Tag Archives: political parties

On the Confirmation of Loretta Lynch

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…for Attorney General to replace Eric Holder.

During confirmation hearings which started yesterday [emphasis added],

Her biggest challenge could be explaining her support and participation in civil forfeitures, a legal process in which law enforcement agencies can seize money and other assets without charging or convicting the owners….

And so…

After nearly three years of legal battles, the federal government last week dropped its case against the Hirschs, who own a distribution company that serves convenience stores on Long Island. The government agreed to return more than $446,000 in assets and cash seized by the Internal Revenue Service in 2012 under federal civil asset forfeiture laws, even though the Hirsch family was never charged with a crime.

This was a case approved and brought by US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch.

Hmm….

Obama and “Energy”

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President Obama announced Sunday that he’ll use his executive authority to designate 12 million acres in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness, walling it off from resource development. This abrogates a 1980 deal in which Congress specifically set aside some of this acreage for future oil and gas exploration.

He also did this without so much as a faretheewell to any of Alaska’s leadership, including, explicitly its Republican delegation in Congress. Not a what do you think. Not a heads up. Nada.

Here’s his cynical divide-and-conquer bribery attempt:

The Obama administration is poised to unveil a draft plan for selling offshore oil and gas leases that is expected to rule out auctioning drilling rights in parts of the Atlantic Ocean as well as in some Arctic waters and along the West Coast between 2017 and 2022.
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The draft plan is expected to keep the door open for selling oil and gas leases off the coasts of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, though with a larger buffer zone than previously outlined. Possible oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea [off the northwest coast of Alaska] also would be set back further from the coast than during a previous 2008 auction of drilling rights in those Arctic waters.

This draft also would set off limits areas in the Beaufort Sea, off the north coast of Alaska, that had been available before this. It’s a naked attempt to get Republicans to abandon Alaska in return for the promise of future drilling elsewhere.

None of this has anything at all to do with energy or energy independence for the US. It’s entirely, and tightly, centered on an insecure man trying to show how powerful he is to those lesser men and women impudent enough to disagree with him.

Another Bit on Taxes

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This is a tax increase that President Barack Obama chose not to mention in his State of the Union address while he was demanding to increase taxes on the “rich” in order to give that money to his “middle” class. Perhaps he chose to omit mention because this is a tax increase on that same “middle” class. And perhaps because it contradicts the story he’s spinning on wanting to make junior college “free.”

Recall 529 Plans, which facilitate parents’ and other family members’ (even family friends’) saving for the future college expenses of those parents’ children. Recall further that withdrawals from those 529s, when made pursuant to college expenses, are (so far) tax free. Obama’s hot tax idea is to change that, instead taxing the earnings on 529 savings when the money is withdrawn for college expenses.

This just illustrates the utter incoherence in Progressives’ taxing policies. And it’s another demonstration of the foolishness of using the tax code for social engineering—or for any other tampering with our economy.

Taxes

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Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had a thought.

I don’t think that there’s any advantage in pretending that there aren’t big disagreements on the individual tax side. We had a national debate just two years ago about the top rate. We’re not looking at the kind of negotiation to go back to lower the top rate.

Never mind that after that debate and just a few months ago, Americans voted overwhelmingly to reject President Barack Obama’s tax policy—which he’d placed on the ballot along with every single one of his other policies (every single one of which were similarly rejected in that same election).

This Progressive, along with Obama, Knows Better and recognizes no obligation to listen to his employers.

It’s going to be a long two years with President No and his Party of Naysayers still in the way of economic reform and long term economic recovery and prosperity.

Even the AP Is Catching On

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They fact-checked President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, and they found these things.

OBAMA: At this moment—with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry and booming energy production—we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth.

THE FACTS: Job growth has been…fueled in part by lower-paying jobs…which have replaced many higher-paying positions…. Part-time jobs also remain elevated: there are still 1.7 million fewer workers with full-time jobs than when the recession began in December 2007.

[F]aster hiring hasn’t pushed up wages much. They have been growing at a tepid pace of about 2% a year since the recession ended 5 1/2 years ago. That’s barely ahead of inflation and below the annual pace of about 3.5% to 4% that is typical of a fully healthy economy.

And

OBAMA: I am sending this Congress a bold new plan to lower the cost of community college—to zero.

THE FACTS: Zero for qualifying students; an estimated $60 billion over 10 years to the treasury.

And

OBAMA: Thanks to a growing economy, the recovery is touching more and more lives. Wages are finally starting to rise again. We know that more small-business owners plan to raise their employees’ pay than at any time since 2007.

THE FACTS: A survey of small businesses by the National Federation of Independent Business does show that a rising proportion plans to raise wages. But plans to raise pay aren’t the same as actually raising them.

Average hourly earnings rose just 1.7% in December from 12 months earlier, according to the Labor Department. That’s about half the rate that is typical of a healthy economy….

And on.