Sunday, September 30, 2012

A sneak-peak at Barack Obama's plans for America in a potential second term


Why has President Obama said nothing about what he plans to do if given a second term of the presidency? You don't hear what he will do about jobs, national security, immigration, Medicare or the like. What you do hear him say, repeatedly, are things like: Romney's wealthy and "out of touch", Paul Ryan wants your grandparents to die, Republicans want to ruin the environment, Romney put his dog on the car roof, Republicans hate women, the wealthy are evil people.

The groundless accusations go on and on. But Obama needs to distract voters. He can't call attention to his policies of the past four years because they've been disastrous. And he doesn't dare tell us what he plans to do in a second term because he knows that doing so would be the death of his campaign. So Aaron Klein, author of New York Times best seller book, "Fool Me Twice: Obama's Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed" is telling us what Obama won't.

The book, written with co-author Brenda J. Elliott, lays out the specific policy prescriptions President Obama will attempt to enact if he is reelected in November. The research unveiled should have all Americans fearing a second-term for this president. Keeping in mind all Obama has done in his first term to secure America's status as a nation in decline, just imagine what he would do in a second term with no worries about needing to win another election.

When asked in an interview where he was able to find the information for "Fool Me Twice," Klein pointed out that he only did "what a lot of people in the mainstream media could do if they only look at the progressive organizations and key individuals who wrote the stimulus bill and health-care legislation and what they have been writing since on record - which serve as a blueprint for Obama’s second-term agenda.”

According to Klein, second-term plans include granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, whose voter registration would be paid for by the federal government (aka American taxpayers)- registrations that would most likely be made under the party of the Democrats. That would translate roughly into millions of instant votes for the Democrats in one easy step, and a significant step toward making the Republican party obsolete.

The amnesty plans come in the form of interagency directives, legislative attempts and a series of executive orders similar to Obama’s June 2012 order to stop deporting young illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children if they meet certain requirements.

One section of the book documents how key progressive groups, including the Center for American Progress and Demos, helped to craft the dictates placed in the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009.” The act, introduced by Reps. Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) and Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), has yet to pass. According to Klein, the bill’s provisions, however, "form the generalized basis for progressive organizations' specific policy reports and recommendations on how Obama should approach the issue of amnesty, including during a second term. These same organizations were instrumental in helping to craft Obama’s first term policies on immigration reform." The Center also recommends abolishing the current limit on visas for immigrants.

In his research, Klein also uncovered second-term plans for paycheck fairness initiatives. Essentially this strives to give the federal government the authority to determine what is the fair salary for individual jobs in the private sector - and that includes all jobs in the private sector. In other words, if the federal government decides you make too much in your private sector job, it can adjust your wages according to what the government deems fair. It would not be just the top "one percenters" who'd be subjected to this. In fact, they'd be the least impacted. The most affected would be the middle class who Obama wants to make dependent on the government. 

Obama says he wants to fight for the middle class, but what he really wants to do is create a welfare class, starting with paycheck fairness. Also in his second term blueprint is a living wage fairness plan where the government would raise the minimum wage - straight from Marx's ideology - so every individual worker pays his fair share for housing, food, etc. On the surface it sounds good. People may like the idea of the government assuring that they have a higher paycheck. The problem is, it's been tried before - in the 1990s until 2003, pushed by the Obama-supported and fraudulent ACORN group, and it put the local economies in over 80 cities across the country that tried it in alarming peril. It also created a fierce anti-business climate. Obama says he is interested in creating real jobs in the private sector, but his attempts to destroy the private sector belie his words.

Here are a few other findings from Klein's research about documented plans for what Obama would do if given a second term:
  • Taxpayer-funded, neighborhood-based programs to better integrate the newly amnestied immigrants into society, including education centers and healthcare centers. A “federal solution” to ensure that the amnestied immigrants are treated “equitably” across the United States.
  • The recreation of a 21st century version of FDR’s Works Progress Administration program within the Department of Labor that would oversee a massive new bureaucracy and millions of new federal jobs.
  • Specific plans for a National Infrastructure Bank. This entity would “evaluate and finance infrastructure projects "of substantial regional and national importance” and would finance “transportation infrastructure, housing, energy, telecommunications, drinking water, wastewater, and other infrastructures.”
  • Wresting control of the military budget from Congress by attempting to place an ”independent panel” in charge of military spending while slashing the defense budget in shocking ways.
  • The vastly reduced resources of the U.S. Armed Forces will be spread even thinner by using them to combat “global warming,” fight global poverty, remedy “injustice,” bolster the United Nations and step up use of “peacekeeping” deployments.
  • A new “green” stimulus program and the founding of a federal “green” bank or “Energy Independence Trust,” which would borrow from the federal treasury to provide low-cost financing to private-sector investments in “clean energy.”
  • Detailed plans to enact single-payer health care legislation controlled by the federal government.
These plans don't even include the massively huge, crippling taxes set to go into effect courtesy of ObamaCare.

Our choice in November is clear: A candidate who supports free enterprise and the capitalist system that, while not perfect, has been the single largest producer of sustained prosperity in the history of the world, or the incumbent candidate who wants to destroy our economy through massive government centralization, spending, dependence and control.

It is crucial to remember that the same progressive groups that were behind Obama's first election campaign and who helped him craft legislation such as the stimulus plan and ObamaCare are still actively pushing for this blueprint - the one he doesn't want Americans to know about. 

November 6 is our most viable chance to save America. Wresting both houses of Congress from the Democrats won't be enough. The Obama Administration and supporters have shown a mastery of using the courts, the complicit mainstream media and unbridled regulatory power by federal agencies to bypass our elected representatives and force a Socialist-now, eventually-Communist agenda on the people. Obama simply must be voted out. This is no longer about Republicans vs. Democrats. This is about America's survival.



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Thursday, September 27, 2012

Obama and Romney: A side-by-side comparison of the issues

We hear so many conflicting bits of spin through the media, especially through the Obama-backed mainstream media. This is just a simple list of some of the differences between President Barack Obama and candidate Mitt Romney. Take it at face value. The facts speak for themselves. How one interprets the facts is another issue.

Please note: These are culled from various sources: CV.org and Patriot Voices:

"Obama on life:
  • Supports Roe v. Wade and affirms, “I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.” (Source: White House Press Statement)
  • As part of his healthcare legislation, almost every health insurance plan will be required to cover sterilizations and contraception–including birth control pills that can cause abortions–with no co-pay. (Source: US Department Health & Human Services)
  • Overturned a law that prevented the government from giving aid to international family planning groups.  Now our government can pay for people’s contraception (including abortifacients) overseas as well. (Source: White House Executive Order)
  • His campaign boasts that he “stood up to Republicans trying to roll back a woman’s right to choose and defund Planned Parenthood.”  He praises Planned Parenthood and refuses to cut government funding ($487 million in 2012) for the organization.  Planned Parenthood performs on average 900 abortions per day. (Source: Huffington Post)
  • In the Senate, he opposed a pro-life bill designed to prevent partial-birth abortions. (Source: IL General Assembly)
  • Ended a ban on using taxpayer money to fund embryonic stem cell research, which kills human embryos. (Source: White House Executive Order)
  • Eliminated conscience protections for medical workers who morally object to dispensing the morning-after pill (which is designed to destroy embryos).  Recipients of federal money can now discriminate against these workers.(Source: Catholic News Agency)
  • Promises to veto legislation that would prevent taxpayer funding of abortion.(Source: LifeNews.com)
  • Obama is endorsed by pro-choice groups NARAL and Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood spent $1.4 million on an ad campaign for Obama. (Source: Planned Parenthood)
Romney on life:
  • Believes abortions should be limited to only cases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life. (Source: CBS News)
  • Supports overturning Roe v. Wade and promises to appoint Supreme Court Justices who are committed to fair interpretation of the Constitution (Source: Life News)
  • Supports the Hyde Amendment, which bars using federal tax revenue to pay for abortions (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Promises to support efforts to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood (Source: Huffington Post)
  • Promises to support the Mexico City Policy, which will bar NGOs that receive federal funding from promoting or performing abortions as a method of family planning in other countries. (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Promises to advocate for and support legislation that will make it illegal to destroy unborn children who are developmentally capable of feeling pain (Source: Life News)
  • He says, “If I have the opportunity to serve as our nation’s next president, I commit to doing everything in my power to cultivate, promote, and support a culture of life in America.” (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • As governor of Massachusetts, he vetoed a bill that would have allowed girls of any age to obtain emergency contraceptive pills (which are designed to destroy embryos) without parental consent (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • As governor of Massachusetts, he opposed legislation that would allow the creation of human embryos for the purpose of stem cell research, which would result directly in the destruction of those embryos (Source: Romney at NRLC)
Obama on marriage:
  • Supports homosexual “marriage” (Source: CNN Politics)
  • Believes the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) should be repealed (Source: The Atlantic – Wire)
  • Decided with the Justice Department that they would not defend DOMA in new cases (Source: Dept. of Justice – Press Release 2/23/11)
  • Extended to same-sex partners of federal employees many of the benefits that spouses of federal employees enjoy and supports legislation that would grant same-sex partners of federal employees exactly the same benefits as spouses (Source: Politico & OPM Rule)
  • Required any hospital receiving federal funds to allow visitation rights for same-sex partners (Source: Washington Post)
  • Supports the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires all states to recognize same-sex “marriages” performed in other states, which would effectively make homosexual “marriage” legal–even as he emphasizes his belief that the question of same-sex “marriage” should be decided by individual states. (Source: Whitehouse.gov – Blog & “Respect Marriage Act”)
Romney on marriage:
  • Romney’s campaign page says, “Marriage is more than a personally rewarding social custom. It is also critical for the well-being of a civilization. That is why it is so important to preserve traditional marriage – the joining together of one man and one woman.” (Source: MittRomney.com)
  • Opposes civil unions that resemble marriage (Source: USA Today)
  • Favors some domestic partnership benefits but believes that states should decide which of these benefits are appropriate. (Source: Real Clear Politics – with Video)
  • Promises to appoint an Attorney General who will defend DOMA (Source: MittRomney.com)
  • Promises to champion a new amendment to the Constitution that will define marriage as a union of one man and one woman. (Source: National Review Online & MittRomney.com)
Obama on religious liberty:
  • Obama’s Affordable Care Act will require most employers to purchase insurance that covers abortions, sterilizations, and contraception with no co-pay, even though many of those employers–including Catholic schools, hospitals, and dioceses as well as individual business owners and people of many different faiths–object to paying for such insurance plans on religious grounds. (Source: The Weekly Standard)
  • Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claimed the power to compel a church to rehire a former employee to a teaching position.  The case (Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC) went to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in favor of the church.  The decision reads, “authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church’s alone.” (Source: Wall Street Journal Online)
  • Obama’s HHS would not renew funding to the Migration and Refugee Services (MRS), which provides services to refugees, migrating children, and human trafficking victims, because MRS, a Catholic organization, refused to provide or refer for abortions or contraception. (Source: National Catholic Register)
Romney on religious liberty
  • Romney writes, “If I am elected President, on day one of my administration I will issue an executive order directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a waiver from its requirements to all 50 states.”  This would allow states to not force employers to purchase insurance that fully covers abortions, contraception, and sterilization, limiting the effects of Obama’s healthcare legislation while he works to repeal it entirely. (Source: Washington Examiner – OpEd)
  • Supported the Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC decision that affirmed the right of churches to make their own hiring decisions. (Source: ABC News)
  • Defended the right of Catholic Charities of Boston to decide on its own whether it would allow same-sex couples to adopt children in its care. (Source: Fox News)
Obama on fiscal responsibility:
Romney on fiscal responsibility:
  • Romney’s goal is to reduce federal spending to 20% of GDP by the end of his first term (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Promises to send a bill to Congress that will cut non-security discretionary spending by 5% (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act, privatize Amtrak, reduce subsidies to organizations that have access to other funding sources or that offer duplicate services, eliminate federal funding of groups that perform abortions, and reduce foreign aid for a total projected savings of $97.6 billion. (Source: Townhall)
  • Wants to cap Medicaid spending and allow it to grow at the inflation rate + 1% per year (Source: Economist)
  • Plans to reliquish more power to the states, resulting in federal savings (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Plans to work to repeal the the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires the government to pay its employees above-market wages (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • As governor of Massachusetts, Romney closed a $3 billion budget gap without raising taxes and left $2 billion in a rainy-day fund (Source: Mitt Romney)
Obama on education:
  • Increased federal funding for scholarships and financial aid (Source: Whitehouse.gov)
  • Spent $100 billion of the $831 billion stimulus on education-related issues, including teacher salaries (Source: Eductopia.org)
  • Issued waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act to 26 states after Congress would not repeal the law, freeing the states from the obligation to ensure that students are proficient in math and reading by 2014 (Source: NY Times)
  • Implemented Race to the Top, a program that rewards schools with money for conforming to a set of federal standards (Source: Wall Street Journal Online)
  • Refused to continue funding the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, which grants public-school students in DC vouchers for private-school tuition (Source: National Review)
Romney on education:
  • In the third year of his term as governor, Massachusetts 4th graders and 8th graders ranked first in the nation in math and reading (Source: Taunton Daily Gazette)
  • As governor, he vetoed a bill that would have put a moratorium on adding charter schools in the state. (Source: MittRomney.com)
  • Created the “John and Abigail Adams Scholarship” to reward high-performing high school students with college scholarships to any state institution.  (Source: MittRomney.com)
  • Supports empowering states to determine education policy, rewarding teachers based on student achievement, and school choice for students (Source: NY Times)
Obama on health care:
  • Raised taxes by $500 billion to pay for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which the CBO estimates will cost $1.5 trillion over the next decade. (Source: Congressional Budget Office)
  • The ACA compels insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. (Source: New York Times)
  • The ACA, along with the HHS mandate, requires most employers to purchase insurance that covers abortions, sterilizations, and contraception with no co-pay, even though many of those employers–including Catholic schools, hospitals, and dioceses as well as individual business owners and people of many different faiths–object to paying for such insurance plans on moral grounds. (Source: USCCB)
  • The ACA requires every individual to purchase health insurance, whether or not they need or want it. (Source: The Huffington Post)
  • The ACA makes it illegal for a health insurance company to spend more than an arbitrary amount on employee salaries, administrative costs, and marketing. (Source: PennLive.com)
Romney on health care:
  • Promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act as soon as possible, beginning with the stopgap of offering waivers to all 50 states while he works on reversing the law entirely. (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Envisions the federal government’s primary role in health care as creating a level playing field for competition with the goal of driving down premiums. (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Plans to cap the amount that a person can win in court for suing a doctor. (Source: Christian Science Monitor)
  • Promises to prevent discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage. (Source: Mitt Romney)
  • Will end tax disincentives that make it relatively more expensive for individuals to purchase health insurance apart from their employers, increasing real consumer choice. (Source: New York Times)
  • Will allow individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines, increasing competition. (Source: National Public Radio) 
  • President Obama dramatically cuts defense spending by $1 trillion in a time of war while growing government and exploding debt elsewhere even though keeping America safe is the number one responsibility of the federal government.
  • President Obama gives the Iranian regime four more years to develop their nuclear program.
  • President Obama tells Israel what her borders should be rather than defending her.
  • President Obama tells our enemies in Afghanistan when we are leaving while our soldiers continue to fight on.
  • President Obama abandons freedom loving allies like Poland and the Czech Republic by refusing to fulfill commitments for Missile Defense for "flexibility" with Putin's Russia.
  • President Obama says goodbye to Mubarak in Egypt and hello to Islamists in Egypt.
  • President Obama bows to China rather than competing to win.
  • President Obama ignores Chavez in Venezuela rather than containing and undermining him.
  • President Obama refuses to stand against Radical Islam's attacks on women, religious freedom, and freedom of conscience and instead wipes Radical Islam references from National Security and Defense Strategy Documents to keep America safe.
  • President Obama tells Canada to send its energy resources to China instead of America when vetoing the Keystone Pipeline.
  • President Obama signals that fundamental human rights including religious freedom and freedom of conscience are optional or inconvenient in our relations with China, Russia, and much of the Middle East.
  • President Obama encourages debt-ridden European nations to add more debt like he did in America.
  • President Obama is "Fast and Furious" with Mexico's security and our security by failed policy to arm the drug cartels.
  • President Obama refuses to secure our border or enforce and reform immigration laws to make us safer and takes 2 and a half years to even visit the Southern border while suing border states trying to secure the border.
  • President Obama sends a US Ambassador to Syrian Regime instead of a message of strength and support for Human Rights and Freedom.
Four more years of this kind of foreign policy will not only dramatically change our standing in the world; it will jeopardize our safety. It's not worth it. 

It may be good for our competitors and our enemies, but not for America. It's time for a change.  It's time to stand once again for America's interests and values at home and around the world. It's time to honor our men and women in uniform and our commitment to our veterans. It's time to get America moving again. It's time to hold up and to pass on the torch of freedom."


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Thursday, September 20, 2012

More 'bad news and broken promises' from ObamaCare

The Congressional Budget Office has reported that nearly six million Americans will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama's "ObamaCare" for not getting insurance. Most of these penalties would be on the middle class.

According to a report in the Associated Press, the numbers from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are 50 percent higher than a previous projection by the same office in 2010, shortly after the law passed. The earlier estimate found that four million people would be affected in 2016, when the penalty is fully in effect.

The CBO analysis found that nearly 80 percent of those who'll face the penalty would be making $55,850 or less for an individual and $115,250 or less for a family of four. The average penalty these people would face is $1,200 each. 

So much for Obama's 2008 campaign promise when he pledged he would not raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000. Since the Supreme Court ruled ObamaCare Constitutional as a tax, the $1,200 is, of course, a tax increase. The budget office said about $6.9 billion in penalties will be levied against citizens in 2016 alone. The individual mandate penalty will be collected by IRS agents as a tax -- and over 16,000 agents have already been hired with our tax dollars specifically to enforce ObamaCare. How will this humongous bulge in public payroll - not to mention the enormous additional expenses placed on the middle class -- reduce the costs of anything?

Representative Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who wants to repeal the law, said, "The bad news and broken promises from Obamacare just keep piling up." 

Virtually every legal resident of the U.S. will be required to carry health insurance by 2014 or face this tax penalty. For now, most people won't be affected since they already have coverage through employers, Medicare or their own policies. But a recent survey by Deloitte that showed one in ten employers will drop employee health coverage once ObamaCare goes into full effect spells trouble for a significant portion of the population.

The CBO said most of the increase it estimated is because of changes in underlying projections about the economy, the effects of new federal legislation, higher unemployment and lower wages. This hardly seems like the time to put more financial burden on those struggling to put food on the table. Some people say they might decide to remain uninsured because they feel the penalty is much less expensive than health insurance. How compassionate of our own government to force its citizens to choose between paying the bills or basically committing a crime.

Meanwhile, candidate Mitt Romney, who promises to repeal ObamaCare, acknowledges the individual mandate was part of his own healthcare plan in Massachusetts, but that such mandates should be left to each state to decide, not the federal government.

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said the CBO's report is more evidence that Obama's law is a "costly disaster." She added, "Even more of the middle-class families who President Obama promised would see no tax increase will in fact see a massive tax increase thanks to Obamacare."

What's more, since ObamaCare lifts the cap on what insurance companies can pay on any one claim -- from five million dollars to no limit whatsover -- you can bet the money insurance companies will need to keep available will come through much higher insurance premiums for the rest of us. So much for ObamaCare lowering our premiums and other health costs.

Other features of ObamaCare currently in effect are already failing. For instance, the high risk pools that ObamaCare creates as a way to provide those with pre-existing conditions to get insurance are significantly under-subscribed and way over budget. There are also ideas in ObamaCare to pool funds and distribute them as pay to healthcare providers. In other words, doctors would be government employees. How's that for incentive? Of course, most of ObamaCare's elements are, by design, not scheduled to go into effect until after the November elections.

This leads to one other question. If ObamaCare is so great, why is President Obama doing everything he can to avoid mentioning it in his own re-election campaign?



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