I’ve got two words for this pontificator in Chief and they ain’t “Merry Christmas”…

Barack Obama lectured supporters on economics and entrepreneurship last night in Roanoke, Virginia. He told the crowd, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”   Really? 

White House – There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.) (more…)

We have pointed out for a while how similar the United States circa 2012 is to the considerations of the Polish people circa 1983.   Decision Time.
Two brave men memorialized in history yesterday with a new statue symbolizing freedom.
The Herald Sun reported:  POLISH officials have unveiled a statue of former President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, honouring two men widely credited in this Eastern European country with helping to topple communism 23 years ago.
The statue was unveiled in Gdansk, the birthplace of Lech Walesa’s Solidarity movement, in the presence of about 120 former Solidarity activists, many of whom were imprisoned in the 1980s for their roles in organising or taking part in strikes against the communist regime.
The bronze statue, erected in the lush seaside President Ronald Reagan Park, is a slightly larger-than-life rendering of the two late leaders.
It was inspired by an Associated Press photograph taken in 1987 on John Paul’s second pontifical visit to the US. (more…)

The following exerpt is from a speech recently given by John Derbyshire:
John Derbyshire Via (vdare.com)   […] Mainstream Conservatism, like any other kind of Conservatism, is up against a very formidable foe. Because of my own professional background as a systems analyst, I think of that foe as “the installed base.”
Imagine you are hired in with a team of computer specialists to give a bank a computerized system for running its books. The job would be pretty easy if you could start from scratch, with a bank that had nothing but paper record-keeping—or better still, with a new-founded bank that had no established system of record-keeping at all.
Unfortunately things are rarely like that. The bank you are contracted to already has a computer system. It’s been in use for years, and it’s a mess. The databases are festooned with redundancies and contradictions, the code is unreadable, and the users have to do time-wasting work-arounds to deal with all the anomalies.
Everyone’s used to this creaking, leaking old system, though, and comfortable with it. They know its faults, but they know how to cope with them, like an old married couple. They resent you coming in and imposing new methods on them. (more…)

Death By Socialism – A 22 year old who died from dehydration whilst in hospital was so desperate for a drink of water he phoned the police from his bed for help, an inquest has been told.
UK Telegraph – Kane Gorny’s mum Rita Cronin told an inquest into her son’s death that when the police turned up at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, they were turned away by doctors and she was repeatedly ignored by staff when she begged for help for her son.

The same Pakistani government that holds the Bin Laden informant in jail.  The same Pakistani government who support radical al-Qaeda operatives within their border.
PAKISTAN – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized Tuesday for a November attack by U.S. forces that left 24 Pakistani troops dead.

“I once again reiterated our deepest regrets for the tragic incident in Salala last November,” Clinton said in a statement about her call with Pakistani foreign minister Rabbani Khar. (more…)

Many people continuing to absorb the recent SCOTUS Healthcare ObamaNation… A few questions pass through my own personal mind:  
FIRST – If the healthcare insurance “mandate” is an allowable, albeit unavoidable, taxation passed on citizens regardless of their economic inactivity then what happens to all those “waivers” granted?   A non-congressional federal department, in this case HHS, cannot lawfully “waiver” taxation?
SECOND – If the first dime of healthcare coverage is now considered taxation, because the first moment of non-engagement in activity is considered taxable, then all healthcare premium expenditures are taxes and therefore automatically deducted from taxable income right?   I mean the only way to collect the taxation is through employment activity, ie. income, and if income expenditures on healthcare coverage are now considered taxes, then they should be deductible from income from the first dime.  No?
(Economist)  AS PETER SUDERMAN of Reason put it, “Some coup”. The individual mandate passes constitutional muster after all. Crisis of legitimacy averted! Akhil Reed Amar’s life has not been a fraud!
However, according to the majority decision by John Roberts, the Supreme Court’s conservative chief justice, the mandate cannot be justified on commerce-clause grounds. Indeed, Mr Roberts wholly affirms the argument that the commerce clause cannot regulate economic inactivity. From the syllabus of the decision: (more…)

(CATO) With the Supreme Court ruling on President Obama’s health care law, everyone is wondering what’s next for big government. Here are some ideas for federal policymakers to consider:
Federal Broccoli Act of 2013: Eat your broccoli, else pay the IRS $1,000.
Federal Recycling Act of 2014: Fill your blue box and put on the curb, else pay the IRS $2,000.
Federal Green Car Act of 2015: Make your next car battery powered, else pay the IRS $3,000. (more…)

It really doesn’t matter what aspect of progdom you are looking at, the inherent failure, nay – constitutional inability, to recognize the obvious, is the commonality in all things progressive.   Really, I’m not kidding; nor am I being snarky or curt, it’s just factually true.

Prog companies spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on marketing analysis and various consultants to help them understand what is occurring within their business model because they operate from a detached reality view toward their customer.
Prog companies believe that all their customers are also progs.  It is just how they view the world.   It’s weird.
But when stuff does not make sense to them, or their business model weakens or begins to fail, they pay a lot of money because they have to exit their comfort circle for advice or they will fail.   It’s true, and I can give you countless first hand experiences.  If progressively run companies maintain only advice from like-minded progs when they are suffering, they will fail.  100% of the time.   Guaranteed.
It is what’s happening to Facebook right now.  They are still stuck in the prog circle aka doomsday-predictive, circling, echo-chamber of progdom.   But this post is not about Facebook.   This post is about a brick and mortar company.   And what you are about to read, free of charge mind you, is an example of everything above. (more…)

U.S. taxpayers spend $80 billion a year on food stamps (really EBT cards) for the poor, but we are not allowed to see where the money is going or what it’s being spent on.  How much of this $80 billion is fraud, waste, or abuse?  Why are taxpayers not allowed to see where the money is going?  How much of this money goes towards junk food such as candy bars or fast food restaurants?  Where is the openness and transparency?
Read more at The Washington Times.

Understand How Significant This Is

FLASHBACK – in October 2011 Obama specifically stated he was not informed of the Department of Justice operation known as Fast and Furious.

There was no ambiguity in this claim from President Obama circa October 6th 2011. He specifically and with unambiguous specificity stated he was unaware of the Fast and Furious operation (see video above).   Yet today, in an effort to protect Eric Holder, President Obama invokes executive privilege.

WASHINGTON DC – President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by Republicans in the House.

Which begs the obvious question the media will not challenge the President on:

How can President Obama possibly assert executive privilege over internal deliberations he has previously claimed didn’t exist?