OBAMA ON THE CLIMB!

Two Coffees in Heaven!       

Having arrived at the Gates of Heaven, Barack Obama meets a man with a
beard. ‘Are you Mohamed?’ he asks.

‘No my son, I am St. Peter; Mohamed is higher up.’

Peter then points to a ladder that rises into the clouds.
Delighted that Mohamed should be higher than St. Peter, Obama climbs the
ladder in great strides, climbs up through the clouds and comes into a room.

Where he meets another bearded man. He asks again, ‘Are you Mohamed?’

‘Why no,‘ he answers, ‘I am Moses; Mohamed is higher still.’

Exhausted, but with a heart full of joy Obama climbs the ladder yet again.

He discovers a larger room where he meets an angelic looking man with a beard.

Full of hope, he asks again, ’Are you Mohamed?‘

‘No, I am Jesus, the Christ; You will find Mohamed higher up.’

Mohamed higher than Jesus! Man, oh man! Obama can hardly contain his delight
and climbs and climbs ever higher.

Once again, he reaches an even larger room where he meets this truly
magnificent looking man with a silver white beard and once again repeats his
question:

‘Are you Mohamed?’Obama gasps as he is, by now, totally out of breath from
all his climbing.

‘No, my son, I am Almighty God, the Alpha and the Omega, but you look
exhausted. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

Obama says, ‘Yes please!’

As God turns and looks behind him, he claps his hands and yells out: “Yo,
Mohamed, two coffees!”

Keep your trust in God; Your president is an idiot.

Have a Heavenly Day!

(Thank  you,  Mary Lou Stewart,  for the above message.)

Retiring Owner Gives Business to Employees

One of the first rules of owning a small business is learning that the quality of the business is only as good as the quality of its workers.    

I learned that rule late in life after 30 years on government payroll when the quality of labor didn’t much matter.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/you-also-have-to-give-back-retiring-minn-man-gives-away-business-to-his-employees/       from The Blaze

Article sent by Mark Waldeland.

Nevada Judge, Heavily Laden with Common Sense, Defends State’s Marriage Law

Suit Fails to Overturn NV Marriage Law

from the Family Research Council:

http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/viva-loss-vegas-suit-fails-to-overturn-nv-marriage-law

“Nevada is willing to gamble on a lot of things, but marriage isn’t one of them. In federal court yesterday, Judge Robert Jones dealt a big setback to state activists hoping to redefine marriage. His opinion, which he issued just days after oral arguments, may be one of the most compelling yet on the question of “equality” for homosexual couples. The lead plaintiffs in the case are two lesbians, both grandmothers, who argued that Nevada’s 10-year-old marriage amendment is discriminatory. Judge Jones emphatically disagreed in a 41-page masterpiece that thoroughly dismantled the Left’s legal logic. Homosexuals aren’t being denied the right to marry, Jones explained. They simply have to abide by the same criteria as everyone else.

“Like heterosexual persons, they may not marry members of the same sex.” In fact, Jones wrote, “A homosexual man may marry anyone a heterosexual man may marry, and a homosexual woman may marry anyone a heterosexual woman may marry.” In other words, this isn’t about discrimination or equal protection. “Homosexuals have not historically been denied the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, or the right to own property,” he pointed out. “The protection of the traditional institution of marriage, which is a conceivable basis for the distinction in this case, is a legitimate state interest,” he said, adding that if the state recognized same-sex couples’ marriages, heterosexuals might “cease to value the civil institution as highly as they previously had and hence enter into it less frequently… because they no longer wish to be associated with the civil institution as redefined.”

Then, in perhaps the most pivotal part Jones’s opinion, he highlighted the recent success homosexuals had at the ballot box. “It simply cannot be seriously maintained, in light of these and other recent democratic victories, that homosexuals do not have the ability to protect themselves from discrimination through democratic processes such that extraordinary protection from majoritarian processes is appropriate.”

In other words, our Election Day losses might actually be the key to future victories in court. Now that three states have actually voted for same-sex “marriage,” liberals can no longer claim the court as their only avenue to “equal protection.” Even lesbian activists like Nan Hunter, a Georgetown professor, admit that judges might be less likely to intervene on marriage if homosexuals no longer seem “powerless” to advance their agenda. It could even, Hunter argues, change the way the Supreme Court sees the issue–if, as it’s expected, the justices agree to hear at least one of the marriage cases in their hopper.

The high court planned to meet today to decide which marriage case it would take. Thanks to the growing number of lawsuits, the justices have their pick of cases–from challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or federal benefits laws to California’s Proposition 8. Given the high profile of any marriage case, the court would likely hear a suit in March and rule in June. That ought to give the bench plenty of time to absorb Judge Jones’s decision!”

Article sent by Mark Waldeland.

 

Getting to Know the Modern American Female Better: Chapter I

June Thomas       from an article at Slate…..for the full article, click:  http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/11/gay_marriage_i_m_a_lesbian_and_i_m_never_getting_married_i_don_t_want_to.html

“I’m a lesbian, and I’m never getting married”

“Still, it’s not for me. My resistance to marriage isn’t about avoiding commitment or responsibility. I’ve been in a blissfully happy monogamous relationship for going on 16 years. We own property and are raising a cat together. I just don’t want to be a wife—and I don’t want a wife of my own.

I came out back when gay and marriage went together like an octopus and carriage. I never dreamed of a fabulous wedding or hoped that the institution would one day be open to the likes of me. When people say you can’t go to a party, it’s natural to decide that you’d rather stay away. …

Does my discomfort at being considered another woman’s wife stem from internalized self-loathing? Maybe, but mostly I think I’m responding to the essential conservatism of marriage mania. …

I’ve noticed that my visceral anti-marriage animus is particularly strong when I hear twentysomething lesbians talking about their wives and fiancees. Are they really going to mate for life, like swans in sensible shoes? That seems attractive at 35, but at 25 it’s positively Amish. Worst of all, it threatens the continued evolution of a talent perfected over the millennia as our relationships have gone unrecognized by church and state: a gift for breaking up. Lesbians tend to bond intensely and often. Once a relationship has run its course, lovers become great friends. If you know a lesbian, chances are you know a lesbian who’s gone on vacation with her current girlfriend, an ex-girlfriend, and a dog she once shared with a different ex.”

Comment:   Deeply ditzy, yet  profoundly freebie American, 2012…..thank you June Thomas for sharing your thoughts.

Obama Acting His Usual “Presidential” Self, Advertises His “Own Naughty and Nice List”

Obama Warns Congress: “I’ve Been Keeping My Own Naughty And Nice List”

“Joe Biden was in Costco and he wanted to buy some of this stuff, but I told him he had too much work to do. I wasn’t going to have him building roller coasters all day long. Now, of course, Santa delivers everywhere. I’ve been keeping my own naughty and nice list for Washington, so you should keep your eye on who gets some K’NEX this year. There are going to be some members of Congress who get them, and some who don’t,” President Obama said Friday at a rally where he pushed Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff.

To view  video from realclearpolitics click below:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/30/obama_warns_congress_ive_been_keeping_my_own_naughty_and_nice_list_for_washington.html

Krauthammer on Obama’s Cliff Jump

Obama Will Have A Failed Second Term If We Go Over Fiscal Cliff

by Charles Krauthammer…..video at realclearpolitics:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Obama has never offered anything in public about entitlements. He always says he wants a discussion. And now he says, after the Republicans give up their one issue of taxes, I’ll discuss a bargain next year. Of course he wants that because that’ll be the time when the Republicans are defrocked, disrobed and disarmed. They have nothing to bargain with. Look, the Republicans started out, as Steve indicated, by offering a peace pipe, by saying we’ll raise the revenues. And they just had a punch in the nose this afternoon. Any Republican who buys this is a fool.

The Republicans stood for one thing consistently. It’s held them together ideologically, and generally speaking it’s helped them electorally. They are the low-tax party. The other guys want to tax to match their reckless spending. If they give it up now in return for nothing, Obama wins and he wins big.

Now I understand why Democrats are doing this. They imagine that the Republicans have no bargaining power today. I say it’s true that if Republicans resist, they’ll take the blame. And that will help the Democrats in the Congress. But Obama is never running again. He doesn’t care who gets the blame. He’s going to be the president. He’s a lame duck. He wants a successful second term. If it starts by going over the cliff, it starts with a second recession, two million unemployed, and a wrecked second term. That’s the leverage that Republicans have over Obama, and they ought to use it and not cave in in the face of a demand that I think is utterly unacceptable.

###

KRAUTHAMMER: The Republicans have one card. If we go over the cliff, Obama will have a failed second term. And that’s the one thing he cares about and he’s in charge. The idea that Republicans are here empty handed is a huge mistake. They assume it’s so, they’re going to cave. They will undermine their entire stance of the low-tax party, for a generation they’re going to lose that issue. The same way that George Bush Sr., he made a promise on taxes, he went against it. It destroyed his career.

To view video, click below:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/28/krauthammer_obama_will_have_a_failed_second_term_if_we_go_over_fiscal_cliff.html

Thinking about Joining the Lemmings in Washington about that Cliff Business the December?

Let’s go over the fiscal cliff

 

By Marc A. Thiessen,

from the Washington Post

Here’s an idea for how to start the New Year in a bipartisan fashion: Let’s go over the fiscal cliff!Today, the only ones in Washington who advocate fiscal cliff-diving are liberal Democrats. It’s time for conservatives to join them. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire will strengthen the GOP’s hand in tax negotiations next year, and it may be the only way Republicans can force President Obama and Senate Democrats to agree to fundamental tax reform.

 

Marc A. Thiessen

A fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, Thiessen writes a weekly column for The Post.

 The Democrats’ cliff

Right now, Democrats believe they have the upper hand in the fiscal standoff. Patty Murray (Wash.) — the fourth-ranking Senate Democrat and the leading champion on Capitol Hill for going over the fiscal cliff — says that Republicans are “in a real box” because “if they do nothing, those increased taxes [they oppose] will take place.” If Republicans dig in, says Murray, all Democrats need to do is “go past the December 31st deadline” and let the tax increases happen automatically.There’s one problem with her scenario: While the Bush tax cuts expire on Dec. 31, so do a lot of tax policies the Democrats support. For example:●The 10 percent income tax bracket would disappear, so the lowest tax rate would be 15 percent.

●The employee share of the Social Security payroll tax would rise from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent.

●An estimated 33 million taxpayers — many in high-tax blue states — would be required to pay the alternative minimum tax, up from 4 million who owed it in 2011.

●The child tax credit would be cut in half, from $1,000 today to $500, and would no longer be refundable for most.

●Tax preferences for alternative fuels, community development and other Democratic priorities would go away.

●And the expansions of the earned income tax credit and the dependent care credit would disappear as well.

Letting these tax policies expire would level the playing field for Republicans in tax negotiations next year. Instead of being in a “box,” Republican leaders would have leverage again — something the Democrats want and would have to make concessions to get.

Going over the fiscal cliff would help the GOP in another way: It would save Republicans from having to break their pledge not to raise taxes. If GOP leaders hold the line on taxes this fall, and the Bush tax cuts expire despite their best efforts, it would not harm their reputation as the party of low taxes. But if Republicans vote proactively to raise taxes as part of a “grand bargain,” the GOP brand would be irreparably damaged. Raising taxes and losing a fight to stop automatic tax increases are two different things.

Moreover, if the Bush tax cuts expire, the baseline for future negotiations would be reset. A bipartisan agreement would be within reach that reforms and simplifies the tax code, with a top rate lower than the Clinton rate but higher than the Bush one. Instead of Republicans being under pressure to raise taxes, Obama and the Democrats would be under pressure to reduce the top rate from the Clinton level as part of an eventual deal.

For the GOP, this would be far preferable to the current scenario. Right now, Democrats are demanding that Republicans raise taxes while Republicans are demanding that Democrats agree to cut Social Security and Medicare spending. A grand bargain this fall, then, would mean that Republicans get to raise revenue from their own supporters (small-business job creators) in exchange for cutting spending for their own supporters (seniors). Genius! Much better to wipe the slate clean, and start over with more leverage for fundamental tax reform and structural entitlement reform.

What if we go off the fiscal cliff and Democrats still won’t negotiate? Then Republicans should make clear that they are willing to live with the higher, Clinton-era rates. It will be hard for the Democrats to paint such a scenario as an economic disaster, because letting the Bush tax cuts expire simply restores the status quo during the Clinton administration. During the campaign, President Obama repeatedly told us how he wants to “go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton — back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot.” Well if the Clinton tax rates were so great, let’s go back to all of the Clinton rates and relive the booming ’90s.

At least going back to the Clinton rates would put more people on the tax rolls, and give more Americans a stake in constraining government spending. It would also force all Americans — including the middle class — to pay for growing government services, instead of borrowing the money from China and passing the costs on to the next generation.

Americans had a choice this November, and they voted for bigger government. Rather shielding voters from the consequences of their decisions, let them pay for it.

Kimberley Strassel at WSJ: Obama Serious about being Unserious and Dishonest

This Unserious White House

The president makes the GOP a fiscal-cliff offer

he knows they will refuse.

by Kimberley Strassel     at   the Wall Street Journal:

White House this week finally explained just how serious it is about averting a fiscal cliff that could throw the country back into a recession. The answer: not serious at all.

The markets and the media in recent days have been operating on an optimistic belief that the administration simply will not let the country fall off the fiscal cliff. They’d best rethink. On Thursday, the president dispatched Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House Director of Legislative Affairs Rob Nabors to Congress to finally outline the White House’s offer to avert the coming tax hikes and sequester.

It was something out of Wonderland and Oz combined.

According to sources on Capitol Hill, the White House wants Republicans to pony up $960 billion in immediate tax increases, which will come from hiking the top marginal rates and increasing capital gains and dividends taxes. That is just for starters. The administration also wants the GOP to surrender an additional $600 billion in revenue via later tax reforms.

The president’s team specified no amounts or details on spending cuts. Rather, the White House wants more spending: at least $50 billion in new stimulus, an extension of unemployment insurance, a one-year deferral of the sequester, new money to refinance underwater mortgages, a Medicare-doctor fix . . . and a partridge in a pear tree.

Oh, the White House also wants Congress to give Mr. Obama the authority to increase the debt limit, whenever he wants, as much as he wants.

What do Republicans get in return? Next year, the White House will agree to talk to the GOP about cutting as much as $400 billion from entitlement programs. Maybe. If Democrats get around to it. Which they won’t—because they’ll have everything they’ve wanted.

How to put this tax-and-more-spending offer in perspective? It is far in excess of what the Democrats asked for in last year’s debt-limit standoff—when the political configuration in Washington was exactly the same. It is far more than the president’s own Democratic Senate has ever been able to pass, even with a filibuster-proof majority. It is far more than the president himself campaigned on this year.

But the president’s offer is very much in keeping with his history of insisting that every negotiation consist of the other side giving him everything he wants. That approach has given him the reputation as the modern president least able to forge a consensus.

John Boehner, Barack Obama and Harry Reid at the White House, Nov. 16.

Don’t forget: The man now engaged with Congress to work out a grand deal is the same one who could not pull over to his side a single Republican vote for his stimulus legislation, who had to ram through ObamaCare with procedural tricks, and whose inept handling of last year’s debt-ceiling talks ultimately led his fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to isolate him from the final negotiations. This is not a history to inspire confidence.

Mr. Obama’s tendency to campaign rather than lead, to speechify rather than negotiate, has already defined this lame-duck session. The president has wasted weeks during which a framework for a deal has been in place.

Within two days of the election, Mr. Boehner had offered an enormous compromise, committing the GOP to provide new tax revenue, through limits on deductions for the wealthy. Mr. Obama campaigned on making “the rich” pay more—and that is exactly what Mr. Boehner agreed to give him.

All that was left for the president to do was accept this peace offering, pair it with necessary spending cuts, and take credit for averting a crisis. Mr. Obama has instead spent the past weeks campaigning for tax-rate hikes. He wants the revenue, but collected only the way he chooses. And on the basis of that ideological insistence alone, the nation is much closer to a crisis.

Talks that had been at a standstill may now crumble, thanks to the Geithner-Nabors proposal. The president is boxing in the Republicans—offering them a deal they cannot accept, a deal they can’t even be seen to be treating seriously. Mr. Boehner is legitimately interested in a bargain that will set the country on sounder footing. Yet the most immediate outcome of such an open slap from the White House will be to make even those Republicans who were willing to cut a deal harden their positions. Someone get the White House a copy of “Negotiating Tactics for Dummies.”

Then again, the most frightening aspect of the White House proposal is that it wasn’t an error. Perhaps the proposal was thoroughly calculated. This suggests a president who doesn’t care about the outcome of the cliff negotiations—who thinks that he wins politically no matter what. He’s betting that either the GOP will be far more responsible than he is and do anything to avert a crisis, or that the cliff gives him the tax hikes his partisans are demanding. Win-win, save for the enormous pain to average families across the country.

The Republicans will have to contemplate how to deal with such an unserious offer. But in presenting his demands, the president has now made very clear that there is only one side that is working in good faith.

Securing Better Health and Comfort Programs Retirees Might Want to Think About

Fellow conservative, Mary Lou Stewart sent me the following ‘card’.    

 Medicare Part G

 You’re a sick senior citizen and the government says there
is no nursing home available for you. So what do you do?

Our plan gives anyone 65 years, or older, a gun (G) and 4 bullets.
You are allowed to shoot four Politicians.

Of course, this means you’ll be sent to prison, where you will
receive three meals a day, a roof over your head,
central heating and air conditioning and all the health care
you need.

Need new teeth? No problem. Need glasses? That’s great.
Need a new hip, knees, kidney, lungs or heart? They’re all
covered.

As an added bonus, your kids can come and visit you at
least as often as they do now.

And who will be paying for all of this? The same
government that just told you they can’t afford for you to
go into a home.

And, you can get rid of 4 useless politicians while you’re at it.

Plus, because you are a prisoner, you don’t have to pay any
income taxes anymore.

Is this a great country or what?

 

Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom: Can You Opt Out of Obamacare?

Can the State Force You into  Obamacare?

by  Twila Brase   at  the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom

Can you opt out of Obamacare? Two weeks ago, I pointed out Section 1555, one of the major chinks in PPACA’s armor according to an attorney at the Goldwater Institute. Section 1555 is in the law under “Subtitle G – Miscellaneous Provisions.” Since bringing this up, I’ve heard from some who believe that this section is limited solely to those who sell (“issue”) health insurance.

Here again is Section 1555: “No individual, company, business, nonprofit entity, or health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall be required to participate in any Federal health insurance program created under this Act (or any amendments made by this Act), or in any Federal health insurance program expanded by this Act (or any such amendment), and there shall be no penalty or fine imposed upon any such issuer for choosing not to participate in such programs.”

I’ve contacted Goldwater Institute’s attorney, Nick Dranius, and other attorneys for more information and opinions. I’ve also transcribed Mr. Dranius’s webinar comments so you can read them for yourself. See “News to Know” below.

Here is a summary of what I’ve heard so far:

1) Because of the rush to passage, no Congressional history exists that would describe the meaning or explain the purpose of this section, thus no one is sure why it’s in the law, who put it there, or what it means.

2) The language is ambiguous. There are two possible interpretations of the language:

Interpretation #1: The placement of the comma before the word “or” means that the words preceding it (“individual, company, business, nonprofit entity”) are not modified by the words,”issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage.”

Interpretation #2: If you disregard the placement of the comma, or otherwise disagree with the above interpretation, the entire opt-out section applies only to entities “offering group or individual health insurance coverage” — including individuals, companies, etc.

3) Final interpretation may be left to judges if Section 1555 is used in a legal challenge.

4) Given all the mandates in the rest of the law (the totality of the law), some judges may dismiss this section, but others may not.

5) For states with health care freedom acts that challenge Obamacare in court, Section 1555’s ambiguity may have to be considered and a legal interpretation made.

But regardless of the interpretation of this section, the fact remains that states, employers and individuals can opt-out of compliance — and in some cases may even be able to avoid the penalties for doing so (read Michael Cannon in Quotes below).

Individuals and employers still have power. As Justice Roberts ruled, no one can be forced to buy insurance. Likewise, no one has to sell insurance and no one is required to provide insurance. There are penalties for refusing to buy or provide insurance, but they are significantly less than the cost of buying or providing insurance. As the price of insurance skyrockets under Obamacare, expect more and more individuals and businesses to choose penalties rather than insurance.

States can refuse in two ways. States can refuse to expand Medicaid, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. And states can refuse to establish the federally-controlled state-based exchanges. The law doesn’t require it.

Refusing to cooperate — which starves Obamacare of the dollars, machinery, and manpower needed for implementation — may be our best protection until the law is repealed.