President Obama’s Top Five “I’m Not…” Statements

by Whitney Pitcher

The late, great Margaret Thatcher once said, “being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to say you are, you aren’t”. The inverse statement is true as well–if you have to say you aren’t, you are. Over the last several months, there seems to be a pattern of denial from President Obama. This goes beyond his denial of knowledge on  Benghazi talking point changes, IRS targeting of conservative groups,  and other scandals. These are denials not of what he’s done, but who he is and to whom he is compared.

1. I’m not Dick Cheney

In an interview with Charlie Rose that will appear later tonight, President Obama denies recent comparisons to the former Vice President:

“Some people say, ‘Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he’s, you know, Dick Cheney.’ Dick Cheney sometimes says, ‘Yeah, you know? He took it all lock, stock, and barrel,’” the president told interviewer Charlie Rose in the exchange recorded Sunday, according to excerpts of the transcript published by BuzzFeed. “My concern has always been not that we shouldn’t do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances?”

President Obama denies comparisons to Dick Cheney, yet through double negative rhetoric confirms he does support “intelligence gathering” that may may mean that individuals’ privacy could be violated. Additionally, while the purpose may not be to prevent terrorism, he supports collecting massive amounts of data on Americans (and sharing it within government at all levels) when it comes to the issue of healthcare, immigration, and education. The candidate who ran as a proponent of civil liberties is hardly that anymore. In fact, polls show just the opposite.

2. Jay Carney’s Denial of the Obama comparison to Richard Nixon

Last month, following questions from the White House press corps surrounding the IRS targeting of conservative groups and the handling of Benghazi (among other questionable behavior), press secretary Jay Carney denied comparisons to Nixon.

Well…

On second thought, perhaps President Obama is right. He isn’t Nixon. President Nixon took responsibility for his arguably less corrupt actions.

3. I’m not a socialist

In an interview with the Spanish language channel Univision in late 2012, President Obama denied that his ideology mirrored that of the Castro brothers and the late Hugo Chavez.  While America has certainly not suffered the same ill fate of these countries mired in socialism for years, the President has aimed to bring more and more industries under greater control of the State–from the auto bailout early in his presidency to the government control of healthcare under Obamacare to his student loan takeover.  Additionally, he a signed into law a massive stimulus bill and has a strong desire to put a heavier tax burden on the rich.

4. I’m not a dictator

5. I’m not an emperor

Denials #4 and #5 are essentially the same with slightly different wording. In a press conference in March, President Obama responded to a reporter’s question about working with Congress by essentially bemoaning that  he “was not a dictator” and could not dictate to Congress to “do the right thing”.  Just a few weeks earlier, he quipped during a Google hangout, that he was “not emperor of the United States” and that his job was to “execute laws that are passed”. President Obama has regularly criticized Congress for not doing his bidding, but isn’t that part of the “checks and balances” that he supposedly supports (at least when he is trying to deny the aforementioned comparison to Dick Chaney)?  President Obama has made it clear that when it is possible he will try to govern by going around Congress. Additionally, while he may claim to be a “dictator”, he has signed legislation into law that dictates an awful lot to the American people and businesses. Looking at Obamacare alone, Americans are mandated to purchase health insurance, most employers are required to provide it, and all are required to cover contraceptives.  Would the President prefer to be called a “mandator”?

What is particularly interesting is that four of these five denials came in response to reasonably direct questions posed by a friendly press corps. The press is even asking the President about these common perceptions of the American people. Denial is not just a river in the Christian persecuting, war-on-women country of the Arab Spring. It is a defensive mechanism employed by the President when his rhetoric consistently doesn’t match his actions.

The Unintentional Message (and Lesson) of “The Internship”

by Whitney Pitcher

Over the weekend I saw the Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson movie ” The Internship” (trailer shown above) Vaughn (Billy) and Wilson (Nick) played two veteran watch salesmen who had lost their jobs in part because people don’t wear watches anymore, but simply check their cell phones to determine the time. Billy ultimately lands two internships at Google for both himself and Nick where they were placed in a group with other (much younger) interns who were still in college.

During one scene, this group of interns discuss their concerns of finding a job after college. One of the college-aged interns said to Billy and Nick (paraphrasing), ” You could achieve the American Dream. The American Dream isn’t the same for us. It isn’t guaranteed”. I found this line intriguing.  It is clear that this movie takes place in the present day. Thus, Hollywood and Google are essentially admitting that the Obama administration has not created confidence for young millennials seeking jobs after college. Hollywood, of course, is notorious for being quite Left in their political ideology. Also, Google is very tight with the Obama administration. Yet, both Hollywood and Google–whether intentionally or not–indicated that liberal ideology (and hope and change) have not lived up to the expectation of millennials. There are two key issues to consider when looking at the economic hope of those in their late teens to mid twenties–1) their educational choices 2) their means of funding their education.

The group of millennials depicted in the movie would likely enter the technology field, a field where there are more opportunities for jobs than other fields. However, some students are choosing fields that are not particularly employable. This, plus a sustained poor economy, has contributed to 48% of those with a college degree working in a job that does not require such education. This is not to say that people should forgo college, but the liberal ideal of universal college education is wrong. A high school graduate with a strong work ethic should not be frowned upon, nor should a high school graduate who seeks training at a technical school. In fact, likely due in part to our culture’s emphasis on intellectual output over tangible output, skilled trades like carpentry and car mechanics are among the ten hardest jobs to fill in America.. As a researcher in academia, I certainly don’t want to downplay intellectual output, but our society needs a myriad of outputs to continue to be the strongest nation in the world. As Governor Palin wrote in a post earlier this Spring:

It’s crucially important today for young people to think about the big picture when making education decisions. And the big picture is the goal of self-reliant business opportunities based on work ethic and not entitlements. One of the reasons I aggressively encouraged vocational training opportunities as governor of Alaska is because they lead to good paying jobs and happy careers. Young people should not be pressured into assuming that a college degree is the only path to employment today. It’s not. Some college degrees obviously lead to clear professions, like those in the medical and engineering fields, but that’s not the case with many of the liberal arts degrees young people today gravitate toward either because they aren’t sure what they want to do after college or because they’ve been led to believe that college life is a sort of rite of passage for any career. That might have been the case once, but the salary and career opportunities a liberal arts education alone can get you have been dramatically limited these days. It’s so sad to see young people holding expensive college diplomas that come with no practical job opportunities.

[...]

Follow your dreams, by all means. But don’t be blind to the fact that your dreams might be achieved outside of acquiring an outrageously expensive traditional college degree. Do not be lulled into thinking that good jobs grow on trees or that the government will somehow take care of you. The bottom line is – as my dad always told me – find out what you love to do, then find out how to make a living doing it. Learning a trade can do both. No one can take those vo-tech real life skills away from you.

It’s not only the choice of educational training that makes the difference; it is also how you fund it. For all the flack Governor Palin received for taking five years to graduate from college and for changing schools multiple times, she did something few people do–graduated from college with no debt. The governmental subsidization of education has lead to public higher education costs to increase 250% since 1982, which makes it harder for college to be affordable. However, it is still achievable. Some students are fortunate enough to have parents who fund their entire education. Some are able to obtain scholarship to assist them, and some work during college and summer breaks to pay for college and/or help mitigate the need for student loans.

Student loans, like any other construct with government intervention, have become a political football. In 2010, nearly concurrently with the passage of Obamacare, President Obama signed a student loan overall that wiped out fees paid to banks who act as intermediaries in administering student loans (i.e. the federal government took over the student loan industry). President Obama noted at the time (emphasis added):

Mr. Obama portrayed the overhaul of the student loan program as a triumph over an “army of lobbyists,” singling out Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student lender, which he said spent $3 million on lobbying to stop the changes. “For almost two decades, we’ve been trying to fix a sweetheart deal in federal law that essentially gave billions of dollars to banks,” he said. The money, he said, “was spent padding student lenders’ pockets.”

Things haven’t changed since the three plus years after the bill took effect. The student lenders’ pockets are still being padded, but now those pockets are Uncle Sam’s pockets. In fiscal year 2013 alone, the federal government will reap $51 billion in “profit” from these student loan borrowers. This profit is greater than that of Exxon Mobil or Apple.

As was the case last year, student loan rates are set to double on July 1st, thus perpetuating the political game between Congressional Republicans and the Obama administration. The House has passed a bill that would make loan rates fluctuate based upon market rates, while the Obama administration wants rates fixed (i.e. controlled by the government). Politicians continue to use students as a political football, and the Department of Education is reaping the benefits. Students need to make smart choices in their education, but the government must stop trying to “fix” things only to pad their own pockets.

There is every reason for hope for millennials, and I say this as someone who is on the “old” end of that generation. America is rife with opportunity if people are willing to work hard enough, be rational, and plan ahead. Abraham Lincoln, one of our most famed presidents, did not have a college degree, but he had wisdom–and an ax. Lincoln is quoted as saying, ” if I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax”. He prepared for the goal ahead of him, and he was efficient. Millennials can act in the same manner by making wise decisions with educational, occupational, and financial choices. The American Dream is still achievable, in spite of a government that acts as a barrier.

How Big Government and the Permanent Political Class Facilitate Scandal

by Whitney Pitcher

Yeah, the permanent political class – they’re doing just fine. Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars. They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70% of the jobs in America, it’s you who own these small businesses, you’re the economic engine, but you don’t grease the wheels of government power.

-Governor Sarah Palin, September 3, 2011

More than a year and a half later, prescient Palin is still right,and there’s a reason she uses the phrase “permanent political class” rather than simply “D.C. politicians”. The permanent political class does not just include elected officials, but also those who have become entrenched in the federal government in some manner due to government’s constant growth. The permanent political class also include revolving door appointees who oversee various agencies, donors who get plum ambassadorships, and bureaucrats whose connection to government allow them to unethically pad theirs and others’ pocketbooks. The expansion of government provides the perfect breeding ground for corruption, cronyism, and unethical behavior–compounding the scandalous assault on America’s liberties.

Meet Mike McConnell. McConnell is the vice chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton– the government contractor whom Edward Snowden worked for prior to fleeing to Hong Kong and informing the world that the government was seizing the phone records of Americans. McConnell has netted $1.8 million in Booz Allen Hamilton stock sales in 2013 and has secured over a billion dollars in government contracts. Of course, there is nothing wrong with making money off investments or profiting from your business’s success. McConnell, however, is not simply a successful private sector businessman. McConnell was head of the NSA during President Clinton’s administration before going to Booz Allen Hamilton in 1996. He has revolved back to the public sector when President Bush selected him as director of national intelligence in 2007 before returning to Booz Allen Hamilton in 2009. As the Daily Beast summarizes (emphasis added):

In 2007 he returned to government employment when President Bush selected him to be the second director of national intelligence (a bureaucratic position created out of the 9/11 Commission to manage bureaucracy). According to excerpts of Dana Priest and William Arkin’s Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State posted by The Washington Post, as DNI, McConnell pushed for increases in intelligence contracting. After serving as DNI, McConnell returned to Booz Allen in 2009 as executive vice president in charge of the firm’s intelligence business. In 2011 he was named vice chairman of the company.

That revolving door sure is nice, huh, Mr. McConnell? While a government appointee he pushed for more contracting, then return to the private sector to reap the private sector fruits of his public sector lobbying.

Next, let’s meet Howard Guttman. Guttman was a major donor to both President Obama’s 2008 campaign and his 2009 inauguration (who also, as an Obama surrogate, bashed Governor Palin’s parenting skills). President Obama returned the favor by giving him an ambassadorship in Belgium. It has recently been revealed that Guttman’s security detail allegedly turned a blind eye when Guttman solicited underage prostitutes. Additionally, the investigation into these matters have been halted by the state Department. The is a prime example of the way things work for the permanent political class. Political donations lead to plush appointments, and wrongdoing is swept under the rug.

Additionally, a story broke earlier this week that scores of federal bureaucrats may have benefited financially or facilitated insider trading from having foreknowledge of changes in Medicare policy:

The surge of trading in Humana’s and other private health insurers’ stock before the April 1 announcement already has prompted the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Wall Street investors had advance access to inside information about the then-confidential Medicare funding plan.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Washington Post late last week that his office reviewed the e-mail records of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and found that 436 of them had early access to the Medicare decision as much as two weeks before it was made public.
[...]

Grassley’s investigators have interviewed Hayes and private-sector political-intelligence consultants. But Grassley made clear Friday that while the SEC continues to investigate who made large trades in advance of the Medicare announcement, he will focus on adding transparency to the political-intelligence-gathering process, including asking more about “how the government handles market-sensitive information.” That kind of data, he said, “should be available to everyone at the same time, not handled loosely in a way that allows special access to some individuals.”

In mid April, just a few weeks after this trading spike and just ahead of the reporting deadline, Congress and the President overturned a provision of the STOCK Act that, in part, removes the requirement for some government officials to report their stock trades and other financial information. It has not been revealed if these hundreds of federal employees made trades with foreknowledge of the policy change, and it is unclear if any of these individuals were among those “senior officials” who would have been required to report their financial information if the STOCK Act provision would have remained.  Whether it was the bureaucrats themselves or others who benefited, this proves to be yet another example of the permanent political class benefiting at the expense of the American people.

Additionally, such unethical activity points to the concern with the burgeoning $100 million industry of political intelligence (an oxy moronic phrase, of course) where these consultants provide information to Wall Street based upon action in Washington D.C.. The bigger government becomes, the bigger this industry becomes and the greater the opportunity for the permanent political class to benefit at the expense of taxpayers. Legislation has been proposed to require political intelligence consultants to register,similar to the way that lobbyists do. However, such proposals were shot down by people like Congressman Eric Cantor, whose wife works in securities and investments and who received a lot of campaign donations from the industry, as Peter Schweizer detailed in a Forbes article in April:

But the Grassley provision was struck down. Leading the charge to kill the political intelligence language were House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). When Rep. Cantor introduced the House version of the bill, it lacked provisions to regulate the political intelligence industry. Asked why the measure had been omitted, Rep. Cantor’s spokesperson Laena Fallon said the language was “extremely broad” and that the “unintended consequences on the provision could have affected the first amendment rights of everyone participating in local rotaries to national media conglomerates.”

[...]

What Cantor and Lieberman failed to mention were their relationships to the financial services industry. In the 2012 election cycle, Cantor raked in $896,900 from securities and investment firms. And his wife, Diana Cantor, is an investment committee member for an investment adviser that manages almost $900 million in private fund assets. During the 2010 election cycle, Sen. Lieberman bagged over $2 million in campaign donations from securities and investment firms, the most of any industry.

As government grows, more opportunities arise for the permanent political class–be they politicians, political appointees, donors, or bureaucrats–to benefit at the expense of taxpayers and to engage in scandalous activity. These is the result of one party’s policies or leadership, it is the result of an ideology where the hand-in-hand relationship of  ”big business” and  ”big government” is seen as preferable to the invisible hand of the free market.

Palin Endorsed Jason Smith Wins MO Special Election in Landslide, Gets Congrats from Mama Grizzly!

By Gary P Jackson

In the Missouri special election held Tuesday night Jason Smith won his race in a landslide, with 67 percent of the vote.

Mr Smith will go to Washington!

Sarah Palin who endorsed Smith tweeted her congratulations:

Mr. Smith goes to Washington! Congrats @RepJasonSmith — stay strong and true to your roots!—
Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) June 05, 2013

From Ed Harris the Chairman of the Missouri GOP:

On Tuesday night, conservative Republican Jason Smith was elected to Congress in a landslide. He finished with 67 percent of the vote, 40 points ahead of his Democratic opponent. Smith, who’s representing Missouri’s Eighth Congressional District, will be a reliable vote against amnesty and common core, and for life, traditional marriage and the Constitution. Just 32 years old, he will be one of the youngest members of Congress.

Smith has more in common with Rush Limbaugh than he does with Chris Christie. In fact, his district includes Cape Girardeau, Limbaugh’s hometown. The Eighth District runs from Missouri’s southeastern boot heel clear up the Mississippi River to just south of St. Louis County, and then dives down to the Arkansas border. It’s a rural, conservative district — so conservative that Smith’s Democratic opponent ran on a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, anti-Obamacare platform.

Smith himself has a long track record of conservatism. He grew up on a farm in Dent County. In college, he’d drive from Dent County to Maries County to pick up yard signs calling on Missouri’s then-governor, Democrat Mel Carnahan, to accept the will of Missourians and not veto a bill banning partial-birth abortion. He then helped distribute those signs across the state.

He’s been busy since college. He’s gotten a law degree, started a small business, worked on his family farm and run for office. In 2005, he was elected to the Missouri House. Once there, he backed tax cuts, Second Amendment protections and general good government laws.

In addition to being a small-government conservative, Smith has an easygoing personality that allows him to make friends easily and avoid angering people. At a recent fundraiser in St. Louis, former U.S. Senator Jack Danforth said that Smith is “more conservative than me and one of the best guys I know.” High praise from a man who disagrees with Smith on a number of issues.

I spent Tuesday night with Smith in southern Jefferson County. Shortly after the polls closed, it became clear that he was going to win easily. I was excited for him and wanted to talk about his swearing-in. But Smith was too superstitious to discuss any of that before all the votes had been counted. Instead, he talked about how he spent the last hours of Election Day at a quiet spot on his Salem, Missouri farm.

Now he’s off to D.C., where he’ll try to save our republic. I like his chances.

Let us add our congratulations as well, and hope this is just a taste of what is to come in 2014!

Biology, the Bible, and Breadwinners

by Whitney Pitcher

This week, political pundit (and known pursuant of a passport to MILF-istan, if Governor Palin is in charge) Erick Erickson made some rather absurd and poorly phrased statements regarding a recent study indicating that more and more women have become the primary breadwinner in their families:

“I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology — when you look at the natural world — the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complementary role.”

Erickson seems to be conflating providing for one’s family as being “dominant”, and it is a horrible choice of words. If he had chosen the rhetoric and tone of the last sentence of the above excerpt, he wouldn’t be hit by even those of us on the Right like he is right now.

In “biology”, since that’s the term Erickson wants to use, there are a wide range of family structures. Very few species are monogamous. Bald eagles are among the few. Additionally,despite popular belief to the contrary, the female African lion does more hunting than the male lions. In other words, they are the primary breadwinners of the pride. Heck, in one species–the seahorse–the male carries the fertilized eggs! So much for pointing to biology for an example to prove so called male “dominance”.

Erickson later posts at a RedState a supposed clarification of his comments, yet he emphasizes the concept of males being “dominant”. Perhaps it is just semantics, but it is a poor way to try to simultaneously emphasize “complementary” roles in marriage.

Erickson professes to be a Christian, and the Bible says a lot about men’s and women’s roles in a marriage and in a family. There is a lot about women being breadwinners alongside their husbands. There is the oft quoted “Woman of Noble Character” described in Proverbs 31, where the woman acts as clothing designer, cook, land trader, farmer, and merchant in addition to her roles within the her family. In Acts, the author Luke discusses the roles of Priscilla and Acquila both as tentmakers, not just Acquila. When the apostle Paul discusses the roles of men and women in marriage, he writes to the church in Ephesus:

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

-Ephesians 5:22-33

The role of the husband is not one of dominance, but of devotion to his wife.

However, often lost when this passage is referenced is the verse that comes before the above excerpt, which reads, “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”. Submission is not limited to a wife’s relationship to her husband. It is a call for selflessness in all who profess Christ.

I grew up in a home where my mom’s role was as a “domestic engineer”, as she called it. Between church, my sister’s and my school, and the community, my mom probably volunteered the equivalent weekly hours of a full time job. After having kids, she did not have a paying job until I was in high school. Even then, my dad was still the primary breadwinner. It is my personal belief that, more often than not, two parent homes provide much greater spiritual, emotional, and financial stability. However, there are many bad situations where both a mom and dad are present, and there are a lot of good situations where there are single parents involved. Erickson does recognizes this to an extent in his clarification, but it gets lost in the “dominance” rhetoric and sweeping generalizations.

Broken marriages and homes are symptoms of a fallen man, and they cannot be fixed by political punditry. There is opportunity for spiritual renewal in America that can provide a better society for politics to operate, but we cannot fix such problems with politics. Otherwise, we just become social conservatives wanting government to be god. We must face societal realities in solving economic and political problems. Personally, I like the way Representative Marsha Blackburn responded to the news of the “female breadwinners” study when she tweeted:

40% of women are now breadwinners. It is why economy is issue #1 & we need to create more #jobs to up wages. tinyurl.com/od3ywov

— Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) May 29, 2013

Continue to remember that economic problems are just that, economic problems. That isn’t to say that the importance of a strong family structure can’t be noted, but when the rhetoric of “dominance” dominates,then the rhetoric of complementary roles is overshadowed. Otherwise, conservatism, a movement founded in independence and real equality, becomes mired by paternal rhetoric.

Exelon Receives Another Deal from the Obama Administration

by Whitney Pitcher

It is encouraging to see increased American development of energy having a worldwide impact. However, such impact should not come at the expense of subsidies and loans footed by the American taxpayer or special deals. Exelon, the largest nuclear energy company in America, has a diverse energy production portfolio. They also are involved in liquefied natural gas production and solar energy. With the current natural gas glut, prices are quite low, which has cut into Exelon’s profits. These low prices also make natural gas power plants competitive with Exelon’s nuclear plants. Never fear for Exelon though! The Obama administration is on the way! As an article at Crain’s Chicago Business reports: 

Exelon Corp. got a win last week when the U.S. Energy Department allowed a group of investors to build a facility in Texas that will export liquefied natural gas to countries without free-trade agreements with the U.S.

Don’t see the connection? Every cubic foot of natural gas that’s liquefied and shipped overseas is a cubic foot that doesn’t get sold at rock-bottom prices to gas-fired power plants that compete with Exelon’s nuclear plants. Low gas prices enable gas-fired plants to sell electricity cheaper, bringing down prices in wholesale power markets.

[...]

Exporting to non-free-trade countries requires special permission from the Department of Energy. Heated debate over the policy has erupted in recent months. Natural gas producers are pushing for more freedom to export, while environmental groups and big gas users like Dow Chemical Co. defend the current restrictions

Some see last week’s decision on the Texas facility as a sign President Barack Obama is leaning toward a looser export policy. It’s a little early to draw that conclusion. Rather than articulating a broad policy shift, the administration says it will evaluate proposed non-FTA export facilities on a case-by-case basis. Until Friday, the DOE hadn’t approved one since 2011. Nineteen applications are pending.

Seeing the implication that President Obama is going to loosen policy on anything related to non “green” energy development is a surprise. There is perhaps reason to evaluate such special situations for export to non-free trade countries, but when a company like Exelon receives a deal, it is suspect. Exelon has a reputation for being an energy giant, but it also has a reputation for its ties to President Obama.

As a Senator, Obama watered down an anti-nuclear energy bill to help Exelon. Why? In 2008, Exelon was Obama’s four largest donor. Additionally, Exelon has spent tens of millions of dollars for lobbying since President Obama took office. This lobbying has paid off. An Exelon acquired solar energy company received a $646 million loan from the Department of Energy in 2011 to build a solar energy plant.

It is exciting to see that natural gas production is booming in such a way that producers have opportunity to energize America and have opportunity for export. It is discouraging that “case-by-case” export opportunities are going to companies who have the political connections and clout to continue to receive special deals.

Breaking Video: More Criminality From Obama’s Department of Justice; Targeted Fox News’ James Rosen, Two Others

By Gary P Jackson

A real bombshell dropped today. It seems Barack Obama’s Justice Department targeted, and even looked to jail, Fox News’ James Rosen, as well as fellow reporter William LaJeuness, and producer Mike Levine. All of this seems to have stemmed from Rosen’s investigation of the Fast and Furious crimes committed by Obama and Eric Holder, where they outfitted narco-terrorists with weapons, in an attempt to used violence committed by those terrorists as a way to assault the Second Amendment, and law abiding gun owners in America.

Megyn Kelly is LIVID in this bombshell report:

Video courtesy SarahNET.

Michelle Malkin weighed in as well.

A Declaration of Reascendance: @GGISTL

Reblogged from Stacy on the Right:

Cross posted from Gateway Grassroots Initiative

A Declaration of Reascendance

In 1776, our Founding Fathers faced a crisis of tyranny in their own government, and lacking our good fortune of having them in their past, they found themselves left with no other option, than to issue the Declaration of Independence, which of course began with:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Read more… 666 more words

President Obama’s Trickle Down Perpetual Campaign

by Whitney Pitcher

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then candidate Barack Obama was asked to compare his experience to that of Vice Presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin. Obama made a disingenuous comparison by only referencing Palin’s mayoral experience, but he also tried to bolster his executive credentials by referencing his ability to manage  ”large systems” and millions of dollars in campaign funds:

It is now nearly five years later, and little has changed. The President’s executive experience still lies in running a campaign, but not one that comes at the expense of his donors (and actually often to his donors’ benefit) . He has turned his executive branch cabinet level departments into components of this perpetual campaign at the expense of American taxpayers.

President Obama ‘s Treasury Department has turned into a campaign opposition research department by targeting Tea Parties, religious groups, and pro-life groups and combing through every detail of these groups and their memberships. When this department got their hands caught in the cookie jar, the President scapegoated the already lame duck IRS commissioner who wasn’t even in the role of commissioner when these targeted audits were being performed.  His Department of Justice has also contributed to this effort by bugging the cloak room in the House of Representatives and seizing phone records of AP reporters who cover the GOP majority House. His elected colleagues, his constituents, and even his pals in the media became his political opponents.

During his campaign, the President would often offer a special opportunity for a donor to meet him. As President, he has done the same kind of thing, but on a much larger scale and at the expense of the American taxpayer and the American energy consumer. Instead of offering an expenses paid meeting, he is offering millions in taxpayer dollars and special favors. 80% of his Department of Energy stimulus loans went to companies tied to his donors. Meanwhile, the President has stalled on the development of Keystone Pipeline.  Several of his donors stand to benefit financially from the Canadian Sands Oil regardless of whether or not the pipeline is built, and just last week, scores of the President’s donors are sent a letter petitioning him to not build the pipeline. Moreover, the President is not only trying to turn return the favor to his actual political donors, his Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is essentially acting as a fundraiser to promote the President’s healthcare policy agenda. The President is repaying his donors with political favors and asking political favors to implement his policies.

Throughout the President’s perpetual campaign, he has tried to redistribute the blame of the burgeoning scandals. Rather than being a leader and taking responsibility, he has allowed his politically driven administration to trickle down the blame. Four rogue IRS employees are being blamed for the targeted Tea Party audits, yet IRS employees are claiming they were only following orders. In trying to make sense of the attacks on the Libyan consulate last September, the Obama administration–the White House, the State Department, and the CIA– has woven a complicated web of blame and responsibility in the midst of a presidential campaign.

When it comes to the President’s campaign claim of being able to manage “large systems”, it seems Obama has been disproved by his own former campaign adviser David Axelrod. In trying to defend the President’s ability to deal with multiple, simultaneous scandals, Axelrod inadvertently made the case for smaller government when he said that there is only so much a President can know “because the government is so vast”. The President has proven that when executive experience is manifested in a hybrid of small leadership and big government, it only perpetuates a campaign cycle that trickles down the blame.

Meanwhile in Cincinnati: When Tyranny Is around the Corner

by Whitney Pitcher

Last week, President Obama gave the commencement address at Ohio State University where he mocked those who warned against the potential tyranny of overreaching government “around every corner” and accused such critics of “gumming up the works”:

In recent days, leaks from a soon-to-be released inspector general’s report have shown that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups starting in March of 2010 and that the IRS’s chief counsel knew as early as 2011 that such groups were being targeted. The targeting of Tea Party groups included in depth questioning from IRS officials ranging from inquiries regarding interactions with the media to predicting event revenue, expense, and other details of future rallies. Despite earlier claims from the Obama administration aiming to pin responsibility on low level field agents, it has become clear that IRS offices in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups.  Additionally, IRS officials based in Cincinnati (just 100 miles from where President Obama gave his speech mocking government skeptics) disclosed confidential documents from Tea Party groups to Pro Publica, a left-leaning media group whose main funders also fund the Soros-backed Center for American Progress.

The news of the last two weeks alone has proven that those who support limited government have reason to question the size and scope of government and how such a large, over-reaching government can truly be held accountable. The Obama administration has been able to feign ignorance over the dealings of several of his own cabinet departments. He has claimed no previous knowledge of IRS targeting of conservative groups, calling the IRS an “independent agency”. The Obama administration has claimed only a stylistic role in the editing of Benghazi talking points by his own State Department and CIA. This evening, press secretary Jay Carney claimed that the Obama administration was unaware of that the Department of Justice obtained phone logs of AP reporters, again calling an executive branch entity like the Department of Justice, “independent”. All of these examples are proof that government has become too big and leadership has become too small to take responsibility for its own failures.

Late Leftist historian Howard Zinn quipped during the Bush administration that dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Now, dissent in the name of patriotism means that groups undergo harsh scrutiny from the government they wish to help restore to its proper purpose and size. Pardon us, for “gumming up the works”, Mr. President.  We simply want our government to abide by the charter of liberties you swore an oath to uphold. We won’t be silenced.