In case you missed Obama’s latest flipping-of-the-bird towards the rule of law, Barry probes new depths of cynicism with this latest gimmick.
Obama weakens welfare reform (again): Here are some quick initial reactions to the administration’s apparent surprising (and possibly illegal) attempt to grant waivers of the work requirements written, after great effort, into the 1996 welfare reform law. I’m posting Thursday night; the story should break for real tomorrow (Friday). This will be updated over the next few days if possible.
1. The guts of the 1996 welfare reform were a) welfare was ended as an “entitlement” (controlled by the feds) and transferred to the states, as a “block grant” subject to certain requirements; and b) one of those requirements was that a certain percentage of each state’s welfare caseload had to be working or preparing for work. A great deal of effort was put into defining what qualified as work, and making sure that work actually meant work and not the various BS activities (including BS training activities) the welfare bureaucracies often preferred to substitute for work.
2. As of several years ago, the details of these work requirements turned out to matter less than the general signal they sent, that no-strings welfare was over and even low-income single moms were supposed to work. […]
6. Rector and Bradley of Heritage (among the first to attack Obama’s action) make the case that the law’s work requirements were specifically designed to not be waivable, and that Obama is using HHS’s authority to waive state reporting requirements as a tricky way of voiding the underlying substantive requirements that are to be reported about. The Heritage argument–that what HHS did was illegal–seems powerful, but I haven’t read the other side’s brief. Perhaps Obama is invoking the long-lost “we can’t wait” clause to enact a change that would never pass a democratically elected Congress–in this case not because Congress is “gridlocked” and and “dysfunctional” and “partisan” but because relaxing work requirements has never been popular with voters, even during less partisan and gridlocked times, even in the swingin’ 60s (also not in the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s and the 00s)…
It should be noted that the unemployment rate does not including counting those people who are not looking for work. Even if Obama’s waivers are later found illegal, it will be months after huge swaths of entitlement-minded receivers of taxpayer money, enabled by Obama’s fellow travelers in state government, stop looking for work and affect a drop in the unemployment rate.
Just in time for November.
“Possible felon,” indeed. Forward!
Way back when I first began to pay attention to unemployment numbers in the 80’s I thought this metric was arbitrary and capricious and not reflective of the economic situation, even though it made Reagan look worse. 30 years later we’re still not counting you as unemployed if have been out of work so long you don’t even bother to look anymore. SOMA for all.
A new metric showing the percentage of the working-age population that actually is working would be far more useful, even without accounting for people who aren’t working for perfectly good reasons (sick, disabled, independently wealthy…).
McGehee
That stat is available — Labor participation
but it doesn’t serve the narrative so poodle media ignores it
– Ok, so we can now safely assume teh Wonce has heard the bell tolling and decided to jetison whatever tiny tissue thin veneer of Condtitutionsl governsnce his politoboro administration had left and go all in for legislating from the WH.
– I sent off an email to Romney headquarters “gently” suggesting that the day Romney took office his first official act should be a lazer focused striking down of every treasonous executive order that Bummbledick ever issued, and a concurent reversal of every piece of illegal law modification his peoples committees jury rigged.
– I got a nice thank you, and assurances that they would seriously review my “helpful” suggestions. I’m not getting a lot of warm fuzzies that Mittens people understamd what we’re up against.
– On the other hand, in related news….
– As much as I hate linking anything to that massive piece of Left-nut agit-trash HuffPoop, I counted no less than 11 (yes eleven) articles devoted to Romney/Bain.
– Years ago Arianna Huffingslut, having changed parties three times in as many years, and fresh from several serial defeats in every race she ran for public office, dryed her tears by starting her Echo chamber blog in which the young Progressives of the time spent their waking hours repeating the words “Bush/Nazi” 12,000 times a day.
– So its official. The Lefts Queen gold digger, and world class political groupie slut has the Crystal echo chamber crowd now chanting ‘Romney/Bain’ 12,000 times a day. A sample of the typical comments posted yields:
….Romney…..outsorcer…..and paper signing….and also making all that money….and offshore banks….and stuff
– All of which proves that these people should be arrested for impersonating actual human beings with ANY working brain cells because they have shown they are….
– TOTAL FUCKING MORONS
– I’m pretty sure even Waffle ears knows its over….
I’m thinking now that Mitt has addressed the Bain/outsourcing/Swiss bank accounts/making a living stuff and basically called the president a little girl on several alphabet networks, he should drop it and continue on with his campaign to get America back to work. Squarely laying the blame for our dilemma at the feet of the Wonce and saying “look what he has wrought!”
OT: There was an excellent interview with George Schultz on WSJ Opinion yesterday. Mr. Shultz says the inflation is going to get us good and hard if we stay this course.
– Leigh, they NEED inflation, its the one and only way they can make even a tiny dent in the debt.
– At the same time, it lowers the real cost of all the entitlement programs, along with SSI and Medicare.
If we hadn’t monetized three-quarters of the debt, we wouldn’t be in this boat.
ah, inflation, a great way to “dent the debt” while stealing the savings and wealth of responsible people.
be a lazer focused striking down of every treasonous executive order that Bummbledick ever issued,
mark levin said mittens should have a czar specifically tasked with undoing all of baracky’s stuff on yesterday’s show
– Inflation!…The friend of every Socialist government thats ever drawn a breath.
– I had a fellow physicist I worked with back in the 60’e. He’d immigrated here from Germany just before WWII broke out to escape the wrath of the Nazi’s. He told me that by the time Hitler took over the German National Socialist party he was getting paid with shoe boxes of Rieche marks. A loaf of bread cost roughly 10 dollars in equivalent 1920 marks. He said the money was next to worthless, and things like credit chits, the credit cards of that time, weren’t accepted at all to buy things anymore. He had to stuff his pockets with the junk paper just to go to the store.
– Its what they do. Get as many people as you can on the public dole and then erode the value of what you’re giving them until they’re totally conscripted and dependent, and they’ll vote like sheep and not sat a word no matter what excesses the government inacts.
– You’re seeing each and every horror of the exact same program of subjection under Jug ears. Its classic statist manipulation, right out of the Marxist handbook.
– The Nazi’s used the Jews and other minorities for the obligatory demons. Bummbledick and the Left have invagled it the same against whites using class envy and race warfare. Different Nutcase leader, same theme.
– Hitler used the “Evil Jewish bankers and business owners robbing Germany and starving the Ariyan nation” propaganda.
– Sound familiar?
– Not to turn this into a book, but the good news is that like all Socialist agenda’s, the basic premise of their Utopian fantasies is fundementally flawed and doomed to failure.
– The Left looked at America as this giant wealth pot, thinking at last they’d found a country rich enough to make the Marxist dream finally work. They’d whined all through the decades that it always failed because it was never implimented properly.
– Thats always their excuse, and when Obama fails they will whine the same thing this time, but fail it must because the very basis they need, Obama needs, a weak middle class that votes like a herd of sheep and a business group unable to fight back, is his poison pill and his undoing.
– The business people in America, unlike every other country in the world, has an Option Hitler and none of the other statist despots had. They simply refuse to invest and move their money offshore.
– And that is why you’re seeing the Left and Obama screeching about “outsorcing” and trying to blame Romney. In the mean time the business money remains in escrow, probably 5 to 10 trillion dollars that will continue to just sit there until the Left is out of power. It enrages them, but theres not a fucking thing they can do about it except continue to demonize the free market while they destroy the middle class.
– Every word out of Obama’s mouth is a lie.
I believe Obama is actually suspected of felonies but Rezko’s silence keeps him out of trouble.
The remainder of this administration will consist of a preplanned blizzard of administrative moves, executive orders, and personnel moves (civil service hires intended to sabotage their agencies and transfers to Siberia for undesirable [to those intent on destroying the system] existing employees).
It’s all about burning down as much of the place as is possible before even the Media notices they really did create and enable a monster.
A coup. Not an administration.
Impeachment is an appropriately rational response under the Constitution as written.
Listening to local radio yesterday, Congressman Nunez called in. There should be a podcast soon and will link it if I remember, but anyway, he sits on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as the Committee on Ways and Means, and said Holder is protecting someone in the Fast and Furious investigation that began an international covert operation that purposely and illegally bypassed Congressional oversight.
Dude sounded determined.
Yes it is. Shall we start a letter-writing campaign?
If they’re going to impeach, they better get on it.
Course, if Hillary steps in when Obama declines the nomination under a cloud of indictment, we’re fucked…
Never mind…stupid tin foil.
That won’t happen Lee. It’s all a mental exercise anyway, since Harry Reid won’t vote on anything and no way will the D’s impeach their boy.
Boy? Racist.
” …since Harry Reid won’t vote on anything and no way will the D’s impeach their boy.”
Harry Reid get’s no choice (other than a vote in the trial) in regard to impeachment.
Link
“In practice, the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by the ranking member of majority party, draws up a list of offenses called the “articles of impeachment.” If approved by a majority of Committee members, the articles of impeachment are sent to the full House of Representatives. The House then considers the articles of impeachment, and by a simple majority vote, can send the impeachment to the Senate for trial. “
Boy? Racist.
Heh.
Danger, don’t you remember the Clinton Impeachment? It would be the same drill.
Impeachment charges against Sebelius and Holder could flush out a lot of mud and doom Oblamer’s election chances
Leigh,
Sebelius and Holder won’t get the sympathy Clinton got or Obama might get
And
Executive Priviledge is Toast!
True that, Danger. I’d like to see it.
Also,
Even with big gains in the election the Senate isn’t likely to be favorable grounds to convict, but; HHQ willing, the election will be the only mechanism necesarry to remove the lot of them.
Impeach Holder in an election year?
Republicans?!?
We’ll send him a stern letter.
Hell, impeach him after the election year, just so long as he never again holds an office of trust in America.
My best guess?
Obama gets reelected and we continue playing charades for four more years.
Romney gets elected and the integrity of the executive as a coequal branch of government will demand that we continue playing charades for at least another year.
La Cosa Nostra could learn a thing or two about omerta from those bastards in D.C.
Bad news:
Obama’s not DYYY-NOO-MYTE!!!
“Even if Obama’s waivers are later found illegal, it will be months after huge swaths of entitlement-minded receivers of taxpayer money, enabled by Obama’s fellow travelers in state government, stop looking for work and affect [sic] a drop in the unemployment rate.”
It would effect a drop. When you describe the act of producing an effect, use the “e” form. When you’re talking about the thing upon which the effect occurs, use the “a” form (“it will affect the unemployment rate”, “the unemployment rate will be affected”).
You’re probably viscerally repelled by the “e” form because Lefty programs always promise to “effect change” of free healthcare powered by unicorn farts or something, but rarely really are that effective at effecting the desired effect. Even when they do effect the desired effect, they also have negative side-effects. Pointing out how their policies affect their alleged beneficiaries is of course raaaaacist.
-Grammatiknazi