Ouch.  California’s super-lib, Barbara Boxer, was torn to shreds by Harry Alford,  the CEO and President of the Black Chamber Of Commerce this afternoon.  Alford was incensed when Boxer attempted to negate his arguments by simply entering opposing black viewpoints into the record, rather than address the merits of what he was saying.

Boxer, when confronted by Alford, who calls her tactic “condescending,” can be heard talking over the CEO as he calls her out. 

Her bigoted arrogance is pretty impressive, but given how the Dems love racial politics, hardly surprising.

- Robert Laurie

According to U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, a fiscally conservative Democrat from Arkansas, the House of Representative’s health care reform bill may be dead on arrival and continues to lose support.

“Last time I checked, it takes seven Democrats to stop a bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee, we had seven against it last Friday; we have 10 today.”

Ross is a leader of the so-called “Blue Dogs,” democrats who remain staunchly opposed to big government tax-and-spend policies, despite the wishes of the president.  Ross claims that without significant changes, the bill will die a slow death in committee.

Of course, this may all be nothing more than political posturing, as Ross claims “The current bill would have to be substantially amended before we could consider supporting it.”  He and his fellow Blue Dogs have been meeting all week to create those amendments, and will present them to the Energy and Commerce Committee  Chairman, Energy and Commerce Committee, next week.

- Robert Laurie

The headline may as well read “Working New Yorkers Flee City and State,” because if Obama’s health care plan goes through, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

The New York Post has done the math and according to its research, an employed New York City worker Making $285,000.00 will have $115,284.00 of his income confiscated by the government should Obama’s health care plan go through.  That’s a little better than 40%.

A married couple with a combined income of $1.5 Million would be forced to hand over $718,885.00.  That’s almost half, meaning that one of the spouses would be working essentially for FREE, just to pay off Uncle Obama.

By 2011, the income going to taxes within the city of New York will be a staggering 58.62%. 

The Post article contains all sorts of other illuminating numbers, including the fact that a small business owner will, on average, have to fire one employee to make up the $50,000 dollars worth of penalties he’ll incur if the “No Insurance” punitive tax becomes law.

Please, if you live in New York, do yourself a favor and read the Post’s findings.  That way, when Obama gets his way, and your favorite city turns into a ghost town, you won’t be able to claim you weren’t warned.  No one in their right mind is going to live under that burden.  If they have the means requiring them to pay so much, they have the means to move.

- Robert Laurie

Now that the unemplyment rate is nearing 10% nationaly, and closing in on 20% in places like Michigan, you may be wondering what Obama’s done to create jobs. Fear not! Since he’s having a tough time convincing people that his policies are viable, The Fund for the Public Interest is paying people to do it for him.

Obama wants health care legislation passed, and he wants it now. Never mind that he’s socializing car companies, banks, and mortgages, the real prize is the medical industry. Polls show support for his measures are dropping, so he needs to get it done quickly….before anyone has a chance to figure out what exactly he’s doing. The Fund for the Public Interest recognizes the importance of dismantling the free market economy, so they’ll pay you $11-$16 per hour to help him do it.

It’s all part of “The Summer of Change.”  Doesn’t that have a lovely ring to it?  Some dried up old ex-hippie must be really proud of that slogan.  “Change to what?”  Shhh..don’t ask.  Just look how happy the people are in the picture.  Never mind that The Fund for the Public Interest’s banner looks like an advertisement for some creepy socialist bible camp, they’re having fun, and it’s a job. 

Of course, the jobs are temporary and once Obama gets his way they’ll surely dry up, just like opportunities across the board.  That said, in a political climate this short sighted, where the emphasis is on the here-and-now, where examination of any future implication of Obama’s legislation is reviled, and where individual  success is targeted as nothing more than a means to pay for more government programs, ya gotta get while the gettin’s good.  So, go here to apply!

I wonder if The Fund For The Public Interest is offering bonuses to anyone who can get a congressman to sign the bill without reading it?

- Robert Laurie

Aside from implementing 5.4% on those making over a million dollars a year, and a whole new range of taxes on anyone making $300,000 or more, the Democrats new health care bill also creates a staggering bureaucracy. 

The chart above chronicles the maze, and how it relates to the states and, perhaps more importantly, the IRS.

A larger version of the Mondrian-inspired program is available here.  I can’t wait to navigate this mess when I get older an need a hip replacement.  Should be fun!

- Robert Laurie

Well this is certainly odd.  Yesterday, I posted this piece about a U.S. Army Reserve Major who was refusing deployment to Afghanistan.  He claimed that Obama’s failure to produce an original, long-form Hawaiian birth certificate made him ineligible for the presidency, and therefore his orders were null and void.  His attorney, Orly Taitz, filed a lawsuit vowing to fight the deployment unless Obama produced the documentation.

Late last night, with no explanation, his orders were revoked.

Taitz is trumpeting the development as a major victory, telling WorldNetDaily, “We won before we even arrived. It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it.
Therefore, they are revoking the order.”

Major Cook has gone on record, claiming he wants to serve in Afghanistan but  “As an officer in the armed forces of the United States, it is [my] duty to gain clarification on any order we may believe illegal. With that said, if President Obama is found not to be a ‘natural-born citizen,’ he is not eligible to be commander-in-chief; any order coming out of the presidency or his chain of command is illegal. Should I deploy, I would essentially be following an illegal [order]. If I happened to be captured by the enemy in a foreign land, I would not be privy to the Geneva Convention protections,”

The suit names four people as defendants, Col. Wanda Good, Col. Thomas Macdonald, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Barack Hussein Obama, who is described as the “De Facto President of the United States.”  

The complaint goes on to say “Plaintiff submits that it is implicit though not expressly stated that an officer is and should be subject to court-martial, because he will be derelict in the performance of his duties, if he does not inquire as to the lawfulness, the legality, the legitimacy of the orders which he has received, whether those orders are specific or general.”

“Barack Hussein Obama, in order to prove his constitutional eligibility to serve as president, basically needs only produce a single unique historical document for the Plaintiff’s inspection and authentication: namely, the ‘long-form’ birth certificate which will confirm whether Barack Hussein Obama was in fact born to parents who were both citizens of the United States in Honolulu, Hawaii, in or about 1961.”

That the military has revoked Cook’s orders has set a dangerous precedent, one he and his lawyer recognize.  As a result, they vow to continue fighting for the release of the document in question.  “We are going to be asking for release of Obama’s records because now this completely undermines the military,” Taitz said.  “It revoked this order, but it can come up with another order tomorrow. It can come up with orders for other people. Am I going to be flying around the country 1,000 times and paying the fees every time they issue an order?”

“We’re going to be asking the judge to issue an order for Obama to provide his vital records to show he is legitimately president,” Taitz said. “We’re going to say, we have orders every day, and we’ll have revocations every day. This issue has to be decided.”

If, as Barack Obama claims, his Birth Certificate is in the hands of Hawaiian officials, and will prove his presidential eligibility, why won’t he simply ask Hawaii to release it?  Even if that’s not standard protocol for the state, isn’t this matter extraordinary enough to warrant full disclosure? 

The President’s primary responsibility is the protection of this nation.  Now that soldiers have begun using his lack of a birth certificate as a reason not to fight, Obama MUST produce it.  If he doesn’t, and orders of those who complain are revoked, he’ll set a precedent that decimates the chain of command.

I ask again:  If Obama is going to ask young men and women to give their lives for their country, shouldn’t he be willing to give his birth certificate for it?

Why keep fighting it’s release?

 - Robert Laurie

President Obama has relied on him since the beginning, flying him around the world, granting him a place of honor at speaking engagements, sometimes seeming lost without his assistance. Yesterday, however, the Teleprompter In Chief could take the lies no longer and decided to end it all.

The Vice-Teleprompter immediately took the oath, and Obama’s presser continued uninterrupted.

Expect the former Teleprompter to lay in state before moving to his final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery.

-Robert Laurie

Barack’s transparency is on full display again today, as he visits my hometown for an event that, four days ago, he called a “town hall meeting.”   Since then, plans have morphed into a tightly-controlled speech to an invite-only crowd, made up of press and other supporters.  Par for the course, I guess.

He is expected to unveil a twelve billion dollar plan to help the nation’s schools at the event, which is being held at 2:30 this afternoon on the campus of Macomb Community College inWarren, MI.  The money, he claims, will help stem the country’s dropout rate.  Considering that the Detroit public school system only graduates 24% of it’s students, and of those almost half leave high school as functional illiterates, I’d say he’s picked the right place to give his speech.

In addition, he maintains that the money will prepare America’s youth for the “jobs of tomorrow.”  I didn’t know you could major in “Unloading GM Containers From Chinese Freighters,” but apparently, you can.

Hopefully, we’ll soon have some reports from people who have pierced the president’s trademark transparency, and managed to get inside.

- Robert Laurie