Limbaugh: Obama Fiddles While the Economy Burns

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Photo Credit; Rush Liimbaugh

Photo Credit; Rush Limbaugh

RUSH: Folks, you’ve heard the old saying, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” That is true. Rome was literally burning, and he could not have cared less. What people have forgotten about it is that Nero, he didn’t just fiddle while Rome burned; he started the fire. Nero wanted to burn down Rome in order to rebuild it in his own image. But to cover it up he blamed the Christians, who were then subsequently thrown to the lions.

Now, on my first trip to Rome, the tour guide told me that didn’t happen. He was interested in Rome not having a bad impression. He said, “You’ve heard that the Christians were given to the lions. It really didn’t happen,” he said. But, for all intents and purposes, it did. Now, if you ask me, the story of Nero fiddled while Rome burned and then adding to it he started the fire sounds familiar to me.

Barack Obama has, for five years, had control over the US economy. His policies, his specific economic policies are the reason this country is in dire economic straits. Obama’s policies are the reason why there is no recovery — and if you want to call it a recovery, go ahead. If you do, it’s the worst recovery in the history of this country. So there is an analogy, I think, to Nero here. Obama, by his own admission before he took office, during his campaign and after he was immaculated, bragged about transforming this country.

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50 Years and Over $20 Trillion Later, How the War on Poverty Was Lost

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ED-AR697_Rector_DV_20140107134254On Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his State of the Union address to announce an ambitious government undertaking. “This administration today, here and now,” he thundered, “declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”

Fifty years later, we’re losing that war. Fifteen percent of Americans still live in poverty, according to the official census poverty report for 2012, unchanged since the mid-1960s. Liberals argue that we aren’t spending enough money on poverty-fighting programs, but that’s not the problem. In reality, we’re losing the war on poverty because we have forgotten the original goal, as LBJ stated it half a century ago: “to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities.”

The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. Government spent $916 billion on these programs in 2012 alone, and roughly 100 million Americans received aid from at least one of them, at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. (That figure doesn’t include Social Security or Medicare benefits.) Federal and state welfare spending, adjusted for inflation, is 16 times greater than it was in 1964. If converted to cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all official poverty in the U.S.

LBJ promised that the war on poverty would be an “investment” that would “return its cost manifold to the entire economy.” But the country has invested $20.7 trillion in 2011 dollars over the past 50 years. What does America have to show for its investment? Apparently, almost nothing: The official poverty rate persists with little improvement.

That is in part because the government’s poverty figures are misleading. Census defines a family as poor based on income level but doesn’t count welfare benefits as a form of income. Thus, government means-tested spending can grow infinitely while the poverty rate remains stagnant.

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Millionaire Obama: I Hate Income Inequality

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Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty

Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty

Back from his $4 million Hawaii vacation, President Barack Obama seems poised to sound the populist trumpet in an effort to turn the page on 2013’s disastrous Obamacare rollout.

Many pundits are speculating that Obama, seeing the popularity of liberal populists like New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, will use the current debate over unemployment insurance to engage in more divisive rhetoric:

The Obama administration has set the stage for a push that could rekindle cries of class warfare — calling for renewed long-term unemployment benefits, a minimum wage increase and a campaign against what Democrats call “income inequality.”

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The 12 Worst Ways Obama Has Assaulted Our Military

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Photo Credit: Western Journalism

Photo Credit: Western Journalism

They are extraordinary Americans. It is said that they sign a blank check to their country and their countrymen pledging that they will give their all, up to and including their lives, to defend the American way of life and their fellow Americans. They are the men and women who are currently serving or have previously served in the armed forces of the United States. They take an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic,” and they always live by that oath.

This blank check is readily accepted by our government and by other Americans who send these selfless individuals off to fight and die for our nation and its freedoms. Many of them have made the ultimate sacrifice and died in battle, while many others have returned home with shattered bodies and emotional scars. Unfortunately, they have often returned home to betrayal by some of their fellow Americans and particularly by their own government…

As for our government, we have a President of the United States, an administration, and a Congress that seems intent on breaking the morale of our soldiers and destroying their capability of protecting our nation. Their actions support the fact that there is an all-out assault on both our active duty military and our veterans. The elements of this assault consist of:

1) The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a bulletin to all police agencies in 2009 naming all military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as potential domestic terrorists.

2) Senator Dianne Feinstein declares that all veterans have PTSD and are therefore mentally ill and should not be allowed to own firearms.

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Krauthammer: Stop the Bailout — Now

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Photo Credit: Human Events

Photo Credit: Human Events

First order of business for the returning Congress: The No Bailout for Insurance Companies Act of 2014.

Make it one line long: “Sections 1341 and 1342 of the Affordable Care Act are hereby repealed.”

End of bill. End of bailout. End of story.

Why do we need it? On Dec. 18, thechairman of the Council of Economic Advisers was asked what was the administration’s Plan B if, because of adverse selection (enrolling too few young and healthies), the insurance companies face financial difficulty. Jason Furman wouldn’t bite. “There’s a Plan A,” he replied. Enroll the young.

But of course there’s a Plan B. It’s a government bailout.

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Linder Letter: The Right to be Left Alone

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Photo Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Photo Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The makers of our Constitution…conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” ~ Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).

It has been reported that the National Security Agency intercepts packages with electronics being shipped by UPS and FEDEX and infects them with computer bugs for future access. Both UPS and FEDEX chose not to deny the charge. This is the same agency that captures and catalogues five billion phone calls each day as well as all of our email communications.

Richard Higbie, a former criminal investigator for the State Department turned whistleblower, had his computer hacked and four years worth of messages were removed and permanently deleted. Some of the “lost” emails detailed his complaint against the government. Others were privileged communications with his attorney who also experienced a break-in in his office in which three computers were stolen.

“Fox News” reporter James Rosen’s reporting on North Korea led authorities to believe that he had a good source in the government. To track down the suspected leaker Attorney General Eric Holder lied in an affidavit before a judge to get approval to tap Rosen’s phones. His parent’s phones were also tapped.

Sharyl Attkisson is a “CBS” reporter who was covering the ATF gunrunning operation known as Fast and Furious. She also reported on Benghazi. Her work computer and her personal computers mysteriously turned on in the middle of the night. Nothing was taken from her personal information, but work product from her business computer was taken and the tracks were professionally covered.

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Global Warming Believers are Today’s Climate Deniers

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Just this week we had dozens of Global Warming-believing scientists, who specialize in researching ice melt in Antarctica, run into a helluva lot more Antarctic ice than their research told them would be there. So much more ice that their ship and three ice-breaking rescue vessels were stuck in ten feet of it for days (two of the vessels are still stuck). As I write this, the big news of the weekend is a cold snap across much of the country with temperatures reaching 20 and 30-year lows. And yet, despite all of what should be good news, the Global Cooling Global Warming Climate Change community is not celebrating.

Not only are Climate Change Truthers not celebrating, they are hysterical with worry that unexpected Antarctic ice discoveries and American winters returning to the normalcy those of us of a certain age remember, might hurt their religion crusade. The media is so worried they have coordinated a cover-up of the news from Antarctica and those of us pointing to what one might call the “science” of colder temperatures and increased Arctic ice are being mocked for doing so.

Granted, more ice in one area of a vast South Pole is not empirical proof that all is well in the Antarctic, but it is a great way to call attention to the fact that according to NASA, “In late September 2013, the ice surrounding Antarctica reached its annual winter maximum and set a new record.”

Who is anti-science now?

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Bound by Bad Precedent, Judge Rules Against Free Speech in Boston

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) tried to place pro-Israel ads in Boston, countering anti-Israel ads that ran there. Our ad read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”

The ad was rejected, and we sued. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Gorton ruled against us in our preliminary injunction against Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA). No surprise here, during our hearing Judge Gorton said that he did not have the authority to rule on matters out of his jurisdiction. Still, Gorton dropped the ball on the question of “reasonableness.”

This is Boston, after all, site of the most recent jihad bombing in America, so Gorton’s ruling is sad and regrettable. We will, of course, appeal.

A couple of weeks ago I headed to Boston to cover a hearing concerning our pro-Israel ads that had been barred from running by the MBTA. Such abusive violations of our freedoms have become catalysts for historical resistance and actions in the defense of freedom. And these dangerous restrictions on speech must be fought.

It was the MBTA that invited the debate on this issue by accepting anti-Israel ads. And then they turned and said that our ad was objectionable. They accepted an ad on the same subject that was so genuinely demeaning and disparaging that it had to be taken down after numerous complaints, only to be restored later, and then they had the audacity to reject our ad. That is viewpoint restriction and unconstitutional (even under the Ridley decision).

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The Great Malaise Drags On

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Photo Credit: Economia

Photo Credit: Economia

In the US, median incomes have continued their seemingly relentless decline; for male workers, income has fallen to levels below those attained more than 40 years ago. Europe’s double-dip recession ended in 2013, but no one can responsibly claim that recovery has followed. More than 50% of young people in Spain and Greece remain unemployed. According to the International Monetary Fund, Spain can expect unemployment to be above 25% for years to come.

The real danger for Europe is that a sense of complacency may set in. As the year passed, one could feel the pace of vital institutional reforms in the eurozone slowing. For example, the monetary union needs a real banking union – including not just common supervision, but also common deposit insurance and a common resolution mechanism – and Eurobonds, or some similar vehicle for mutualizing debt. The eurozone is not much closer to implementing either measure than it was a year ago.

One could also sense a renewed commitment to the austerity policies that incited Europe’s double-dip recession. Europe’s continuing stagnation is bad enough; but there is still a significant risk of another crisis in yet another eurozone country, if not next year, in the not-too-distant future.

Matters are only slightly better in the US, where a growing economic divide – with more inequality than in any other advanced country – has been accompanied by severe political polarization. One can only hope that the lunatics in the Republican Party who forced a government shutdown and pushed the country to the brink of default will decide against a repeat performance.

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Washington’s Three Most Irrational Arguments in 2013

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Washington, they say, is Hollywood for ugly people. It’s also debate club for the logically impaired. The past year included its share of fallacies, sophistries, oversimplifications and utter absurdities.

But a few prominent arguments committed the worst offenses against rational thought. Below are the three worst arguments made in Washington in 2013. These weren’t illogical brain freezes or odd beliefs spouted by backbenchers. These arguments were deliberately devised, promulgated and repeated by prominent politicians, which makes them all the more embarrassing.

“If we can save only one life…”

The demagoguery started early in 2013, as Democrats tried to push gun-control laws in the wake of the December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The White House argued for gun restrictions using a litany of facile talking points, most absurdly this gem by President Obama: “If there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try.”

Vice President Joe Biden echoed the line: “As the president said, if your actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking.” White House spokesman Jay Carney repeated the mantra: “If even one child’s life can be saved by the actions we take here in Washington, we must take those actions.”

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