What scandals? There are no scandals here. Please keep moving.

The broiling controversies of the Benghazi scandal, the IRS wrongdoing, and the questionable seizure of Associated Press telephone records by the Department of Justice have forced those on the left and those that don't pay much attention to what goes on in the political realm to recognize that our government indulges in improper and oppressive behavior. And this tumultuous atmosphere has spawned some wild and crazy things.     

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program and vociferous gun control advocate, had an epiphany brought on by the federal government's improper behavior. During a roundtable discussion on the show he said, “My argument [for gun control] is less persuasive today because of these scandals.” He went on to explain that “People say, ‘Hey, if they do this with the IRS, asking people what books you read, then how can I trust them with information about my Second Amendment rights?’” There was general agreement among the show’s other participants.

Another unusual thing was former White House senior advisor David Axelrod’s defense of President Barack Obama. He said that the president can't be held responsible for what underlings do. The reason is that our government is so large that no one person can control what all of the two million Executive Branch employees do.

He's right: government is way too big and far too powerful. David Axelrod is a limited government guy. Who knew?

But the fact that government is too big doesn't relieve the President of the United States, whomever that might be at any given time, of the duty to manage the Executive Branch and keep it within its constitutional limits, and to always respect the citizens it serves. Plainly, Mr. Obama has not done that.

In our highly charged political environment, not everything that the president's loyal opposition calls a scandal is truly a scandal. But conversely, everything that Mr. Obama's sycophantic fans wish was not a scandal isn't a scandal, and their efforts to explain them away often border on silliness. Columnist Reg Henry ably demonstrated that with inadequate attempts to downplay a few of them and make them go away.

Of the Fast and Furious debacle Mr. Henry said it "was a crackpot scheme to trace guns to Mexican drug cartels, but it was a hard sell because, as you know, guns don't kill people."

He is obviously correct about it being a crackpot scheme, although that characterization does not do justice to this colossal idiocy. And his sarcastic comment about guns not killing people unintentionally conveyed the truth.

But he's totally wrong about whether Fast and Furious is a scandal. Not only did the the Justice Department fail to achieve the fundamental goal of this misadventure — to trace the guns they provided to the Mexican cartels — but an American Border Patrol officer was murdered with one of them. That indeed is a scandal.

Next, in trying to wish away the Green Energy fiasco, he states, "The Solyndra scandal involved a big waste of public money, but the real offense seemed to be that the administration was promoting solar power. Oh, the horror."

So-called "public money" is money taxed away from taxpayers ostensibly to be used responsibly and for beneficial purposes, not so that billions can be wasted on the personal whim of the president to prop up a preferred industry, one that is so unstable that it cannot succeed even after being propped up. Mr. Henry is apparently unaware that it is neither within the president's nor the federal government's authority to decide which industries succeed and which do not.

In reference to what he called "Benghazi-gate," he cautions us that "it's far from clear what the president knew and when he knew it." But again he misses the point. What makes Benghazi a scandal is not what Mr. Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew and when they knew it, although that certainly deserves an explanation, it's the fact that his administration and/or her department disgracefully failed to provide requested and needed security upgrades before the attack began. Had they acted properly it just might have prevented all four of the murders that resulted from the attack on the Benghazi consulate. And then, there’s the video smoke screen to explain.

Some believe the Obama administration overtly engineered the effort by the IRS to target conservatives, Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations. But others blame this oppressive behavior on a "culture of suspicion" of conservative organizations created by President Obama's near-continuous public criticism of those individuals and organizations. After all, if the president repeatedly makes public statements saying these people are up to no good, shouldn't good bureaucrats try to please the boss and go after the bad guys?                                  

President Obama told graduates of The Ohio State University earlier this month that “you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. ... They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” But the swirling controversies that demonstrate actual government tyranny render that advice dangerous and unworthy.

Sometimes, like it did last week, bad news comes down in buckets

Commentary by James H. Shott 

Last week was full of bad news. President Barack Obama created a firestorm with controversial comments about the role of the Supreme Court, interpreted by some as an attempt to intimidate the Court into allowing the health care reform law to stand. At the end of the week March job numbers and unemployment numbers were released showing only bad news. Job creation was an anemic 120,000, and so many people became discouraged over the poor job climate and dropped out of the job market that it caused the unemployment rate to drop by one-tenth of a percent to 8.2 percent. Normally, it is a good sign when unemployment drops, but not this time.

And, a huge scandal erupted following the news that an office of the General Services Administration (GSA), the Public Buildings Service, which is known as the "landlord" for the federal government, is now being investigated for a 2010 Las Vegas conference that cost taxpayers a cool $820,000 to $840,000.

The details of the outing reveal an orgy of spending for the benefit of the public servants who attended. The conference provided such lavish niceties as clown and mind-reader entertainment, and more than $146,000 worth of food and drinks, including $44-a-person breakfasts; $19-a-person "artisanal cheese" displays; $16-per-person pasta stations; and shrimp costing $4 each. Attendees also received $3,700 worth of shirts, $6,300 worth of commemorative coins and $1,800 worth of special vests. As you might imagine, such an extravagant affair took a lot of planning, more than $130,000 worth.

A couple of videos from the event have surfaced, showing a Buildings Service employee performing in a music video in which the employee raps: "Donate my vacation, love to the nation, I'll never be under OIG investigation." Other highlights show public employees arrogantly flaunting the wasting of the public’s money.

No doubt President Barack Obama was terribly embarrassed by this revelation, having only a year before this outrageous misuse of public funds made strong statements against corporations who received federal bailouts living it up at taxpayer expense. “You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," he scolded. So, it had to hurt to find his own Executive Branch employees acting with the same disregard for taxpayer funds as the corporations that got bailouts.

However, the administration hastened to correctly point out that the start of this problem predates Mr. Obama’s presidency. In 2004 the Buildings Service spent $93,000 on the conference, about 11 percent of the 2010 total. From that point on, the bill got bigger and bigger as the conference moved around the country, totaling $323,855 in 2006, $655,025 in 2008, and then the 2010 near-million-dollar Vegas lollapalooza.

Obviously, the Bush and Obama administrations weren’t paying much attention to how the public’s money was being handled. And the Inspector General Office’s report last week indicates the Obama administration knew about the trip at least in May of 2010, five months before the conference took place, and did nothing about it.

The gross misuse of public funds by the Buildings Service at its biennial conference isn’t the end of the story for this agency, however. The commissioner’s budget has been rising since 2009, the year Commissioner Robert Peck was appointed. In fiscal 2009, his budget was $3.25 million, only slightly higher than two years earlier. But in 2010 the budget jumped to $6.94 million, and jumped again in 2011 to $9.16 million.

The man at the center of the scandal is Jeffrey E. Neely, the person who made sure that the conference was “over the top,” compared to previous bashes. He initially approved a $300,000 budget for the 2010 conference, but later nearly tripled the budget to about $823,000. Mr. Neely attended five of the eight agency “dry run” meetings held in advance of the conference to be sure the proposed venue would be able to deliver a show to end all shows for government workers, according to information from the GSA Office of Inspector General.

Commissioner Peck was fired in the wake of the scandal, GSA Administrator Martha Johnson resigned, and several employees have been placed on leave pending investigation, following the IG report. Apparently, none of those involved has tried to pay the taxpayers back for their outrageous spending abuses.

The evidence that our federal government is overgrown, arrogant and abusive of the citizenry continues to mount up. And yet even the suggestion that spending needs to be cut and government needs to be downsized and brought under control elicits howls of protest from liberals, statists and those on the receiving end of taxpayer money being freely doled out for all manner of inappropriate things.

Over-indulgences like this tawdry Las Vegas episode are clearly out of bounds, but apparently they are not all that unusual, and that sort of behavior didn’t originate under Barack Obama, or George Bush. But Barack Obama is the president now, and it will be instructive to see if he has the courage and the regard for the people of the United States to take quick steps to do something meaningful about government malfeasance like this.

Cross-posted from Observations

Well, Congress passed it, and now we are finding out what is in it

Commentary by James H. Shott

On March 9, 2010, speaking to the Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties about the health care reform bill, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it ..."

Ms. Pelosi was oblivious to the high degree of arrogance in her statement, and the contempt it displayed for the America taxpayers who pay her salary, and so were her fellow travelers in Congress and the fawning liberals in the main stream media. But it was not lost on most of the American people.

Even though no one knew all of the horrors contained in the 2,700-page document – because no one had had the time to read the thing before it was voted on, including those who voted for it – the measure still managed to garner the opposition of a majority of Americans.

The amended version’s narrow margin of passage in the House of Representatives – 219 to 212 – reflects the unpopularity of the measure, with 34 Democrats joining all of the Republicans in opposing the bill. But the final vote also shows the effects of the 59 percent Democrat majority in the House that dragged the bill across the line, despite the objection of voters.

The bad news continues to roll in, although if you depend upon the main stream media for information, you likely don’t know that.

Citing data from the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Establishment Survey/Haver Analytics, the Heritage Foundation addressed Obamacare’s effect on employment: “Between the recession’s low point in January 2009 and April 2010 net private sector job creation improved by 67,500 jobs a month. President Obama signed his health care legislation into law on March 23, 2010. After April 2010, the improvement in net private sector job creation stalled, dropping to just 6,500 jobs a month.”

The Heritage Foundation's Senior Policy Analyst James Sherk explains that the law discourages employers from hiring in several ways:
• Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty;
• Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and
• Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.
Kaiser Health News reported recently that contrary to promises of miraculous results from its passage, the health care reform bill will cause spending to grow faster than before the health care overhaul, and that “with that growth, the nation is expected to spend $4.6 trillion on health care in 2020, nearly double the $2.6 trillion spent last year.”

Kaiser based its report on information from the Medicare Office of the Actuary, and further reported that beginning in 2014 when the major coverage expansions of the health care law take effect, the number of Americans covered by their employer’s health insurance will increase to 170 million from 163 million last year, which tends to support the promise of health care reform that it would cover heretofore uninsured Americans.

However, the Medicare Actuary goes on to say that 2 million of those will drop off the roles as some of them age into Medicare, and others lose coverage as employers respond to increased costs.

They expect the penalty for high-cost “Cadillac” insurance plans to convince some employers to provide less generous insurance plans, while other employers in certain industries such as retail sales are expected to reclassify many full-time employees as part-time, allowing the employer to escape the substantial expense of health insurance plans under Obamacare. Further, some large employers with low-wage employees are expected to discontinue offering health insurance to their workers and instead pay the penalty mandated in the Affordable Care Act.

When major provisions of the law go into effect in 2014, the actuaries project a spending increase of 8.3 percent. And as more individuals qualify for Medicare, that program’s spending is predicted to increase by more than 20 percent. “For 2015-20,” according to the actuaries, “national health spending growth is projected to average 6.2 percent per year.”

Furthermore, Obamacare requires the creation of at least 159 new federal commissions and boards for healthcare reform. And a new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the reform legislation – just what we need in this economy: more federal employees and red tape.

This boondoggle has few advantages and a multitude of negatives. It is another Obama promise that not only hasn’t materialized, but does real harm to the country. The manner in which it was passed was scandalous and un-seemly, and it must be repealed as soon as possible.

Cross-posted from Observations

“Nullification Laws” Passed By the States to Fight ObamaCare

“Nullification Laws” Passed By the States to Fight ObamaCare
Arrogant Federal Government Lights Fuse on Explosive Citizen Anger!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*******************
In the upcoming “summit” between Obama and the Republicans on his ObamaCare proposal… you know, the one the American people have flatly rejected… you can forget the democrats tossing out anything in the current proposal. Ain’t gonna happen. The dems, with the added weight of Obama, hope to overwhelm the Republicans and force them into folding and agreeing to reluctantly support ObamaCare so they, the democrats, can save face for Obama and themselves.

WE appeal to the GOP to hold fast. Don’t give an inch. This sorry piece of legislation deserves to be flatly, and completely, defeated, with a stake driven through its heart, and committed to the trash bin of history for all time.

It is nothing more than a power grab by the Progressives in the Congress. It is power they will use to ram their remaining socialist agenda through the Congress and into law. It is a sure and certain formula for the utter destruction of our constitutional republic. And that, dear reader is exactly what they want and what they are working tirelessly to accomplish.

If they win, it will spell the doom of the United States of America -- at least, what is left of the US today.

They must be stopped -- at the ballot box!

We warned they would try this. They have -- and they are.

Already, the White House is admitting that the “NEW” ObamaCare Proposal is only a “Starting Point” for healthcare legislation. We have warned many, many, times that the current Congress believes the American people are basically stupid. We have warned, just as many times, that they will pass ObamaCare by “Incrementalism,” one small piece of the plan, at a time, until they get the whole “hell spawned plan” in place and the government will have total control of the lives of every American.

It now appears the Obama Regime is readying itself to use the reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes instead of the usual 60 votes for passage of a budget bill, to pass their abomination of a healthcare bill through the Senate. It appears to this scribe the democrats are still pressing to gain at least one republican vote for political cover in case their plan fails. Woe be unto any republican dumb enough to side with the dems in favor of what is now being referred to as ObamaCare 2.0.

Many conservatives, including “yours truly,” have been fighting ObamaCare for over two years. We began alerting our readers and listeners in the early days of the Presidential campaign and as far back, in some cases, as 2007. Why are we so dead set against government run healthcare? To put is as clearly and concisely, yes, as bluntly as I know h -- ObamaCare is socialized medicine, it is socialism, and socialism is the final step a nation takes before becoming a communist nation.

The American people HATE ObamaCare. The American people have told the government we do not want ObamaCare in any form. As evidence of this, look at the number of states that have already amended their state constitutions to ban any kind of government healthcare mandates handed down by the federal government. If you know your American history then you already know this has happened before in the US. Just before the American Civil War broke out into a shooting war, the southern states began passing “nullification” laws, within the states, which nullified federal laws and mandates placed on those states by the federal government of that day. Simply put a nullification law means those states will NOT adhere to, or abide by, those federal laws and mandates. Need I remind you of the next step taken by those states?

The American Civil War did not have to happen. It DID happen because the arrogant US Congress of that day refused to listen to the people of the southern states telling them, flat out, they would leave the Union if the Congress continued to govern against the will of the southern people.

Today the current US Congress is making the exact same mistake the Congresses of the 1840s and 1850s made -- and this time, it is not just the southern states warning Congress to take heed. This time, states all over the nation are frantically attempting to get the attention of the federal government by passing modern day nullification laws.

The signs are all there. A blind fool can read them. And yet, the federal government cannot hear them or, worse, it is ignoring them.

This way lies destruction. The peoples of the states have issued the clarion call. Just as the election of 1860 was the turning point, the day the nation split into two nations, the election of 2010 will decide if the US remains one country or shatters into two or more separate nations or confederations of states. One thing is certain: America cannot continue as a single entity of 50 states ruled over by a socialist government.

The 2010 election is the safety valve. If the pressure is released by a purge of the incumbents in the Congress then the US will survive. It the valve remains closed, and no pressure is released, the explosion of the US tearing itself apart will be heard, and felt, around the globe and will spell the end of the Great American Experiment.

J. D. Longstreet