1. Welfare Queens Make Comeback
Unbeknownst to pretty much anyone, the Democrats killed the 1996 Welfare Reform Act via the stimulus bill.
2. Obama Says US to Help Plan, Possibly Attend 4th UN-Sponsored Bashfest of Israel
Administration officials confirmed late last night that the U.S. will assist the United Nations in planning and executing the fourth edition of the UNESCO-sponsored “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.”
3. Former Evangelical Frank Schaeffer Tells Barack Obama to Ignore Evangelicals
He savagely betrayed his mother and father and now seeks to destroy the evangelical movement to which his parents were so connected.
4. Obama to Hold ‘Fiscal Responsibility Summit’… So Who’s Gonna Teach HIM?
Just days before he took the oath of office, Obama told reporters that he wanted to clean up the budget process and make sure government didn’t spend wildly while he helmed the ship of state.
5. The Government Growth Bill of 2009
Marred by a week-long cycle of bad press and Cabinet defections, President Obama’s $787 Billion stimulus package passed both houses of Congress Friday night, despite the rigid partisan-divide.
1. Welfare Queens Make Comeback
Unbeknownst to pretty much anyone, the Democrats killed the 1996 Welfare Reform Act via the stimulus bill.
It happened so fast, no one noticed. But the Democrats have eradicated key provisions of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act in the stimulus bill. They are sanctioning a whole scale return to government dependence and the return of welfare queens.
As the London Telegraph notes:
“Douglas Besharov, author of a big study on welfare reform, said the stimulus bill passed by Congress and the Senate in separate votes on Friday would “unravel” most of the 1996 reforms that led to a 65% reduction in welfare caseloads and prompted the British and several other governments to consider similar measures.”
This has an upside for Republicans according to liberal blogger Mickey Kaus, “A reemerging “welfare” issue is a potential killer, in other words, for Obama’s big remaining plans, especially health care. If Dems seem determined to reinstate dependency–or at the least blind to the dangers of dependency–voters aren’t going to trust them to spend trillions on universal health insurance and fortified pensions. It’s hard to believe Obama doesn’t realize this.”
2. Obama Says US to Help Plan, Possibly Attend 4th UN-Sponsored Bashfest of Israel
Administration officials confirmed late last night that the U.S. will assist the United Nations in planning and executing the fourth edition of the UNESCO-sponsored “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.”
President Obama has yet to announce whether or not the U.S. will attend the conference, to be held in Geneva, Switzerland this year. Senior administration officials, including UN ambassador Susan Rice and national security council member Samantha Power, have reportedly been working to convince Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to commit the U.S. to the conference — an act which would reverse the Bush administration policy of boycotting future editions of the conference pending ironclad assurances that it would not be a repeat of the 2001 meeting which the U.S. and Israel walked out of due to the virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Israel tone of the proceedings and the conference’s official resolutions.
In 2001 in Durban, South Africa, the nations in attendance used the opportunity of the U.N.-sponsored conference to slander Israel and propose the adoption of United Nations resolutions declaring Zionism (the belief that a Jewish state of Israel should exist) to be the international legal equivalent of racism (in an ironic move, African countries like Nigeria and Zimbabwe ironically sought to pry a formal apology for slavery from the Caucasian West, as well).
3. Former Evangelical Frank Schaeffer Tells Barack Obama to Ignore Evangelicals
He savagely betrayed his mother and father and now seeks to destroy the evangelical movement to which his parents were so connected.
From among the scurrilous, one particularly odious overture is enjoying acclaim on the front page of the Huffington Post this weekend. Frank Schaeffer, once an evangelical he’ll be sure to remind you every few seconds, has penned an open letter to the President urging him to drop his nonexistent overtures to the Republicans. Not, mind you, in terms regarding the cynicism any of us may have regarding politicians, particularly of the opposite party. No, in a much more sinister and chilling assault on the Republican voter, or “rabid core constituents” as Schaeffer, once an evangelical, puts it.
Schaeffer, once an evangelical, wants the President to understand the context of this letter, being that it comes from someone who was, in the past and famously, once an evangelical.
Schaeffer’s letter (he was once an evangelical), is crystal-clear in intent, if not grammar, style, punctuation, or presentation. He is the enlightened, formerly the barbaric, here to report on the barbarity of his former fellows; to advise his new spiritual leader to depart from the Republicans. He is here to convince Obama and America to repent of the right, and be reborn the left.
Republican voters are the “lunatic fringe.” Obama is “a brilliant, articulate and decent man.” It is strange, coming from Schaeffer, once an evangelical, to name the religious and the conservative as a lunatic fringe. It was only last year that Schaeffer, once an evangelical, was making the gymnastic argument that Reverend Wright’s hateful rhetoric shouldn’t be damaging to Obama because his own father (Dad, meet under the bus … again) apparently said the same thing, so therefore it meant … well then therefore Obama was as bad as the evang … err, somehow, therefore, Obama’s hands were clean. Only now, the apparent argument is the opposite, that those who reside in the pews are the guilty and the deranged, and Obama must cast them out.
4. Obama to Hold ‘Fiscal Responsibility Summit’… So Who’s Gonna Teach HIM?
Just days before he took the oath of office, Obama told reporters that he wanted to clean up the budget process and make sure government didn’t spend wildly while he helmed the ship of state.
Obama has pushed for and is about to sign the biggest spending bill in American history. Worse, he has taken no part in the creation of this bill while Congress has larded this “crisis” legislation with every manner of pork that can be imagined. Never has there been a bill more stuffed with needless spending and Obama didn’t raise his voice once while Congress wallowed in pork barrel proposals.
Yet, Obama thinks he is the one to lead a “fiscal responsibility summit”? It gives rise to the question, who’s going to teach him ahead of this summit what “fiscal responsibility” even means?
This weekend, the administration made like budget hawks.
“Along those lines, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag has committed to instituting tougher budget-discipline rules –once the economy turns around. Those include a mandate that any “nonemergency” spending increases be offset by equal spending cuts or tax increases.”
This is all well and good and nearly every president makes the claim that they will insist on spending cuts. Of course, what the administration, any administration, does not tell the people is that Congress controls spending, not the White House. The only way a president can affect the budget is by leadership and leadership is exactly what Obama did not exemplify during the creation of this porkulus bill.
5. The Government Growth Bill of 2009
Marred by a week-long cycle of bad press and Cabinet defections, President Obama’s $787 Billion stimulus package passed both houses of Congress Friday night, despite the rigid partisan-divide.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 equals 5.7% of America’s Gross Domestic Product (GPD), whereas President Roosevelt’s New Deal, at its height of fiscally irresponsible, equaled approximately 2%. The gross spending called for by bill – mandated by Congressional Democrats and President Obama – is equal to or larger than the GDP of 157 nations – all but 14 countries listed in the International Monetary Fund’s database for 2007. Among those countries dwarfed by the unprecedented spending are United Arab Emirates, Dominican Republic, Iran, Taiwan, and Israel.
President Obama, by his own admission, owns this recovery bill, the largest of its kind in US history. “Congress has passed my economic recovery plan –- an ambitious plan at a time we badly need it,” he said in his weekly address this morning. Like FDR’s socially-transformative welfare policies, the implications of this bill’s sheer size and scope will likely not be known for several years, if not decades. But as Americans wake to the sobering reality that we’re now indebted to China, Saudi Arabia, and other hostile foreign creditors for trillions all for naught, Republicans would do well to remember just whose “economic recovery plan” this was.
Guys, the link to my diary is screwed up.....
Susannah Monday, February 16th at 5:28PM EST (link)Guys, a couple of people have told me that when they click on my diary, that they are getting a 404 server error, but not when they click on the other diaries on the rec list. Can you all please look into this? I’m sorry if this was the wrong place to post this, but I didn’t see an open thread. Thanks.