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Obama Calls Healthcare Critics Names Rather Than Debating Them
Tweet Share on Facebook June 30, 2009 Comment (9)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Give Dr. Larry Hunter, the former chief economist for the United States Chamber of Commerce and founder of the Social Security Institute, considerable points for creativity.
Hunter is one of hundreds of Obama opponents who have taken to the Internet to make the case for opposing the Obama agenda. His latest project is an online petition where citizens can request to "opt out" of any future government-run, politicized healthcare system.
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Obama Considers Middle Class Tax Hikes for Healthcare, "Cap and Trade"
Tweet Share on Facebook June 29, 2009 Comment (16)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
As his opponents predicted during the 2008 election, President Barack Obama's plans for America will be paid for by higher taxes on the American middle class.
Candidate Obama promised those in the middle class that they wouldn't see an increase in the taxes they pay to the federal government. "I pledge to you that under my plan, no one making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not income tax, not capital gains taxes, not any kind of tax," the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader reported him saying in September 2008. Well, as Mona Lisa Vito said in My Cousin Vinny , "that plan's moot."
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America Suffers No 'Crisis in Philanthropy'
Tweet Share on Facebook June 26, 2009 Comment (3)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The cap and trade national energy tax bill is not the only solution to a manufactured problem drawing attention in the nation's capital. The Washington Examiner ' s generally excellent David Freddoso explains Friday that efforts are under way to make policymakers believe America is suffering from a "crisis in philanthropy."
Freddoso writes that the National Council for Responsible Philanthropy and its directors "have been both subtly and overtly threatening new federal regulations that would force foundations to give half their money to a narrow set of causes, and with few strings attached."
America's foundations give only 33.2 percent of their grant money to nonprofits serving those "most in need," a factoid the group has come up with that is being used to pressure Congress to act. But, Freddoso says, that figure measures the contributions made in the interests of serving "most vulnerable populations," as the liberal NCRP defines them. This includes the poor, racial minorities and girls and AIDS patients but not, he points out, people with cancer, drug addicts, or boys.
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Gore Bails on Pelosi and House Dems on Cap and Trade Energy Tax
Tweet Share on Facebook June 25, 2009 Comment (14)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Politico is reporting that former Vice President Al Gore "cancelled plans to fly to Washington for a news conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday" and would, instead, work the phones from Tennessee to lobby undecided members that they should vote for the cap and trade climate bill.
Could it be the Democrats are learning? Could it be they figured out the image of the former vice president, expending energy and emitting carbon by flying in from his large carbon footprint abode in the Volunteer State to the nation's capitol to explain why America needs a cap and trade law to reduce carbon emissions would step on their message?
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Republicans Are Not the "Party of No" on Healthcare
Tweet Share on Facebook June 24, 2009 Comment (9)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Seeking to prove the GOP is more than the party of "No," South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has come up with a healthcare reform plan that, he says, "Insures more Americans in half the time at no cost," when compared to the plan being pushed by the Democratic majority.
According to an estimate by the conservative Heritage Foundation, DeMint's bill will reduce the number of uninsured in America by 22.4 million people in just five years. And he addresses the cost by terminating the Troubled Asset Relief Program—also known as Wall Street Bailout No. 1—and requiring companies that took federal funds repay them within the same five years.
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Obama's SUV-Laden Motorcade Demonstrates His Climate Change Hypocrisy
Tweet Share on Facebook June 22, 2009 Comment (23)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
My nephew met the president.
It happened Saturday during an impromptu family outing to The Dairy Godmother, a well-known frozen custard store near my home in Alexandria, Va. Coming out the door, my lemon lavender sorbet cone in hand, I noticed a man with an odd-shaped pin in his lapel talking into his wrist. Having lived in the Washington, D.C., area for 25 years, I know that means the president (or a VIP of similar stature) is on his way.
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Democrats Contemplate Massive Tax Increase to Pay for Obama's Healthcare Plan
Tweet Share on Facebook June 19, 2009 Comment (9)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
During his victorious presidential run, Barack Obama promised he would not raise taxes on the middle class. "Under my plan," Obama told a New Hampshire gathering, "no family making less than $250,000.00 a year will see any form of tax increase."
Somebody wasn't paying attention.
Democrats in the House of Representatives are now contemplating massive tax increases in order to raise some of the revenues they need to fund Obama plan's for a government takeover of the U.S. healthcare system.
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5 Ways Obama Should End His Silence on the Iran Election Protests
Tweet Share on Facebook June 19, 2009 Comment (15)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
As the unrest in Iran nears its second week, President Barack Obama continues his strange silence, having failed to speak out forcefully in support of the hopes and aspirations of the Iranian people. It is almost as though he is hedging his bets, trying to preserve his ability to negotiate some kind of "Grand Bargain" with the Mullahs who are behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
These people are not friends of the United States and they are not friends of the values this nation represents, like freedom of thought, popular sovereignty, equality between men and women and the hope for a better world. Trying to preserve the appearance of an honest broker to those who have no interest in dealing with you honestly is both foolish and dangerous.
But criticizing Obama is the easy part. The hard part is coming up with a strategy he could adopt that deals effectively with the crisis that encourages the demonstrators without putting them at additional risk and does not commit the United States to act beyond its capacity at the current time.
Former Bush State Department officials Dan Senor and Christian Whiton, writing in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, suggest five ways Obama could promote freedom in Iran without endangering the protestors or putting U.S. interests further at risk. To summarize, Senor and Whiton says Obama should:
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Horrors in Iran Now Visible through Twitter and the film The Stoning of Soraya M.
Tweet Share on Facebook June 17, 2009 Comment (3)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The turmoil in Iran continues. As Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim reported Monday for the Chicago Tribune, "Great rivers of people defied authorities Monday and poured into Tehran's Freedom Square chanting 'Death to the dictator!' and 'Give us back our vote!' in an unprecedented display of civil disobedience." Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who finished second to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in last Friday's election, is calling for a general strike. Pro-democracy protesters, defying the ruling authorities, are keeping their movement alive—and the world informed—via Twitter and other social media platforms.
The ongoing popular uprising is unusual but unsurprising. The iron-fisted control exercised over the Iranian people by the ruling Guardian Council over the last several decades has marginalized and suppressed the nation's middle class and any pro-reform elements, creating a powder keg with the potential to erupt with enough force to dislodge the Islamic clerics who ultimately hold the reins of power.
Unfortunately, because the society is so closed, there is all too little information available to the average Westerner to provide a true picture of how bad things are. Until now.
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Iran's Faulty Election May Yet Bring Down Its Theocratic Government
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2009 Comment (12)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
According to reports considered reliable, the people of Iran continue to resist the government's attempt to crack down on their nascent pro-democracy movement. The demonstrations that broke out in the wake of Friday's presidential election, of which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, show no signs of abating and in fact may be growing.
It is difficult to tell for, as the Associated Press reported Tuesday:
Iranian authorities are restricting all journalists working for foreign media from firsthand reporting on the streets. The rules cover all journalists, including Iranians working for foreign media. It blocks images and eyewitness descriptions of the protests and violence that has followed last week's disputed elections.
By keeping journalists off the streets, the ruling authorities hope to keep the news from getting out, with little success. The news continues to get out through cellphone cameras, the Internet and Twitter, the social media platform that allows people to send messages to followers consisting of 140 characters or less. In consideration of the importance Twitter is playing in Iran right now, the folks behind it announced they were delaying a planned systemwide outage for maintenance purposes in order to keep the platform available to the protesters.
