"You call it 'redistribution', I call it 'just being fair'; what's the big &*%@)$ deal?!"

Yahoo! Tech Tickers' Aaron Task in his interview with VP Joe Biden yesterday, where Biden essentially admits this is a redistribution of wealth...he just doesn't prefer to call it by that phrase:

There’s also the issue of whether these tax cuts, in conjunction with the health care reform bill signed last week, represent a redistribution of wealth in America, as many claim.

“It’s a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care,” Biden says. “If you call that a ‘redistribution of income’ — well, so be it. I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair — giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting.”

The top quintile of Americans earned 55.7% of pretax income and paid 69.3% of federal taxes in 2006, according to the most recent CBO data. But the Vice President isn’t buying the idea that the wealthiest are already paying their fair share, noting the top 1% of earners get 22% of all income made in the U.S.

When Task mentions that it is the "wealthy" who carry the greater share of the tax burden, quoting CBO numbers, Biden's "top 1% getting 22% of income made" statement is also telling:
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President Obama Goes Down in History as Giving America The Big Effin' Deal

Huff Po:

Secretary Robert Gibbs just tweeted:

"And yes Mr. Vice President, you're right... "

And our illustrious, dignified, presidential president thinks it's funny, too:

After Vice President Joe Biden’s controversial congratulatory remark to President Obama on Tuesday, where he called the passing of the health care bill a “big f—king deal,” news outlets ran wild with the slip-up caught on camera.

But, it didn’t seem to bother the President. In fact, Biden told The Baltimore Sun it was Obama’s favorite moment from Tuesday’s health care bill signing.

Read Michelle Obama's Culinary Tour of New York

“Biden said Obama joked at a Wednesday morning briefing that the ‘best thing from yesterday’ was ‘Joe's comment’ and that the president was trying to get the phrase printed on a T-shirt,” writes Justin Fenton of the The Baltimore Sun.

Oh, ok....so let's get this straight, here's a suggestion for Obama's t-shirt design:

His t-shirt can read: “Teddy Roosevelt gave us the Square Deal; the other Roosevelt gave us the New Deal; Truman the Fair Deal; and I gave the American people the Big Effin’ Deal!”

The “Other” Protest this Past Weekend…

THE protest of the weekend being the one against the healthcare bill.


No, not the ANSWER clowns...

"Wake up and smell the cafecito!":

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters from across the United States packed the Mall on Sunday in a last-ditch effort to spur Congress and the White House to overhaul the nation's immigration system and offer its 10.8 million illegal immigrants a path to citizenship this year against increasingly long odds.

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Barack Obama Channeling Theodore Roosevelt to Retroactively Endorse Obamacare

Something else in President Obama's speech on Friday...

This isn't the first time this point of drivel has come up in the current debate on healthcare, but here's another item President Obama has used in the past and repeated again at George Mason University to buttress his case:

THE PRESIDENT: A few miles from here, Congress is in the final stages of a fateful debate about the future of health insurance in America. (Applause.) It's a debate that's raged not just for the past year but for the past century. One thing when you're in the White House, you've got a lot of history books around you. (Laughter.) And so I've been reading up on the history here. Teddy Roosevelt, Republican, was the first to advocate that everybody get health care in this country. (Applause.) Every decade since, we've had Presidents, Republicans and Democrats, from Harry Truman to Richard Nixon to JFK to Lyndon Johnson to -- every single President has said we need to fix this system.

~~~

So here's my bottom line. I know this has been a difficult journey. I know this will be a tough vote. ["Present"] I know that everybody is counting votes right now in Washington. But I also remember a quote I saw on a plaque in the White House the other day. It's hanging in the same room where I demanded answers from insurance executives and just received a bunch of excuses. And it was a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, the person who first called for health care reform -- that Republican -- all those years ago. And it said, "Aggressively fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords."

Well I'm sure that quote's taken into complete context, ain't it? Here's something else he said:

If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs

Now, I don't know how passing health care will play politically -- but I know it's right. (Applause.) Teddy Roosevelt knew it was right.

Didn't Teddy Roosevelt come to regret that decision? Or was it just his decision to go third party fringie in 1912, which he later regretted?

In any event, I am seeing different articles come up that are distorting and failing to make the distinction that Theodore Roosevelt wasn't the GOP president at the time he was supporting a platform of universal healthcare (in an era 100 yrs removed from our own, present day reality of 305 million + illegals), but the Progressive candidate, to the left of the GOP.
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Obama's Healthcare Sob Stories

Remember the weeping tale of Otto S. Raddatz? Or how about Robin Lynn Beaton? You just can't make this stuff up...(or can you?)


Why do Democrats so love tugging on heartstrings? President Obama relentlessly push-peddles heartache anecdotes to persuade, even if these stories are highly selective and false. Even when pointed out to him, he has still repeated the same heartbreaking, inaccurate stories in stump-speeches, time and time again.

No, he's not merely mistaken as the recipient of bad information. President Obama is deliberately deceiving the American public by knowingly telling falsehoods. Joe Wilson was right.

The latest tale, is that of Natoma Canfield (cue the violins):

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Photo of the Day

Created by The Sniper, from a Reuters photo. (Hat tip: Greyhawk).

"Marineistan"?!

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Why the "al Qaeda 7" Matters in the Legal War on Terror

Is this a case of smear or transparency?




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The Selfishness of Liberalism on Display

Republicans are often associated with greed and selfishness (because we all know there is no such thing as Democrat fat-cats and learjet liberals; and that Democrats always contribute more to charities). But liberals are rightfully identified with the entitlement-mentality. Education is a right. Same-sex marriage is a right. Healthcare is a right. Riiiiight....

In full parade-fashion, last Thursday's March 4th "Strike and Day of Action to Defend Education" saw liberal activists and students once again "fighting the good fight", seeing oppression and racial discrimination in necessary budget cuts that affect education. Peter Robinson summing it all up:

We have here the vocabulary of the peace movement, of the struggle for decent conditions for migrants and other exploited workers, and of the civil-rights movement. Yet what did the protesters demand? Peace? Human rights? No. Money. And for whom? For the downtrodden and oppressed? No. For themselves. At a time when one American in 10 is unemployed and historic deficits burden both the federal government and many of the states, the protesters attempted to game the political system. They engaged in a resource grab.

The protests did offer students a certain kind of instruction. They taught them to replace the idealism of youth with the crassest self-pleading.

These students may like to believe that they are asking themselves, "What is good for society?" But really, they are asking, "What is good for myself?"

And yes, they can compare themselves to their brethren of 40 years ago:

The Vietnam anti-war/peace movement should be more properly and accurately scarlet-lettered an anti-draft movement. By the end of 1971, under Nixon, the draft ended. Major peace protests happened throughout 1968 through ‘71. The largest, most intense bombing of the war occurred in Christmas of ‘72 [Operation Linebacker II]. Any protests? Any peace movement marches? Not a peep. Because those protesting the war knew that they would no longer be called up to serve. Yet we’re to believe that the “peace” movement were anti-war out of altruistic good conscience on behalf of the Vietnam people. No: many were motivated by selfish interests. After the draft ended under Nixon, so too did the majority support for these idiotic marches, which only fueled more violence; not less.

Cross-posted at Flopping Aces

Braking News....

....Six days ago.

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Criminalizing and Banning the EITs that Have Kept America Safe

Impeach Bush. War criminals. Cheney, Halliburton and torture. Illegal war. Spying on Americans. Secret prisons. shredding of our Constitution. Sacrificed our values. Bush lied, people died. Waterboarding is torture.

Rather than seeing things in terms of "policy differences", those further to the left of President Obama (hard to believe that's possible, I know- but now he has to govern) still seek to appease their moveon.org base by prosecuting persecuting those they believe participated in criminal activity under the Bush Administration. They believe that Bush hurt America's moral standing in the world.

A bit over a week ago, Bush lawyers Yoo and Bybee were cleared of any professional misconduct, which arguably is not the case for their accusers.

Also a week ago Wednesday, while all eyes were turned to the healthcare summit, Rep. Jim McDermott tried by means of Intelligence Committee Chairman Sylvester Reyes "manager's amendment", to slip unnoticed into the House intelligence authorization bill a provision entitled “Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Interrogations Prohibition Act of 2010”. This amendment would criminalize future interrogators (up to including the death penalty) for what has already been abolished by President Obama: enhanced interrogations.



But thanks to bipartisan opposition and congressional Republicans led by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, they get a "D" for effort:
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