The Life of Julia
I don't know how many of you have recently visited www.barakobama.com/life-of-julia, the Obama Biden site, but it just keeps getting more and more bizarre. There is this strange "Life of Julia" add attempting to show how women are going to benefit from Obama's policies. I took snap shots of each part of the story to preserve it in all it's weirdness.
Obama's policies "help over her lifetime" and Mitt Romney's policies would "change her story". This implies that Mitt Romney would not help over her lifetime. A better question would be; should the president be doing anything to help one particular group of people? Pay attention to the usage of the word could.
This implies that if your kids don't enroll in the head start program they will not be ready to learn and succeed.
How does freezing spending equal cutting spending? Romney/Ryan are for extending existing tax rates. That is not a cut.
We must assume that Julia's parents are in an income bracket that qualifies her for a Pell Grant.
Health insurance plans, before Obama Care, required that children be covered until age 22 provided they were still in school. She's covered until 26 years of age under Obama Care, but that doesn't even apply in this example.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act has to do with an increase in the statue of limitations when challenging an employer in court for pay discrimination. This example also assumes a little too much to be realistic. Julia is going to sue her employer while still in college over equal pay dispute?
Where is the proof that Ryan or Romney want to increase student loan interest? Who would propose that in an election year?
This is just silly. So women everywhere have been scared about their health up until the passage of Obama Care? Really?
All of these benefits are available now under Medicaid. As a matter of fact many women would quit their jobs to apply for Medicaid and have the government subsidize the cost of child birth. Coverage is not a problem if people are gaming the current system because of its great level of coverage.
Funding is not what makes schools improve. If any country in the world proves that, it's the U.S.
Again these types of programs are already in existence. There is nothing new here.
Medicare will end as we know it anyway because it's not sustainable.
Correct Julia's benefits could be cut by 40%, but she would be able to invest that 40% how she sees fit. This could allow for a much greater return on investment when compared to Social Security.
That's right ladies, you would get nowhere without Obama!
From this I must conclude that Obama doesn't care about men. Above is a list of all of the groups the administration considered important enough, but not men.
What amazes me is the extent to which leftists will inflate themselves. If you were to actually buy into the Julia story; you would have to believe that Julia owes the majority of good things in her life to Obama and his policies. This is just so bizarre.
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College Tuition or Hidden Tax?
This issue hits home for me. I won't say how, but I currently have a ridiculous amount of student loan debt. I never really considered it a tax, but because of the Obama Health Care law all student loans are now offered only through the government. GSEs now manage all student loan debt (unless the debt accrued before the change).
These are Obama's remarks from a Rolling Stone Magazine interview published on September 28, 2010.
We wrestled away billions of dollars of profit that were going to the banks and middlemen through the student-loan program, and now we have tens of billions of dollars that are going directly to students to help them pay for college. We expanded national service more than we ever have before.
So, the profit that was going to "banks and middlemen" is now going to the government in the form of interest? Sounds like a tax to me. The government has monopolized the student loan industry. Because the government is a single entity it can offer loans at extremely low rates, while in the aggregate the interest earned, even from those low rates, is massive. Politicians can now use student loan interest rates as a political tool just as they do with other taxes.
Here's where things get creepy.
America's student debt has reached $1tn, and interest on college loan repayments is scheduled to double on 1 July unless Congress acts.
America's total student debt burden last week topped $1tn - more than the total of the entire US credit card debt - and it shows no sign of easing.
The government now controls the largest amount of unsecured debt in the entire country. Perhaps this is why Obama is so excited about college loans. In Obama's first State of The Union Address he encouraged everyone to devote on year of their life to higher education. The government controlled student loan system has nothing to do with people receiving an education, it has to do with them becoming a new cash cow for the government. Now the government can gain interest on the largest unsecured debt in the entire U.S. economy.
April jobs report: Hiring slows, unemployment falls
Hiring slowed in April and workers dropped out of the labor force in droves -- not a good sign for the job market going forward.
The economy added just 115,000 jobs in the month, the Labor Department reported Friday, down from March when employers created 154,000 jobs.
Obama battles job crisisMeanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.1% as 342,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. At 63.6%, the portion of the working-age population participating in the job market is now at its lowest level since 1981.
115,000 jobs were created April, but 342,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. CNN has now been forced to report that the unemployment numbers the government uses --are in no way representative of the number of people without jobs!
The current unemployment figures are based on the number of people looking for jobs vs. the number of available jobs. If the number of people looking for jobs decreases while the number of available jobs remains stagnant unemployment goes down. This is a nonsensical attempt at calculating unemployment.
If only 63.6% of the working-age population are employed real unemployment (people without jobs) would be 36.4%; that's a number no college graduate with huge student loan debt want to hear.
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What More Could Obama Do to Show the American Public, or the Entire World, that He's Weak?
Obama's open mic comment to Russian president Medvedev is the most telling misstep of the Obama presidency. What does this mean? First let's look at a transcript from the conversation.
President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
Does this mean that Obama is actively working against the interest of the United States and its allies? Obama is asking the Russians to back off because he doesn't have the political capital to deal with important foreign policy issues. How is this not a glaring example of weakness? Can there be any question as to whether Obama puts politics above all else?
I think we are close to witnessing the collapse of the house of cards known as Obama.
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Obama, Your "Hot Air" Doesn't Fuel My Car!
We have some interesting stuff going on here when it comes to the nation's energy security. Just a few months ago Obama was blaming the Republicans for botching the Keysone XL oil pipeline deal.
“As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment,” Obama said in a prepared statement Wednesday.
“As a result, the secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree,” Obama added.
This time there is more pressure for the president to allow for the pipeline. The Republicans finally wised up and introduced a bill that would allow for the pipeline without presidential approval. Now the pressure is coming from Democrats not Republicans. So what's Obama's reasoning? To get to that you would have to look at Obama's Energy Secretary appointee who said this in 2008.
"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told the Wall Street Journal in September.
Chu said he favors gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to nudge consumers into buying cars that are more fuel efficient and homes which are closer to work. Chu spoke with The Wall Street Journal in September but the newspaper did not publish the gas tax comments until last seek, shortly after the Nobel-prize winning physicist had been identified as Obama’s nominee for Energy secretary.
Steven Chu wants to determine where people should live based on their job location. Chu also wants to increase the price of gas to herd people towards his energy goals. Just look at the DOE's website. Here is the mission statement.
The mission of the Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.
So the mission statement for the Energy Department does not include energy security through existing means? Only "transformative science and technology solutions"? The department of energy mission statement tells you all you need to know. Gaining more energy through conventional means is NOT a goal for the Obama administration period.
The Energy Department is working to decrease U.S. dependence on oil, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.
DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget.
“We agree there is great suffering when the price of gasoline increases in the United States, and so we are very concerned about this,” said Chu, speaking to the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee. “As I have repeatedly said, in the Department of Energy, what we’re trying to do is diversify our energy supply for transportation so that we have cost-effective means.”
We have cost effective means now; the government is standing in the way of them, because they don't fit the agenda. This entire gas price debate is absurd. A majority of Democrats have been sternly behind every effort to block any increase in conventional energy production. Now the president himself has stood in the way.
Thursday’s squeaker of a Senate vote on the Keystone XL pipeline serves both as a warning to President Barack Obama that a majority of both houses of Congress supports the pipeline and as encouragement to Republicans to keep pushing the issue.
Obama had personally lobbied Senate Democrats with phone calls urging them to oppose an amendment to the highway bill that would fast-track the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline. And as it turned out, he needed every bit of their help.
The 11 Democrats who crossed party lines to support the amendment were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Jon Tester of Montana and Jim Webb of Virginia.
Landrieu said she was not among those getting a call from Obama. And she was not surprised to see 10 Democrats join with her to cross party lines.
So there it is plain and simple. Obama wants to be on both sides of an issue --again. First Obama says it's the Republicans fault the pipeline didn't get approved, then two months later Obama is making personal phone calls, trying to stop passage of the same bill.
There was finally some bipartisan support on energy production and Obama put a stop to it. I don't think he can win on this one.
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The Non-Existent Birth Control / Contraceptives Debate
With all of the turmoil in the world a large number of people are now fixated on birth control. Ever since George Stephanopoulos asked Mitt Romney, "Governor Romney, do you believe that states have the right to ban contraception? Or is that trumped by a constitutional right to privacy?" Since that debate there's been these bizarre references to a Republican lead ban on contraception.
Now that Sandra Fluke has gone before a congressional committee, the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committe on women's health and contraception. I like how they added the "and contraception" to the end the committee name. Fluke testified that some of her fellow students at Georgetown University and other religiously affiliated institutions can barely afford contraception. She gives an example of a friend of hers, who does receive contraceptive coverage from Georgetown University because of a medically necessary condition, and says that her friend's case is rare. There is a policy in place at Georgetown University that allows for contraceptive coverage when medically necessary. So, her first example of a medically necessary usage of birth control (and it's denial) is a non-issue because her friend has contraceptive coverage. Then she goes on to say, "When you let university administrators or other employers rather than women and their doctors dictate who's medial needs are legitimate and who's are not; A women's health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing a her body." This is absurd. The Affordable Care Act will put the federal government between a women and her doctor.
I wasn't aware of this but apparently more than half of the colleges and universities offer health insurance plans to their students. This USA Today article states, "plans range from $30 to $2,400, and the average premium is about $850, the GAO said." I wonder why this wasn't mentioned in her testimony. If these figures are correct, health insurance combined with the cost of contraceptives, at Georgetown University, could cost as much as $5550 for three years! That's more than $6,000 a year for three years if you include co-pay charges. I was able to find this out in just a few minutes, I wonder why that wasn't part of her testimony? While attending such a prestigious law university; Sandra Fluke might want to make a better case when standing in front of a congressional committee --and the entire country.
Here's the truth. This is a completely spur of the moment thing. Where were these contraceptive concerns during the health care debate? There was no sizable organized effort to promote contraception coverage during the push for health care reform. How is it that right now we hear about this? This entire contraception issue is fabricated.
The real focus of these people is to put Republicans on defense. With Republicans on defense a few things are accomplished. The Republican candidates look weak; they don't control the debate. Obama is not the focus of attention, neither is the economy, the price of gas --which keeps going up, the national debt or any other serious pressing issue. This entire issue is manufactured. Republicans need to point that out.
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