How Soon Till De Blasio Voting Liberals Head To Greener Pastures?

This is what NYC citizens voted for (this is the prepared text as released)

(NY Times) But let me be clear. Our work — all of our work — is really just beginning. And we have no illusions about the task that lies ahead.

Tackling inequality isn’t easy; it never has been, and never will be. The challenges we face have been decades in the making, and the problems we set out to address will not be solved overnight.

But make no mistake: the people of this city have chosen a progressive path, and tonight we set forth on it, together, as one city. (snip)

To maintain that greatness and to ensure that our brightest days are ahead of us, we must commit ourselves to progressive ideas that will lift us all. (snip)

So when we call on the wealthiest among us to pay just a little more in taxes to fund universal Pre-K and after-school programs we aren’t threatening anyone’s success. We are asking those who’ve done very well to ensure that every child has the same opportunity to do just as well as they have. (snip)

Progressive changes won’t happen overnight, but they will happen;

In other words, expect De Blasio and his base to push big taxation and redistributive plans, which could see many people get the heck out of NYC. And, unfortunately, they tend to come to areas without the Progressive insanity. And attempt to install their ideas which they just abandoned.

Say what you will about Bloomberg, the guy did mostly love business and money. Yes, he was a progressive nanny-stater, but if you listen to him talk, he loves the fact that NYC has lots and lots of millionaires. I listened to an interview with him back in September, and he was actually discussing how having all these millionaires and billionaires in NYC, along with serious money making companies, helped people via….get this….trickle down economics. A guy like Bloomberg must know something about How Economies Work.

De Blasio, on the other hand, is going to work hard to change the dynamics. De Blasio campaigned on the notion that the “elite” had their mayor, Bloomberg, and now it’s time for the 46% who are at or below poverty to get their mayor. And when that happens, Liberals abandon what they voted for and head for the hills. Hint for these folks: Detroit has plenty of housing at cheap pricing for ya.

Read: How Soon Till De Blasio Voting Liberals Head To Greener Pastures? »

Marijuana Makes Big Gains In Votes: Will DOJ Sue?

The Obama/Holder heavily politicized Department Of Justice is quick to act when any state or municipality decides to enhance illegal immigration law. Same with some states that pass voter ID laws. What about marijuana? So far, nothing when it comes to Colorado, which had perhaps the most amusing referendum

(CBS News) A proposal to impose hefty taxes on recreational marijuana, whose use was OK’d by Colorado voters in last year’s election, was an easy sell in the state Tuesday.

About two-thirds of those casting ballots approved a 15 percent excise tax plus a 10 percent sales tax on pot sales that begin next year.

The taxes are projected to bring in $70 million a year. The money will be used for school construction and regulating pot sales.

Hmm, so they’re going to use the money from people getting stoned for schools? Anyone else see the problem with pushing drug use to fund school construction? Oh, and then there’s that silly fact that marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug by the federal government, making use or sale illegal.

BTW, has anyone considered that people can simply grow it at home, thereby avoiding any taxation?

Then you have Portland, Maine

Looks like recent polls showing a clear majority of Americans in favor of legalizing marijuana has played out that way in Portland, Maine,  and three Michigan cities where voters overwhelmingly approved legalizing possession of marijuana.

That city’s initiative of the voters legalizes …

“… the recreational use of marijuana by adults 21 years of age or older. It allows adults 21 years of age or older to legally possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and paraphernalia. It also allows adults 21 years of age or older to engage in activities for the purpose of ascertaining the possession of marijuana and paraphernalia. It prohibits recreational use activities in public spaces, school grounds …”

The Portland Press Herald is reporting that 70 percent of voters have approved the measure. And, while there are more votes to come in, the lead has proponents declaring victory.

The three Michigan cities are Lansing, Jackson and Ferndale. Will Holder come down on these cities? Is justice blind?

Just to be clear, I do not see pot as being all that bad. It is a lot safer than alcohol. I could care less if people use it. I really don’t want to see it out in public, and I do not want to get a contact high from people’s use of it.

Read: Marijuana Makes Big Gains In Votes: Will DOJ Sue? »

Dems Try To Change Subject, Bring Iraq War Into Obama Lied Debate

Liberals are furiously spinning to protect this turd of a law as it becomes quite clear that Mr. Obama knowingly lied about being able to keep your plan if you like it. Here’s another cute on

(Daily Caller) President Obama’s “you can keep your health insurance” lie is now being compared to President Bush’s “lie” that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The problem with the comparison is that only one of the claims was a lie.

“What about President Obama, did he tell the exact truth? I’d have to say no,” liberal radio host Bill Press said last week. “Should he have conditioned it? Yeah! He should have said, and Congressman John Yarmuth said this yesterday on our show, the president probably should have said 99 percent, he would have been absolutely right on. Or he should have said, by far most Americans, and he would have been absolutely right on. He didn’t, but I just have to say, for the Republicans to make a big deal of that, I remember another president saying Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and we had to invade that country and we did.”

DC writer Jamie Weinstein goes on to say that Obama lied, Bush was mystified, and highlights all the intelligence pre-invasion that informed Bush that Iraq did have WMD, along with intelligence agencies who thought the same, including the French, Germans, and UN. And let’s not forget all the Democrats who stated that Iraq was a threat, going back to President Clinton. You have Dems like John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and the late Ted Kennedy. Jay Rockefeller and John Edwards both referred to Iraq as an “imminent threat”. Furthermore, President Bush’s 2003 State Of the Union discussed denying Iraq WMD, not capturing it.

That’s as far as I’m willing to re-litigate the Operation Iraqi Freedom. The fact is, Obama is president now. And he lied dozens of times about the effects of Obamacare. Willfully lied. Knowingly lied. And here’s the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank

No, the Obamacare pratfall is not Obama’s Iraq: The magnitude is entirely different, and the problems — Web site malfunctions and a wave of policy cancellations — are fixable. But the decision-making is disturbingly similar: In both cases, insular administrations, staffed by loyalists and obsessed with secrecy, participated in group-think and let the president hear only what they thought he wanted to hear.

This is brought up in terms of Obama being insular, and having too many “yes-men/women” surrounding him. And, no, it’s not Iraq. It’s worse. Team Obama’s mid-range estimate is that 93 million Americans will lose their health insurance plans. People will not be able to keep their doctors. Exchange insurance plans severely restrict what is considered “in-network”. Deductibles and premiums have significantly increased. Tens of millions will be moved to Medicaid. Government costs will skyrocket. And this effects one sixth of the American economy. People are being moved to part time status to avoid Obamacare penalties. Hiring has been effected. So have earnings. And Obamacare will continue to harm Americans.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Dems Try To Change Subject, Bring Iraq War Into Obama Lied Debate »

Gov’t For Gov’ts Sake: Raleigh Considers Regs To Safeguard Bicyclists From Opening Car Doors

Here’s the story:

(WRAL) The rules of the road could be changing for Raleigh drivers to make streets safer for bicyclists.

A public hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall to discuss changes to Raleigh’s bicycle ordinance, including requiring drivers to check their rear-view mirrors after they park on a street to make sure the coast is clear before opening their doors.

The change, which has the backing of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, would prevent “dooring,” which happens when a cyclist crashes into an open car door.

Here’s the thing: how can it be enforced? So far, the penalty hasn’t been spelled out. How could anyone prove a person didn’t look? If you open the door and a bicyclist runs into the door, you might have looked but failed to see them on the road zooming around. Maybe they cut in and out of traffic. If you’re like me, you look in the sideview mirror before opening the door when you park on the street. You may even move your whole head back. Ever have a close call even though you looked? I’ve been driving for almost 30 years, and have a couple close calls. And, believe me, I pay attention to what’s going on. I may need glasses, but I have incredible peripheral vision.

While we certainly want to protect bicyclists, they have to take responsibility and understand that riding on the streets is inherently unsafe, and they need to take precautions.

 

Read: Gov’t For Gov’ts Sake: Raleigh Considers Regs To Safeguard Bicyclists From Opening Car Doors »

If All You See…

…is a horrible dog which will cause the global temperature to go up 5 degrees, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Sweetness and Light, with a post on how many have lost their insurance so far.

Read: If All You See… »

Flat Earth Warmists Really Upset About Nature Changing In Alaska

How dare the biosphere of the Earth ever change?

(Alaska Dispatch) Dead seals littering beaches, bolts of fur dangling from deer, white worms squiggling in the meat of freshly killed grouse.

Incidents like these are some of the dozens of reports from the front lines of climate change in rural Alaska, where a volunteer army of observers is documenting unusual events to warn of potential health threats as new plants, bugs and animals migrate to the Far North.

My goodness, worms in dead grouse? Has that ever happened in the history of the world? And dead seals? I thought they lived forever!!!!1!!! Deer shedding? Good grief!

Odd insects that crawl like spiders and open and close their pincers while walking have been spotted in Kotzebue, said local observer Maija Lukin.

Boy howdy, how could new species that we’ve never seen before come about? Hasn’t there always just been a fixed amount?

“Insects that we have never seen are a threat to the ecosystem that we have here,” she wrote. “We don’t need new insects arriving and eating anything except mosquitoes!”

Love the qualifier at the end.

Taken together, the events can provide insight into important trends, such as the geographic range of deaths from sick seals that washed onto Alaska’s beaches, part of an “unusual mortality event” that began two years ago and prompted an international investigation by researchers. Why scores of seals got sick and died in that event is still unknown.

Unknown? Interesting, because the beginning of the article seemed to blame “climate change”.

Read: Flat Earth Warmists Really Upset About Nature Changing In Alaska »

ENDA May Not Get A Vote In House

Here’s what John Boehner’s spokesperson had to say

(Politico) “The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in an email Monday.

That’s one of the problems Republicans had when ENDA was passed in 2007, when Democrats owned both the House and Senate. Here’s the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, who conveniently forgets to include some information

Today John Boehner declared he opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and senior House GOP aides said the bill is unlikely to get a House vote — putting its passage in doubt.

So perhaps it’s worth recalling some historical context: Two well known House Republican leaders voted for ENDA the last time it was put to a House vote, in 2007: Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP’s vice presidential candidate in 2012, and Rep. Greg Walden, who as NRCC chair is in charge of protecting the House GOP majority.

The Democrats stripped out the provisions regarding LGBTs (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered), ie, “gender identity”, for the 2007 attempt, which stalled in the Democrat led Senate, after first dying in a House committee because of the “gender identity” provisions. Barney Frank submitted separate legislation on the issue.  They added the provisions back in for the 2009 vote, which failed again, even though Dems still controlled the House and Senate, and also had a Democrat president who said he supported the legislation.

In fairness, in those same interviews, both Ryan and Walden opposed the inclusion of protections for transgender Americans. And that protection is in the current version set to pass the Senate. But Boehner’s statement grounds House GOP opposition to today’s version of ENDA in the notion that it will lead to frivolous lawsuits and kill jobs, not in transgender protections.

What ENDA is about, as I noted yesterday, is an attempt to change the discussion away from the utter failure of Obamacare and get back to assaulting Republicans. If it couldn’t pass in 2009 and 2010 with full Democrat control of Congress and the White House, they knew it wouldn’t go through now. This is a political game.

Read: ENDA May Not Get A Vote In House »

Obama Changes “If You Like Your Plan…” Messaging

I wonder how this would have played prior to the 2012 elections? (Real Clear Politics has the video)

(Fox News) The president told about 200 of his campaign supporters and health care activists Monday that the administration had promised Americans they could keep their current coverage — as long as their plans hadn’t changed since ObamaCare was signed into law.

“If you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law’s passed,” Obama said. “So we wrote into the Affordable Care Act you are grandfathered in on that plan. But if the insurance company changes it, then what we’re saying is they have got to change it to a higher standard. They’ve got to make it better.”

Really? That’s “what we said”? Let’s go to the video tape

Did anyone hear any qualifiers? I did hear “If you like your plan and doctor, you won’t have to do a thing. You can keep your plan.” People aren’t receiving change notifications, they are receiving pure cancellation notices because the insurance companies are required to make big changes to the plans because of Obama’s POS signature legislation. He and his people…OK…mostly his people because he’s too lazy to be involved in any actual work…intentionally crafted rules which blew out the grandfathering of plans. They new back in 2010 this would happen.

The Lonely Conservative calls Obama a pathological liar.

Scared Monkeys notes that Obama is doubling down on his lies.

Newsbusters notes how Obama told Senator Kyle in 2010 that you could keep your not so good Acme plan.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Read: Obama Changes “If You Like Your Plan…” Messaging »

A Dying Culture

Thoughts of the night from the late Robert Heinlein, from his novel Friday

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot…”

What made me think about that quote was a minor confrontation this morning. I went to the community gym, and this lady saw me right behind her and still didn’t even bother to hold the door into the community center. I was right behind her going to the door into the gym area. She again failed.

On the way out, I didn’t bother holding the door for her (it was serendipitous that we left at same time. Was not planned). She started laying into me, saying how rude and nasty I was. When I pointed out that she had done the same thing twice, she told me that was different, and was talking about herself. I just turned and left. Along with the gross growth of the Entitlement mentality has also brought on a loss of politeness and manners, a loss of consideration.

I’m sure we each run into this little losses on a daily timescale. People not only think they’re entitled, but the do it at the expense of others.

A few others:

  • “‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.”
  • “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”
  • “The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”
  • “Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.”

Read: A Dying Culture »

Trial Balloon: Obamacare Fixes The Problem Of Insurers Ripping Off Consumers With Lousy Plans

There’s political spin, then there’s plain lying. Obama was plain lying when he said you could keep your plan (and doctor). Then there are those who are attempting to protect Obama, Democrats, and Obamacare. Many of them have crossed the line from spin to performing an oral sexual act. Yesterday we had the big NY Times editorial saying Obama “misspoke”. You know, like at least 27 times. I’ve documented others, now here comes Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer

The Real Story Behind the Phony Canceled Health Insurance Scandal

Insurance companies ripped off Americans for years with lousy health plans. Obamacare was designed to fix that.

In 2009, when President Barack Obama first promised that people who liked their insurance coverage would be able to keep it under the Affordable Care Act, he overlooked one critical fact: Many of the health policies that Americans like are terrible insurance plans that were created to scam consumers. (snip)

The media have covered these complaints with gusto, as if the cancellations are a genuine crisis and indication of a failure of Obama’s health care law. The ACA was designed specifically to prevent insurance companies from peddling lousy insurance plans and to force these firms to replace these subpar products with affordable plans providing better and effective coverage. The plans being canceled are ending because they offered insufficient coverage—and only a few years ago both Rs and Ds were upset about these kinds of plans. But there’s been collective amnesia about the shoddy plans that GOPers have happily exploited in recent days. Perhaps Obama should have said, “Those of you who obtain insurance on the individual market can keep your plans unless it’s the sort of rip-off plan the ACA will forbid. Otherwise, you will be offered new options that actually give you decent coverage at a decent price.”

So much fail in so few words. The “A”CA was never designed to do any of those things, at least as how it was portrayed by Democrats. The idea was to offer quality, affordable health insurance to those who couldn’t afford it or couldn’t get it. Not to force mandates down the throats of insurers and consumers causing the plans to be cancelled. We could easily get into the nuts and bolts, but this is simply a huge pile of mule fritters in an attempt to defend the law which the majority of Americans hate.

As far as for what Obama should have said, well, he didn’t. He said something else.

As some guy said “don’t tell me that words don’t matter.”

Read: Trial Balloon: Obamacare Fixes The Problem Of Insurers Ripping Off Consumers With Lousy Plans »

Pirate's Cove