Tag Archives: Democrats

News

How progressive social policy enlarges the size of government

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Great editorial by Ed West writing in the UK Telegraph. Is it possible to be a social leftist and a fiscal conservative? Or does the former impact the latter negatively? West’s editorial assesses the impact of feminism and sex education on government budgets, which receive much funding from the productive private sector.

First, Britain’s social program for unwanted children is seeing record enrollment:

Last night’s Rageh Omaar programme, Lost in Care, is timely. The number of unwanted children in Britain has reached 80,000, and that figure was calculated before the recent Baby P surge. Of those unwanted kids, 10,000 live in children’s home.

And what are the costs to the taxpayer for this skyrocketing number of unwarranted children?

The show reminded us how awful the statistics are for care home children; only 13 per cent get good GCSEs [high school diplomas] and almost half achieve no qualifications. One in four prisoners were in care, as were one in three homeless. and one in five girls in care are pregnant within a year of leaving. No wonder there is currently a desperate drive to find more foster parents, a calling that is seriously heroic.

Well, I already talked about how leftist domestic policies destroy marriage here (socialism), here (same-sex marriage) and here (no-fault divorce). But the interesting thing is the cost of the anti-family, anti-child policies of the left. They were in such a rush to rebel against social conservatives, that it never occurred to them that those moral rules were in place to protect the interests of all parties.

Recklessly impregnating someone or getting pregnant without the ability or willingness to look after that child ruins another person’s life, and also costs the state £25,000 a year for that matter.

This is the problem with people who enact policies based on the need to feel compassionate and superior, while disregarding the logical consequences. Should we really be voting in people who undermine traditional morality run our government? If we do, it will cost us. To see more about how leftist policies increased the size of government and raised tax rates, see this previous post.

For more news from abroad, check out my recent post on the state of free speech in Canada, the United Kindom and Cuba.

UPDATE: Just noticed this over at OneNewsNow: Obama would ax abstinence-only funding.

Excerpt:

If Congress approves President Obama’s budget requests, there will be no more federal funding of abstinence-only education programs.

Barack Obama has recommended completely zeroing out Title V abstinence programs to states, as well as abstinence education programs to community-based organizations (CBAE) and replacing them with more than $100 million for contraceptive-based sex-education programs. The massive omnibus bill signed by the president had already reduced funding to abstinence programs by $14 million.

And then there is this story from mensactivism.org, entitled “Number of Unwed Moms in the U.S. Rising.

Story here. Excerpt:

‘(AP) The percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States has been rising sharply, but it’s way behind Northern European countries, a new U.S. report on births shows.

Iceland is the leader with 6 in 10 births occurring among unmarried women. About half of all births in Sweden and Norway are to unwed moms, while in the U.S., it’s about 40 percent.

France, Denmark and the United Kingdom also have higher percentages than the United States, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.’

Oh, well. Ideology beats out fiscal prudence, I guess. I don’t think that immorality of the parents is too good for the children who are affected, either. Bible: 1, Atheists: 0.

News

Are Obama’s bailouts just pay-offs to left-wing special interest groups?

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We looked at whether Al Gore’s global warming alarmism was just a scam to increase his already considerable wealth by misleading people desperate to find meaning in life with a bunch of faith-based lies. This time, let’s take a look at Obama’s bailout activities and see whether the the bailouts are to stimulate the economy, or to reward people who voted for him.

For instance, California recently cut $74 million from its state budget by lowering the salaries of unionized workers. How did Obama respond? By threatening to withhold stimulus money unless the unions got the money back.

The radically leftist Los Angeles Times has the story. (H/T Hot Air)

Reporting from Sacramento — The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.

Schwarzenegger’s office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials. …

The wages at issue involve workers who care for some 440,000 low-income disabled and elderly Californians. The workers, who collectively contribute millions of dollars in dues each month to the influential Service Employees International Union and the United Domestic Workers, will see the state’s contribution to their wages cut from a maximum of $12.10 per hour to a maximum of $10.10.

And we know from Michelle Malkin that Obama is pressuring private companies to shaft their shareholders in order to give his union buddies a better deal than they deserve.

Greed is good – until it gets in the way of a union-friendly restructuring deal. President Obama, generous recipient of Wall Street largesse, angrily derided a group of hedge fund managers this week as “speculators.” The miffed president suggested that uncooperative firms were selfish for holding out on the government’s Chrysler bankruptcy plans and refusing to make “sacrifices” to benefit the United Auto Workers.

The “sacrifices” involved Chrysler debt holders agreeing to sell the debt to the government at prices determined by union-beholden bureaucrats instead of bankruptcy courts. The hedge firms balked. Obama sneered that the dissenters were looking for “unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.” But the holdouts never took banking bailout funds from Washington. And the targeted financial executives were simply doing what good money managers are supposed to do: put their clients’ fiduciary interests first.

Michelle Malkin also reports on how Obama wants another $19 billion for his peeps at Fanie Mae. Remember, democrats caused this recession by forcing banks via regulations to make loans to Democrat voters against all common sense. Obama gets happy leftist feelings of superiority by redistributing wealth from the producers to the victims. And he thinks that if you went to expensive private schools and Harvard thanks to a rich grandmother, then you would feel good about him redistributing your money, too.

The story from Yahoo News Michelle links to says:

Fannie Mae (FNM.P), the largest provider of U.S. home mortgage funding, said on Friday it needs more capital from the U.S. Treasury after a $23.2 billion loss in the first quarter, and warned government housing programs would cut deeper into its profitability.

The government-controlled company said its regulator requested $19 billion from the Treasury under a funding commitment that on Wednesday was doubled to $200 billion. The credit, in the form of senior preferred stock purchases, was established as soaring losses led the government to push the company into conservatorship in September.

As the nation’s housing market reels in its worst downturn since the 1930s, credit-related expenses accounted for the majority of Fannie Mae’s loss, at $20.9 billion. It also took a $5.7 billion loss on mortgage securities.

Provisions for credit losses soared 85 percent as the U.S. economy faltered, expanding delinquencies — which have wreaked havoc on the entire financial system — to consumers with better credit, it said.

Oh, and here is news of a prospective bailout of Obama’s buddies in the left wing media.

Inquisitr.com and Free Republic reported: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

At the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington DC Saturday evening (May 9), President Barack Obama ended on a serious note, pledging his undying support for journalists and specifically newspapers.

President Obama spoke about media job losses and changes in the industry, then quoted Jefferson, “if he had the choice between Government with newspapers or newspapers without Government, he’d choose the latter.” The gushing was perhaps understandable at a press function, but it’s what he said next that foretold of a newspaper bailout.

Obama told the crowd “Your ultimate success is essential to success of our democracy” before shortly saying “Government without a tough and vibrant media is not an option for the United States of America.”

The notable thing in context is that Obama primarily in the speech talks about newspapers, with other media outlets being mentioned second (collectively), or when making a joke (for example, noting that Jefferson hadn’t seen Cable News.) It would appear from the speech clearly that Obama holds the mainstream media, and particularly newspapers above online media. It is clear that when he talked about “tough and vibrant media” that he is referring to mainstream media, and newspapers in particular.

He concludes with the line that the problems in the media industry are “problems worth solving,” which sounds an awful lot like the final word that there’s going to be a newspaper bailout.

And remember I blogged recently about Michele Bachmann’s effort to prevent taxpayer money from going to ACORN while they are facing criminal charges.

It’s like Bush and Haliburton. Only that Bush stuff never actually happened, but this Democrat stuff is actually happening. Everything the Democrats hated about Bush? Like opposing dissent and free speech? Bush never did any of it. Democrats are the ones who are authoring hate crime bills and criminalizing blogging. Yeah, fascism is a solely a phenomenon of the left. Always has been, always will be.

News

Democrats vote to protect pedophiles in H.R. 1913 hate crime bill

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UPDATE: Welcome readers from But as For Me! Thanks for the link!

UPDATE: If you are looking for the story about bloggers facing jail terms for “harassing” public figures, see here.

The indomitable Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs has the full story on the hate crime here. (H/T Stop the ACLU)

She links to this video of Democrats voting for protection for pedophiles, and against protections for military veterans.

And then writes this summary about the left (Democrats), and their inevitable drive towards fascism:

Hate crime — hate is in the eye of the beholder, eh? And if you are a Democrat – you protect child rapists, but G-d forbid you protect the military.

Hate crime legislation will be used as a tool against the right. Period. A crime is a crime. WTF is the “hate” bias? Will those screaming for the death to Jews at those demonstrations in January be prosecuted under these laws?

Who are these people?  Good is evil and evil is good. Good luck with that super majority, America.

Yes, remember the speeches by Evan Sayet at the Heritage Foundation. Good is evil, and evil is good. That is the essence of the left.

I’m going to steal some comments from RedState that Pamela cites.

Over at Red State:

This is really kind of mind numbing and demonstrates what is wrong with Congress.

During a House Judiciary Committee meeting, Congressman Steve King (R-IA) offered up an amendment to the hate crimes bill to exclude pedophiles from being a protected category under the hate crimes legislation.

Every single Democrat voted it down.

In the same meeting, Congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL) offered an amendment to include veterans as a class protected under the hate crimes bill. Not only did the Democrats vote it down, but Cogresswoman Debbie Waasserman Schultz attacked the Republicans for even thinking veterans might need protection under hate crimes legislation. After all, who but Democrats in Congress hate veterans?

Pamela cites Congress Louis Gohmert to explain what does this hate crime bill does.

If a mother hears that their child has been raped and she slaps the assailant with her purse, she is now gone after as a hate criminal because this is a protected class. There are other protected classes in here. I mean simple exhibitionism. I have female friends who have told me over the years that some guy flashed them, and their immediate reaction was to hit them with their purse. Well now, he’s committed a misdemeanor, she has committed a federal hate crime because the exhibitionism is protected under sexual orientation.

The Democrat bill says that Americans can’t make moral judgments on others, because that makes those poor victims feel bad. If moral people make moral judgments against these victims, it’s a federal crime. Democrats are the party of moral relativism and moral equivalence. And Christians voted for Democrats in record numbers because we were too lazy to inform ourselves about them before the election.

And one more quote from Pamela’s post:

Similar state laws have resulted in persecution for Christians. In Philadelphia several years ago, a 73-year-old grandmother was jailed for trying to share Christian tracts with people at a homosexual festival.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said H.R. 1913 will create “thought crimes,” and U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said it will end equality in the U.S.

Gohmert warned the law will be used against pastors – or anyone else – who speaks against homosexuality or other alternative sexual lifestyle choices. He said it provides that anyone who through speech “induces” commission of a violent hate crime “will be tried as a principal” alongside the active offender.

Critics say that would allow for prosecutions against pastors who preach a biblical ban on homosexuality if someone who hears such a message later is accused of any crime.

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said, “A pastor’s sermon could be considered ‘hate speech’ under this legislation if heard by an individual who then acts aggressively against persons based on ‘sexual orientation.’ The pastor could be prosecuted for ‘conspiracy to commit a hate crime'” she said.

On the other side of the religious liberty aisle, there’s Republican Senator James Inhofe’s recognition of the National Day of Prayer, which Obama refused to recognize publicly.

The New Testament’s Book of James states, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” I wholeheartedly agree and personally rely on prayer in every aspect of my life. Today, we honor the “National Day of Prayer,” a day that has been officially recognized since 1952 by the President of the United States, who issues an annual proclamation in its honor.

“Across the country, people from different walks of faith and different walks of life gather together to pray for our nation.  In 2008, over two million people attended 40,000 locally organized events nationwide, and the governors from all 50 states signed similar proclamations.

“The National Day of Prayer is a traditional and fundamental part of our history. In 1775, while forming a nation, the Continental Congress invited the colonies to pray for wisdom. This first call to prayer has since become a tradition and has not ceased from reoccurring in the years that followed. In 1789, President George Washington issued the first presidential proclamation for prayer as he stated, “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and to humbly implore His protection and favor…” And in 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed a day of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer.”

“Prayer is as important today as it was when our Founding Fathers first formed our nation. Today, may God continue to bless you all in a special way.

Michele Malkin talks about Obama’s refusal to hold a public prayer event, which Bush did for all 8 of his years, in this Fox News video clip. He talked so much about the importance of prayer during his campaigns, but I guess the mask is off now.

I know fundamentalist Christians who voted for Barack Obama based on his skin color, (which is the same color as my skin, by the way). Unbelievable! Their votes undermined the free expression of Christian beliefs in the public square. Newsflash! Barack Obama shows no evidence of being a Christian in his policies. On the contrary, his policies are deeply anti-Christian, anti-capitalism and anti-liberty. His skin color should have been irrelevant to the decision of who to vote for, for Christians.

UPDATE: The Maritime Sentry has a relevant video with Steve King and Sean Hannity.