White House’s authority on the Medicare and Medicaid programs. If any aspect of his report can be trusted it would be his analysis of the effects of the legislation on these programs.

Unfortunately for any of the seniors that found comfort in McCaskill’s reassurances, Foster doesn’t reach her conclusions. According to the CMS, nearly half of the cost-savings in the Senate bill that Senator McCaskill voted in favor of come from reduced payment levels for Medicare Part A and Part B. In plain words, the Senate bill relies on cutting payments for Medicare services as its primary source of funding.

McCaskill also makes the claim in her column that the Democrat’s proposed Medicare cuts will ensure that “seniors can enjoy improved benefits and continue seeing the doctors of their choice.” This statement flies directly in contradiction to the Chief Actuary of Medicare’s findings. As Foster says, the proposed payment reductions are “unreasonable” and will cause large problems for Medicare patients. Foster shows that the reduced payment rates mandated by the Senate bill will not keep up with service providers’ costs, “Thus providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries). Simulations by the Office of Actuary suggest that roughly 20 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the productivity adjustments.” Yet, somehow, Senator McCaskill apparently believes that a 20 percent reduction in Medicare service providers will “ensure doctors are paid fairly so that seniors can keep their doctors.”  

The infeasible Medicare cuts are no small issue. If Congress merely decides to ignore them, the bill will explode the deficits. However, if the cuts remain, Medicare and Medicaid patients will find themselves increasingly unable to find service providers only compounding the issue of inadequate access to health care. To quote Senator McCaskill’s September letter to Max Baucus, if any version of the House or Senate bill becomes law, “[They] will have failed.”

Senator McCaskill either cast her vote in support of the Senate health care bill out of ignorance of the bill’s true effects, or with no intention of ever keeping the pledges she made to her constituents. In December, she appeared to have taken a bold stance by joining only two other Democrats who voted against the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that increased discretionary spending across the board. After she had supported the failed $787 billion economic “stimulus” package and approved President Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget, her stance against the omnibus bill was encouraging. However, the bill was never really in jeopardy of failing to pass. If it were, would McCaskill still have voted against it? Considering how quickly she threw aside every value she promoted during the health care debate in order to push a disastrous, highly partisan bill over the threshold, Senator McCaskill has a large hill to climb to prove that she actually stands for anything other than toeing the Democrat Party line.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about the significance of Tuesday’s vote where 71% of Missouri voters approved a state law that would exempt them from ObamaCare’s mandate requiring every American to purchase federally-approved health insurance. In true elitist fashion, Gibbs, the mouthpiece of the banana republic administration currently occupying the federal government gave a simple one-word answer; “Nothing.” 

Unfortunately, this can’t really be too surprising since this administration has proven time and time again that it doesn’t regard anyone’s opinion other than their own as legitimate.

There has never been an administration this content to rule against the will of the people. Neither the president nor the Democrat leaders in Congress believe that we are smart enough to make our own decisions and they won’t hesitate for a second to use every bit of their legitimate and self-created power to thrust their radical agenda on the nation. November can’t come soon enough.

Democrat Charlie Rangel who chairs committee that writes tax code, "forgot" half of his assest in his official financial disclosure forms.

Democrat Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee which writes the US federal tax code, released an amended financial disclosure for 2007. The amended disclosure included over $500,000 worth of assets in his net worth that he claims to have “forgot” in filing the original version. Richard Rubin and Alex Knott reported on the assets that slipped Rangel’s mind in an article for Congressional Quarterly. According to Rubin and Knott, Rangel couldn’t remember that he had a checking account at the Congressional Federal Credit Union worth at least $250,000, an investment account holding at least $250,000, land in southern New Jersey and stock in PepsiCo and fast-food chain owner Yum! Brands. (Honestly, who could keep up with minute details such as these. Who among us has never forgot about that little bit of land we own in southern New Jersey?) All of these assets were omitted from the original net worth statement Rangel filled out by hand and submitted in May of 2008.

The original report showed Rangel’s net worth was in the range of $516,015 to $1,316,000. The amended report moved his net worth to at least $1,028,024 to as much as $2,495,000. Once again, who hasn’t “forgotten” about half of their assets at one time or another?

Rangel also amended his statement of investment income for 2007. His original statement, once again filled out by hand, said the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman received between $6,511 and $17,900. The amended statement reports investment income in the range of $45,423 to $134,700. Once again, Rangel’s original report accounted for less than half of his real assets and that’s considering income remained in the very lowest amount of the range provided.

We have been waiting for quite awhile to see Rangel’s restated disclosures. The House is supposed to be investigating him for earlier revelations that he did not report on his taxes $75,000 in income from a rental property he owns in Central America and inconsistencies regarding his rent-controlled apartments in New York. Something tells me that we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for Pelosi to order the investigation, much less waiting for him to receive any punishment.

It is outrageous that Rangel remains in his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee whose primary responsibility is writing the nation’s tax code. Rangel has already been caught cheating on his taxes and now he’s been caught red-handed hiding half of his assets on his financial disclosure statements. (Gee, more problems of transparency in the “Age of Obama” coming out of Nancy Pelosi’s Congress which she promised would be the “most ethical in history” to end the “culture of corruption under the Republicans.) How much would anyone like to bet that the restated assets also weren’t fully disclosed on his tax forms either?

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who is now in charge of the IRS was the first in a long line of tax cheats nominated by Obama.

So currently, we have Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, a chronic tax cheat, in charge of the IRS. Now, it’s further confirmed that the man who oversees writing of the nation’s tax code also cheated on his taxes while lying to the American public. Yet, it seems that the top Democrats are completely copasetic with everything. Not only do Democrats condone cheating on taxes, they tax evaders to positions controlling the enforcement and creation of the tax code. Our vice president insisted that paying higher taxes is “patriotic” and B. Hussein Obama explained that everyone is going to have to “have some skin in the game” to turn the economy around. Perhaps if Democrats started paying their taxes, others wouldn’t have to kick in so much more of their own skin into the Democrats’ game. This is the “change we can believe in?”

This week, American Thinker published a piece by Michael Lisle titled, “Passing the Smell Test.” In the article, Lisle discusses the Obama administration’s recent decision to invest $2 billion of taxpayer dollars to fund offshore oil drilling in Brazil. Apparently, the president failed to explain to Brazil that drilling for oil is futile because it won’t solve any energy problems. At least that’s what he keeps telling Americans who want the government to pursue every source of domestic US oil supplies including drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), oil shale in Colorado, and increased offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the outer-continental shelf off of California’s coast. B. Hussein Obama responds to these requests with the classic liberal logic that the US uses 25% of annual global oil production and only has 3% of world reserves so drilling won’t make a dent in the amount of oil the US imports. However, this logic is completely irrational and flawed. The entire world doesn’t use 3% of world oil reserves every year. If this were the case, the world would run out of oil in the next few decades. It is estimated that the oil available in the oil shale in Colorado along with the available oil in the outer-continental shelf each contain reserves the size of Saudi Arabia – a country that no one believes is wasting their time and resources drilling for every drop of available oil within their borders. Even the most alarmist warnings give the world oil supplies at least another century before any threat of running out. Therefore, 3% of world oil reserves would fuel the US for a very significant timeframe while viable alternatives are researched and developed. So while the president uses dubious logic to prevent the US from increasing domestic oil production, he has no problem sending taxpayer dollars to Brazil for that purpose. As if this isn’t outrageous enough, there’s even more to this story.

Major liberal financier George Soros seems to be reaping a return on his investment in Democrat politicians.

The key beneficiary of the $2 billion giveaway is Brazilian oil company Petrobras. As Bloomberg reported, billionaire and large Democrat financier, George Soros, acquired over $800 million in Petrobras stock during the second quarter of 2008. He ended up selling 22 million shares and acquiring 5.8 million shares of dividend-paying preferred stock. Lisle quotes Ed Morrissey at Hot Air who asked, “Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras’ (sic) offshore operations? Hmmmmmmm.” As Lisle points out, there is no “smoking gun” but the coincidence is very alarming. Since the beginnings of the Bush administration, Soros has held huge influence on Democrat politicians through very large campaign contributions and expensive issue-oriented campaigns through groups like MoveOn.org which was founded by Soros. Petrobras is the largest holding in Soros’ hedge fund and he will very clearly benefit from B. Hussein Obama’s cash injection into their operations.

After eight years of accusations that the Bush administration was abusing their power to help friends in big oil, it shows the level of hypocrisy on those on the left who constantly leveled those charges. Reports have also surfaced that top Obama advisor, David Axelrod, is scheduled to receive millions of dollars in payments from his consulting firm he established. The firm’s largest clients are pharmaceutical companies and other health care industry members who are concerned about the administration’s plans for health care reform. Axelrod left the firm after Obama’s election victory, leaving his son in charge. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that Axelrod’s son can offer the firm’s clients something no other firm can – direct access to the ears of White House officials. While Bush and Halliburton are gone, liberals are dropping their accusations of big business in bed with big government. It looks like they dropped their complaints a little too soon.

Democrat Russ Carnahan faced "tough" questions from three people selected for the event by President Obama's campaign group "Organizing for America."

Democrat Representative Russ Carnahan finally found a health care forum where he won’t be bothered by unhappy constituents. After hosting a couple of town hall meetings on health care reform where angry constituents far outnumbered supporters of the Democrats’ health care proposals, Carnahan has withdrawn from any debate over the issue and surrounded himself with friendly supporters. St. Louis talk radio station KMOX reports that Carnahan held a round-table discussion about health care on Friday in a private home in south St. Louis. The media was not allowed to announce the meeting beforehand which only had three participants in the discussion who were chosen by “Organizing for America.”

On their website, KMOX states, “The three participants who shared their health care concerns with Carnahan were pre-selected by a group called “Organizing for America”, which bills itself as a grass-roots project of the Democratic Party.” This is highly misleading because Organizing for America is not exactly a grassroots movement that has popped up to support health care reform. Instead, the group is actually President B. Hussein Obama’s 13-million-member campaign organization that the president emails when he needs activists in his corner. Some might even label them “Astroturf.” Too bad the same labels and rules don’t apply to liberal Democrat groups.

In the private meeting, the owner of the residence, Connie Cominsky, asked Carnahan why so many people are violently opposed to the “public option.” (Wow, Carnahan sure was fielding some tough questions.) Carnahan responded, “They (opponents) fear the public getting the facts and so their strategy has been really to disrupt that.” Thus says the Democrat whose union thugs hospitalized a man because he was a black conservative and who also holds a “discussion” that the media was not allowed to announce and was populated with people specifically selected by B. Hussein Obama’s campaign organization. Frustrated by hearing from the unwashed, ignorant masses, Carnahan decides to hold a secret private meeting surrounded by supporters. Considering all of this, exactly who is trying to keep people from getting the facts? It looks like Carnahan has decided to avoid those pesky constituents and insulate himself from the actual debate. Out of sight, out of mind, eh Mr. Carnahan?

Ding dong the public option is dead…or is it? Over the weekend, White House Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained that the administration was willing to drop their demands for a “public option” as part of health care reform. On Monday, President Obama told an audience that the public option was only a “small sliver” of the reforms he’s seeking. The distancing from the public option came to a grinding halt yesterday during a press conference where White House Press Secretary Robert “Uhh” Gibbs explained that the administration had not actually changed their minds on the public option despite any previous statements indicating otherwise. As the president and his Democrat colleagues continue talking about their plans, it’s becoming obvious that while the terms have changed from “public option” to “co-ops,” the end goal remains the same; government control over America’s health care system.

Rich Lowry of the National Review pointed out a story by Mark Schmidtt in the left-leaning American Prospect that discusses the strategy we are now witnessing in the health care debate. Schmitt’s piece details how Democrats are indeed looking to insert a public option Trojan horse into the nation’s health care industry that will eventually run all private insurers out of the market, leaving only a single-payer government option. The strategy is not to be straightforward with the goals because proponents of ObamaCare understand that they do not have public support for their plans. Instead, they are trying to disguise their true intentions and achieve their goals through stealth, underhanded methods. Lowry says, “It was devised to as a deliberate, explicit subterfuge that would draw unwary voters to support something that all the polls indicated they opposed; “single payer” nationalized health insurance. This strategy was then sold to the various Democratic presidential candidates way back during the primaries. John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama all bought into it.” Now that the White House is saying that they are backing off of their public option plans – only to turn around and immediately reaffirm their position – we all need to be aware that their true intentions have not changed. Instead of continuing to try and convince Americans of the legitimacy of their goals, the administration is inserting different words that scored better in focus groups in order to push through the exact same plan they are now saying they are backing off from.

Many prominent Democrats from Barney Frank to Harry Reid have told crowds that it doesn’t matter what it’s called as long as a government-controlled public option is part of any health care reform plan that they pass. We’re witnessing the next phase in achieving this goal. Calling the government-run insurance plan a “public option” is generating so much public outrage that Democrats realize they have to do something different. However, the only difference in the debate now is that they have changed the label of the public option to the more focus-group-friendly term, “co-ops.” Beware, just because the terminology has changed doesn’t mean the true goal is any different. The desired end game is still an orchestrated government takeover of the American health care industry and to insert government bureaucrats into individuals’ life and death decisions.

In a twisted turn of events, the Washington Examiner reports that Dennis Rivera, the health care chairman of the SEIU issued as statement denouncing the “radical fringe right-wingers” use of “terrorist tactics” to avoid debate on health care reform. This statement comes the day after SEIU thugs hospitalized a 38-year-old conservative in St. Louis following a town hall meeting hosted by Democrat Russ Carnahan. Ken Gladney, the hospitalized man, was participating in the “terrorist tactic” of distributing “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and committing the ultimate sin, in the eyes of his SEIU assailants, of being an African American conservative. The SEIU members hurled racial slurs at the “radical fringe right-winger,” Gladney, before stomping him to the ground. Six people were arrested for the assault, three of which were wearing purple SEIU shirts.

On a conference call to his network of thugs, Rivera ordered the “purple army” to increase their presence at town hall meetings. White House Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius addressed the union earlier in the same conference call.

Democrats sit at the top of a "thug-ocracy" that works like another notorius Chicago operation. Groups like the SEIU and ACORN serve as "enforcers."

These incidents will continue until members from ACORN or SEIU provoke a reaction that can be splashed across the headlines. Meanwhile, Gladney remains in St. John’s Mercy Hospital recovering from his “terrorist tactics” of expressing his First Amendment Rights.

This is one of those quotes that you just have to see to believe. The video is from CNS News. Apparently, Democrat Representative John Conyers truly believes that actually asking legislators to read the bills that they vote for is completely absurd. Conyers even goes so far as to explain the futility in the idea because the bills the Democrat Congress are drafting are so long and so complex that they are beyond comprehending in any reasonable amount of time without ample legal advisors to translate the bill’s 1,000 pages into plain English.

Wouldn’t this lead most reasonable people to believe that the current bill isn’t the right solution since the people who wrote it can’t even understand its full effects? Too bad the Democrats and their leader, B. Hussein Obama have proven beyond a doubt that reason plays absolutely no factor in their actions.