Liberals: Romney, too rich; Rubio, not rich enough; Hillary, just right!

Fully
With the release of the 2005-06 statements, there is now a full public accounting of Mr. Rubio’s expenses for the four years he had a Republican Party credit card in his capacity as head of campaign operations for Florida House Republicans. His opponents and news outlets had long asked that they be disclosed. (New York Times, 11/8/2015)

Still not disclosed? Where exactly was President Obama the night that Ambassador Stevens was murdered in Benghazi? Sadly, the media has not asked.


Killer
President Obama personally killed the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, dismissing the project as a mere “symbol” that “has occupied what I, frankly, consider an overinflated role in our political discourse.” The irony is that the pipeline’s benefits would be tangible, while the symbolism and overinflation are entirely political. (Wall Street Journal, 11/8/2015)

When is a job, not a job? When it is an XL pipeline job. Will union toadies continue to support Hillary and Democrats? Probably.


Star
During the many months she spent in immigration detention centers and a county jail, Estrella Sánchez, who is seeking asylum, became used to mockery from guards, taunts from fellow inmates and a deep sense of isolation.
...
In some cases, though, the best solution is to keep transgender people out of correctional facilities. Wherever possible, authorities should seek alternatives to detention, like community-based monitoring.
...
The Justice Department ruled in April that policies barring transgender inmates from beginning new hormone treatment are unconstitutional, and most states allow the treatment for prisoners in principle. However, 44 percent of transgender prison inmates in a 2014 survey reported being denied hormones.
...
Last month, California announced it would begin covering sex reassignment surgery for some inmates. So far, it is the only state to do so. (New York Times editorial, 11/9/2015)

Meet the New York Times Victim of the Day: Estrella Sanchez. An illegal immigrant. 

The Times believes that 1) She should not be in prison, 2) She should receive hormone therapy while she is in prison (even though she really should not be in prison) and, 3) America should pay for his/her sex reassignment surgery.

Not kidding!

Rich in Disasters

It's Official
Breitbart News and others have chronicled the "Unmatched failure" that Cover Oregon has now officially become. As was pointed out on March 20 of this year, "The Oregon Obamacare exchange has received $305 million in taxpayer-funded federal grants, spent $160 million on its busted website, dropped $10 million on hipster promotional ads, erroneously enrolled 4,000 illegal immigrants in full Oregon Health Plan coverage contrary to federal law, and has not enrolled a single Oregonian online." (Breitbart.com, 4/24/2014)

There certainly is something to be said about Liberals, isn't there? Massive waste of taxpayer dollars for failed ventures such as Solyndra and Cover Oregon does not faze them one bit. Of course, it does not hurt that it is tax dollars from wealthy Republican 1%ers that are financing all their wacky social experiments. 


Preppers
DC Prep operates four charter schools here with 1,200 students in preschool through eighth grade. The schools, whose students are mostly poor and black, are among the highest performing in Washington. Last year, DC Prep’s flagship middle school earned the best test scores among local charter schools, far outperforming the average of the city’s traditional neighborhood schools as well. (New York Times, 4/26/2014)

Liberals - who claim to have the interests of poor, inner-city minorities at heart - really do not. As the following demonstrates:

In Washington, where the charter system has strong backing in City Hall, supporters have been more successful than in New York, where opposition from teachers unions and others has kept charter school enrollment to about 6 percent, despite growth in the past decade. (New York Times, 4/26/2014)

Liberals hypocrites would rather suppress charter schools in order to keep teachers union contributions flowing to the Democrat party. 


No Horns
Upon the latest exasperating delay of the Keystone XL pipeline project, our union — the Laborers’ International Union of North America — suggested that the Obama administration grow a set of antlers or take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach.

After all, the evidence points to federal approval of the pipeline. After nearly six years of delay, thousands of pages of research, five environmental impact statements confirming the evidence and millions of public comments, a pipeline that could put thousands of Americans to work and help ensure our nation’s energy security remains stalled.

The evidence is clear: It’s the politics that are tricky. And that’s where courage comes in. (Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), Wall Street Journal, 4/24/2014)

OK, Mr. O'Sullivan, well said. Now is your union going to do the right thing and vote Republican? Nothing changes if you do not....


Prospective
But with the prospect of an even higher office on the horizon, Mr. Walker finds his earlier track record under increasing scrutiny, not only for how closely it hews to conservative principles but also for the criminal convictions of some staff members and the release of staff emails that included racial and ethnic slurs. (New York Times, 4/27/2014)

In its ongoing series - Roughing Up Potential GOP Presidential Candidates - the Times pivots away from Chris Christie to begin the smear job on Scott Walker. Up next on the Dem side: Hillary and Chelsea go shopping for baby clothes!


Attention Deficit
The Vermont Workers Center is holding a demonstration at the Vermont Statehouse on May 1 to bring attention to “fundamental rights,” namely universal health care, paid sick leave, affordable housing, better educational opportunities and livable wages for working class Vermonters.

In a post on the organization’s website, the center says lawmakers and the Shumlin administration are not paying enough attention to the problems of low-income Vermonters.

“Over the past year, we have seen these needs and rights come under attack,” Vermont Workers Center officials write. “Decisions are being made that will affect our lives for years to come, and we aren’t given a seat at the table.”

More than 25 local organizations are sponsoring the May 1 event, including several environmental groups, health care advocacy organizations, disability rights groups and unions. (VTDigger.org, 4/27/2014)

So to summarize: the Vermont Workers Center (communists) is unhappy with Vermont Progressives (socialists). 

The workers/communists want more freebies paid for by others.


Labeled
“Snowden is interested in returning home,” said Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who also represents Mr. Snowden. “He is and always has been on America’s side. He would cooperate in extraordinary ways in the right circumstances. But he does not believe that the ‘felon’ label is the right word for someone whose act of conscience has revitalized democratic oversight of the intelligence community and is leading to historic reforms.” (New York Times, 4/29/2014)

Suggestion. Let's let 'Snowden the patriot' stew for a couple more years in Russia before bringing him back to the U.S. where he can serve his life sentence. 

Drastic Measures

Taxing
In the budget proposal that Mr. Hickenlooper released Wednesday, his office said the state could collect about $134 million in taxes from recreational and medical marijuana for the fiscal year beginning in July. He proposed to spend $99 million on programs including substance-abuse treatment, preventing marijuana use by children and teenagers, public health and law enforcement. (New York Times, 2/21/2014)

Only Democrats could come up with this: legalize dope; collect $134 million in taxes on dope: spend $99 million on anti-dope programs. It defies common sense, but that is what Dems do.


Limiting
Cities, counties, public schools and community colleges around the country have limited or reduced the work hours of part-time employees to avoid having to provide them with health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, state and local officials say. (New York Times, 2/20/2014)

Wonder why this was not the front page headline of every paper and website? 

Answer: When the public sector mimics the private sector it is not good news for Democrats.


Lesser
President Obama will drop from his latest budget request a plan to use a less-generous measure of inflation when calculating Social Security cost-of-living increases, according to White House officials. (Washington Post, 2/20/2014)

How serious are Democrats about entitlement reform? 

Answer: Not at all.


Ruler
A Nebraska judge ruled Wednesday that the state violated its constitution when it allowed the governor to approve the route of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a decision that could significantly delay the $5.3 billion project. (Washington Post, 2/19/2014)

Liberal judges ruining America. Gives Obama cover though, doesn't it?


Discord
The United States informed its NATO allies this month that Russia had tested a new ground-launched cruise missile, raising concerns about Moscow’s compliance with a landmark arms control accord. (New York Times, 1/29/2014)

Why did Putin stick it to Obama? 

Answer: He knows him.


Flex
The Obama administration said it would postpone enforcement of a federal requirement for medium-size employers to provide health insurance to employees and allow larger employers more flexibility in how they provide coverage. (New York Times, 2/11/2014)

Next in line for an Obamacare delay: employers in-between "medium-sized" and "larger."


Untimely
For Obama, now is not the time for defensiveness. His current difficulties owe less to Obamacare’s early problems than to a broader alienation fostered by the Republicans’ ability to block government efforts to ease widespread economic stress. (E.J. Dionne, Jr., Washington Post, 1/26/2014)

Question for Dionne. How out-of-touch does an op-ed writer have to be to say that Obama's low popularity is NOT the fault of Obamacare, but rather is the fault of Republicans?

An honest writer might say the following:

It is not only that the president’s political support is diminished; it is diminished, in large part, because of his main political achievement, the Affordable Care Act. Because of the way the law was sold — “you can keep your plan” — Americans have questions about Obama’s credibility. Because of the way it has been implemented — “the system is down at the moment” — they have questions about his competence. In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, a plurality of American voters doubts that Obama is “honest and trustworthy,” and a majority believes the Obama administration is not competent at running the government. (Michael Gerson, Washington Post, 1/27/2014)


Finding
Former Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans was found guilty on Wednesday of accepting payoffs for city contracts, becoming the first leader in the city’s history to be charged and convicted of corruption. (New York Times, 2/12/2014)

President George W. Bush will now accept your apologies for all criticism directed at him in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Legendary Fears

Even Though
The state Senate has advanced legislation to allow immigrant workers on Vermont farms to become legal drivers, even though they might be in the country illegally.

The 27-2 vote came nearly 19 months after the Vermont State Police stopped a car containing two passengers who were Mexican immigrant farmworkers in the country illegally and turned them over to the U.S. Border Patrol. (Burlington Free Press, 4/5/2013)

Continuing their laser-like focus on the issues vital to an economically sound and prosperous Vermont, state legislators roll up their sleeves to tackle drivers licenses for illegals.

Yesterday while taking our cat out for a walk, RedStateVT conducted an admittedly informal survey in the neighborhood. We asked: "What is the most pressing issue here in Vermont that we want our legislators to address?" Unanimously, our fellow Vermonters answered "drivers licenses for illegals." 

Well there you go. 


Hard Times
The president could face an even tougher time selling the Social Security change to liberal members of Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., fired off a statement Thursday responding to what was then the rumor that Obama's budget could include the change. "Millions of working people, seniors, disabled veterans, those who have lost a loved one in combat, and women will be extremely disappointed if President Obama caves into the long standing Republican effort to cut Social Security and benefits for disabled veterans and their survivors through a so-called chained CPI," Sanders said. "In 2008, candidate Barack Obama told the American people that he would not cut Social Security.  Having him go back on his word will only add to the rampant political cynicism that our country is experiencing today." (Foxnews.com, 4/5/2013)

Whenever defending or advocating for government entitlements Colonel Bernie Sanders will inevitably provide a laundry list of those who would be affected. Working people, seniors, disabled veterans, those who have lost a loved one in combat, women, those with broken bones, with broken hearts, the tired, the poor, those who yearn, those who once yearned, pet owners, people who lost a pet, seniors who lost a pet, the disabled who lost a pet, the recently deceased, those about to be deceased, etc.

On the other side is a single group: taxpayers. 


Shore Line
“If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement. “That’s no way to lead and move the country forward.” (NYT, 4/5/2013)

Excellent point by John Boehner who is slowly rehabilitating himself. If President Obama believes in the absolute necessity of entitlement reform in order to ensure the sustainability of these programs for the long term, then why is such reform tied to tax hikes on the rich? The answer, we suspect, is that Obama is not a true believer on such reform.


Story Time
Our favorite anecdote from the tour, however, came when some protesters against Keystone XL chanted outside another rich man's home, "What do we want from the President? No pipeline for the 1%."

These protesters need to have their consciousness raised too. The 1%-ers writing checks to Mr. Obama loathe the pipeline. The folks who need and want it are the 99%. They're the working stiffs who are "struggling to get by" in this economy.... (WSJ, 4/5/2013)

See yesterday's RedStateVT post. More proof that the Wall Street Journal reads RedStateVT?


Hail Hail
The economy created a net 88,000 new jobs, 95,000 in private business. This means that for every unemployed American who found a job in March, about five left the labor force. If the Obama Administration can convince another three million or so Americans to leave the job market, the President will be able to hail "full employment." (WSJ, 4/5/2013)

Our favorite line from a column on the latest unemployment numbers. 

Crisis Management

Swingers
The president also faces pressure from some members of his own party who argue that the economic benefits of the pipeline are too important to ignore. Last month, 17 Democratic senators signed on to an amendment backing construction of the pipeline. Included in the group were seven senators from conservative or swing states who face re-election in 2014. (NYT, 4/4/2013)

Republicans who favor gay marriage, Democrats who want to build the Keystone pipeline. We have talked about this in the past - and recently - for important reasons. Many people bemoan the lack of bipartisanship in Washington. Perhaps there is more than we are led to believe. The culprit is - as always - the Legitimate Media which will rarely tell us when a Democrat politician is pro-life, but will always detail a "brave" Republican's conversion to gun control or another Liberal position. 


Percentages
Even as he spoke at the second fund-raiser, about 100 opponents of the pipeline protested outside, waving signs and chanting, “What do we want from our president? No pipeline for the one percent!” and “When I say pipeline you say kill! Pipeline! Kill!” (NYT, 4/4/2013)

The peaceful protesters (kill! kill! kill!) have now apparently concluded that the Keystone pipeline is a 1%er issue. Because it will bring cheap gas to all Americans and create blue collar jobs? 

We tease Liberals unrelentingly, we admit it. But we refrain - we really do - from flat-out name-calling. Today we slip up. 

These people are morons. 


Missing Piece
There was something missing from President Obama's Wednesday speech in Denver about gun violence. He focused almost exclusively on passing gun-control laws, and not at all on one of the nation's biggest promoters of violence: the entertainment industry.

The president's campaign against gun violence has produced a stale debate marked by lots of speeches with little achieved. A more creative chief executive would have used this moment to widen the discussion by drawing attention to the increasingly graphic violence so pervasive in television shows, movies and videogames. Mr. Obama is particularly well positioned to challenge Hollywood because of his special relationship with the media world's elites. They might be more likely to heed criticism coming from Mr. Obama than from any other president or member of Congress. (Campbell Brown, Wall Street Journal, 4/3/2013)

Yesterday we noted that Connecticut passed new gun restrictions while sending a call for a study of other factors in mass killings to a committee. Where it will disappear. 

Today we were delighted to read Brown's outstanding article calling out the President on his failure to focus on entertainment violence. Well done!


Merely
The mere presence of men making money is an insufficient explanation for the persistence of poverty. You have to look elsewhere. (Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 4/3/2013)

Best line from an excellent Henninger piece on capitalism. Note to the redistributionists: capitalism good, corruption bad. 

The Context of the Time

Labyrinthine
Two recent oil pipeline spills have prompted new criticism from opponents of the proposed Keystone XL project, while raising more questions about whether the federal government is adequately monitoring the nation’s vast labyrinth of pipelines. (NYT, 4/2/2013)

Here's the thing: pipelines will leak, ships will sink, cars will break down, walls will crumble, storms will wreak damage. Man-made devices will fail and nature will deliver unexpected results. It is the way of the world. When disasters - human and natural - occur, man reacts and recovers. Notwithstanding, Liberals would deny the U.S. a friendly source of energy. 


Puzzle Pieces
President Obama has been telling America for months that special tax breaks for the oil and gas industry must come to an end. The presidential demand always prompts puzzled gazes among tax and energy-industry experts, who ask: What special tax breaks? (Merrill Matthews, WSJ, 4/2/2013)

We are reminded of that wonderful moment during the recent presidential campaign when - after repeated battering from Obama - Mitt Romney said....."tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas? I've been in business for forty years and I have no idea what you are talking about!"

Tax breaks for oil and gas? Turns out to be another Liberal myth. 


Unhealthy
And now, with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and others calling for a federal Healthy Families Act that would establish national sick day standards, that movement has a chance to sweep the entire country.

America has reached a tipping point, and we’re sick of waiting. (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post, 4/2/2013)

Coming to American business soon: The Healthy Families Act! Liberals can't understand why U.S. businesses move as many jobs as they can overseas even as they layer more and more mandates on them. Pelosi follows Liberal tradition in giving an uplifting name to her bill (how could mean Repubs vote against healthy families?) just as vanden Heuvel justifies it by describing the plight of some poor sad sack who was allegedly fired for calling in sick. Why do we suspect a hoax? Well because no tort attorney appears to have stepped forward to represent our victim for wrongful termination. 

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Incentivize
NORAD is considering removing two of its 18 Air Force sites from 24-hour alert, saying it would save millions of dollars without compromising its ability to defend against 9/11-style attacks. (FOXNEWS.com, 3/1/2013)

Now we are talking. Maybe we can use this sequestration moment for greater good. This has been tried in business and there is no reason it cannot work in government: incent the various departments of government to find cost savings; reward the departments that find the greatest savings as a percentage of their annual budget. 


Correction
President Barack Obama has signed an order authorizing the government to begin cutting $85 billion from federal accounts, officially enacting across-the-board reductions that he opposed but failed to avert. (Washington Post, 3/1/2013)

Dishonest reporting from the Washington Post. More accurate would be to say:

President Barack Obama has signed an order authorizing the government to begin cutting $85 billion from federal accounts, officially enacting across-the-board reductions that he proposed, then opposed but failed to avert.

Come on Washington Post, get it right! Why someone might accuse you of media bias....


Reckoning
Instead, after Democrats spent a decade griping that the Bush tax cuts were a boon only for “the rich,” they decided that Bush had in fact been correct all along in claiming they benefited everyone.
...
The White House, for its part, plainly reckons it can come back every other month with a fresh plan to “just tax the rich” and the public will cheer.  (Matt Miller, Washington Post, 2/27/2013)

Uber-Liberal Miller rips both Democrats and Republicans over Washington's dysfunction. These are two of our favorite admissions. Good for him for at least attempting to be even-handed.


Incurable
The Fed failed to cure the former (recession), and today’s unprecedentedly anemic recovery — approximately 3 million fewer people are working than were five years ago — has failed to cure the latter: If the workforce participation rate were as high as it was when Barack Obama was first inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be 10.8 percent. (George Will, Washington Post, 2/27/2013)

Will puts some astonishing numbers to Obama's greatest domestic policy failure: the economy. 


Revision
The State Department issued a revised environmental impact statement for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline on Friday that makes no recommendation about whether the project should be built but presents no conclusive environmental reason it should not be. (NYT, 3/1/2013)

Reduced dependence on foreign oil from hostile countries and union jobs versus Bill McKibben. What will Obama do? Hard to say, but we have been wrong before in underestimating the extent of Obama's Liberalism. That is why we think he picks McKibben.