Blaming the Wrong People

The Diamondback here at the University of Maryland published an article from Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Thursday, March 7th, 2013, which effectively blamed Republicans for the sequester. He distorted the truth, omitted facts and outright lied to the university community which he claims to represent in Congress. The article can be found here.

The following is a response column I wrote to The Diamondback in an attempt to try and set the record straight. I'll be sending it to them sometime on Friday, March 8th and will update this post if it is actually published. However, considering I've written at least 4 guest columns/letters to The Diamondback in the nearly two years I have been in college without a single one being published, combined with my "lack of credibility" on this issue, I have little reason to believe my response will actually be published. I have also contacted Dr. Andy Harris (R-Md.) in the hopes he will take the time to also write to The Diamondback. I'll keep everyone posted on how my efforts go but in the meantime, allow me to set the record straight on the sequester:

While it is perfectly acceptable for Rep. Steny Hoyer to write an article about sequestration for The Diamondback, it is not okay for him to distort the truth, omit facts and lie to the community he represents about just how the $85 billion reduction in planned spending, known as the sequester, came to be.

In his article Hoyer accused Republicans of repeatedly refusing to bring alternatives to the sequester to the floor of the House. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

To clear things up and attempt to set the record straight, I’d like to remind everyone that the sequester was all President Obama’s idea. He and he alone owns it. In the summer of 2011, Speaker of the House John Boehner was incredibly close to an agreement on the debt limit with the president. That is until Obama blew that deal up at the last minute by demanding an extra $400 billion in new tax revenue, 50 percent more than the two had agreed on.

With that deal gone, Boehner, along with Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, put together the Budget Control Act which would have saved $917 billion, created a House-Senate “super committee” to find another $1.2 trillion in savings and would have blocked an increase to the debt limit a few months down the road if the committee failed to find the needed savings.

 

Despite bipartisan agreement to this plan in both houses of Congress, Obama blew this deal up as well because he didn’t want to face a debt-limit fight prior to his re-election campaign. His solution was to implement the sequester instead, which was added to the Budget Control Act in place of the debt limit provision and passed by both houses of Congress with just hours remaining before the debt limit was hit.

Following the passage of the Budget Control Act, Republicans repeatedly offered mixes of spending cuts and new revenue through reform of the tax code to no avail as Congressional Democrats and President Obama refused to accept these ideas. Obama even went on public record vowing to veto any Republican plan to stop the sequester. The super committee failed as a result, as did every other plan, and now we as a country find ourselves with the sequester.

And what was Obama’s “balanced alternative” that Hoyer mentioned in his article? Spend, spend and spend some more. The “fiscal cliff” deal ended the 2 percent payroll tax holiday and gave us $41 in new taxes for every $1 in spending cuts. Democratic plans to avoid the sequester called for much of the same; billions in new taxes and almost nothing in cuts.

Was the sequester the best way to cut spending? Far from it. But it was Obama’s idea, not Republicans’, and the blame for sequestration kicking in falls squarely on him, not Republicans. Republicans offered plans to stop this mess from happening. Obama offered campaign speeches and the blame game.

Despite the fear tactics and all the “statistics” employed by the likes of Maxine Waters, Janet Napolitano, Obama, Hoyer and others, the sequester isn’t really going to be that bad. The government can absorb a 2.4 percent spending cut. And the sequester certainly hasn’t stopped the federal government from spending enormous amounts of money, either. Since last Friday the TSA has spent $50 million on new uniforms (over $1,000 per employee), John Kerry has given Egypt $250 million that could’ve been better spent at home and the federal government is still hiring (400 new jobs posted on Monday alone) despite the potential for furloughs of 1000s of other employees.

Look for more posts next week as I head into spring break. I have lots of ideas in the works but the teachers have been pouring it on before we get our week off.

Jimmy Williams

Ellison Loses it on Hannity

Tuesday night's Hannity show on Fox News featured one of the most disrespectful guests that I have ever seen on a news program: Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. Hannity invited him on to the show to ask what I can now only assume would have been some serious and legitimate questions about the mounting debt, sequestration and who really is to blame for this latest manufactured crisis in Washington.

What ended up happening was Ellison used his on-air time, which was graciously given to him by Hannity (Hannity could have picked any one of the hundreds of representatives in Congress to interview and yet he selected this guy), to completely trash and make false claims against Hannity, Conservatives and the Republican Party through an obviously rehearsed rant. Let's take a look at how much of a fool Ellison made of himself on Tuesday:

1. Claimed Hannity is an unethical, immoral journalist who is just a big talking head for the GOP.
Oh how I find myself laughing! Has Mr. Ellison seen MSNBC or CNN anytime within the last 4 years or is he really just that ignorant and stupid? Did he notice that over the last 18 or so months MSNBC has been caught in 5 massively unethical edits that targeted Republicans and Conservatives and finally culminated with the removal of News President Steve Capus?

The sad thing is that he probably did notice all of those incidents. Except in his mind it's totally okay to slander a Republican but God forbid you dare to tell the truth about Obama! Do that and in Ellison's mind you're a liar, you're unethical and you're probably a racist, too.

2. Outright lied and said the GOP is to blame for the sequester and not Obama when it was OBAMA'S idea all along after a bipartisan budget deal collapsed in August 2011.
Every time Hannity tried to get a serious word in about the sequester, Ellison just went into rant mode about how it was "all the Republicans' fault!" Really Ellison, you're still going to stick with that?

There was a bipartisan plan in place for spending in August 2011. Ellison should know that because, as he insisted over and over again on Tuesday night, he "was there". It was Obama who blew that plan up at the last minute by asking for 50 percent more in tax revenue then was agreed upon. Obama's solution which he proposed himself and then signed into law? The sequester. There should be no passing the buck! This has been all Obama from the start.

3. Refused to discuss Obama's $6 trillion addition to our national debt.
When Hannity FINALLY got Ellison to calm down enough that he could ask a question about the $6 trillion Obama has added to the national debt, Ellison didn't want to hear any of it! He just raised his voice again, stuttered some and then went to "Let's talk about the $10 trillion before that!". No, let's talk about Obama, Mr. Ellison. Let's talk about the president who in just 4 years has run up 60 percent of the debt of the first 43 presidents COMBINED.

Ellison was all too happy to talk about how Bush ran up $4 trillion in debt in 8 years, but when it came to discussing Obama's first four years, that was a huge no-no Tuesday night.

I didn't watch the interview live but I saw it in full later Tuesday night. I still can't get over the irony of the whole six and half minutes. For a Democrat to go on a national cable show before roughly 2.5 or 3 million viewers, lie his rear end off and then call Hannity a liar was absurd and comical. Add to this ABC's unethical edit of Michelle Obama just that morning to stop her from looking like an idiot during her segment on Good Morning America and it only gets better.

I have to give Hannity credit for how long he let that segment drag out and for how composed he was able to keep himself. He invited Ellison on to the show for a serious interview with legitimate questions about our government and Ellison ruined it and made a huge ass of himself in the process. I wouldn't have had the tolerance Sean had for that raving lunatic.

Jimmy Williams

(Note: Although the link I provided is from World Net Daily, I did see this story in several other places first. The WND link just happened to be the link I had easiest access to at the time I wrote this post)

Staying on Message

Dan Bongino, the 2012 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland, came to visit the University of Maryland College Republicans on Monday night. He gave a talk that lasted just under an hour and his message was brilliant. I thought I already knew so much about what it means to be Republican and Conservative, but I learned so much more that night.

"The Republican party does not have a message problem, it has a marketing problem," was probably the biggest point Bongino hit on during his talk and it really stuck with me. Clearly there is nothing wrong with the Republican message, he said, because Obama adopted it as his own during both of his campaigns.

Bongino talked us through it and it all made sense. Obama promised to halve the deficit in his first term. He promised to lower taxes on the middle class. He promised to work for legislation that would actually create jobs. He hasn't and never will do and of those things and has in fact done the complete opposite on all fronts, but those are all stalwart Republican ideas and they were the buzz words that got him elected.

Therefore, there is no need to rush out and start overhauling the GOP message. The message is fine. We just have to get the message out there anyway we can. We have to use our personal Facebook pages, our Twitters, Instagrams, etc. to get what we stand for out there. We don't have the media and we never will, so that's something we just have to accept. And we can't let "political correctness" or the fear of making people mad hold our voices back. "What's more important to you?" Bongino asked us. "Losing a few friends on Facebook over political posts or losing your country?"

Jimmy Williams

Obama and the Minimum Wage

During his State of the Union address last week President Obama proposed creating legislation that would increase the federal minimum wage to $9. He believes the current minimum wage is out of date and of course also believes in that wonderful liberal and borderline socialist idea that "everyone deserves a living wage". Obama further believes that he can increase the minimum wage without creating a significant burden on employers, without a price increase for consumers and without anyone losing their jobs.

Time for a harsh dose of reality: minimum wage was never intended to be a "living wage". Minimum wage jobs are usually low-skill, entry-level position jobs within a company. If someone wants to earn a "living wage" then they need to work their way up through the company by doing their job well and/or by improving their skill set and education level. I know liberals will scoff at what I just said and say it's not possible for all people to do that. I say yes it is. If someone wants to improve their position in a company and thus increase their pay bad enough, they will find a way.

At Obama's recent Google hangout, which I referenced in a previous post, he was asked about the proposed increases in the minimum wage by blogger Kira Davis, as reported on World Net Daily. Obama's "logic" for increasing the minimum wage is that "corporate profits are at record highs" so increasing the minimum wage won't result in any jobs being lost. It will simply "have some modest impact on their profits." He also completely ignored Davis' anecdotal evidence about minimum wage increases killing jobs.

We've always known Obama is a total idiot when it comes to the economy but I think he just took it to a new level. This statement by Obama the other day essentially validates Rush Limbaugh's theory that Obama truly believes the private sector is made up of only corporations. Because "corporate profits are at record highs" Obama seriously thinks that companies will just eat the increased cost of labor without laying anyone off or passing on the cost increase to the consumer.

The president could not be more wrong! There is evidence all over the place which shows that every time the minimum wage goes up, people either get laid off or do not get hired. Teenagers especially don't get hired for summer jobs as employers have less money available to hire seasonal staffs. Hours get cut back, prices are increased, whatever the employer has to do to make up for that increased cost of labor. Companies aren't going to just sit back and let increased labor costs eat into their profits!

And what about small business owners? Why does Obama always forget about main street? If corporate profits are at "record highs," which I would definitely have to say is open for speculation, small business profits certainly aren't. Contrary to the prevailing belief of liberals, not all business owners are wealthy, greedy corporate bosses. Increasing the minimum wage could be the death knell for thousands of small business owners across the country.

Labor isn't cheap and what Obama is proposing will only make things worse for all, not better. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd rather have a job at $7.25 an hour then no job with the minimum wage at $9 an hour. But that's exactly what's going to happen to many low-income workers. They'll see the minimum wage go up right as they're kicked out the door because they've become too expensive to keep around.

Jimmy Williams

No, Mr. President, the problem is you think you ARE an emperor.

After seeing this blog post on the Weekly Standard's website this afternoon it took all the strength I could muster to not scream and hit the wall of my dorm room. The videos the blog post contains are from President Obama's most recent Google hangout in which he addressed a question about how his administration has deported a record number of illegal aliens. His response to the question, as you will be able to see, was that his problem is that he's "not the emperor of the United States".

Obama said he has to "execute the laws that are passed" and used that as an excuse for why he has to keep deporting illegal aliens. Reading between the lines, not only does that mean Obama wishes to totally disregard Congress and the Constitution, but he seems to think illegal immigration is totally okay.

Mr. President, the problem is not that you aren't emperor of the United States. The problem is that you think you ARE the emperor of the United States. Ever since you took office way back in 2009, you've been deciding which laws you felt were worth enforcing and which laws you just wanted to ignore or completely circumvent.

The Obama administration is now completely ignoring the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Both Obama and Eric Holder now believe the law, specifically section 3, is "unconstitutional" and therefore have refused to stop defending it in legal cases. Not only that, but the Department of Justice is now backing legal challenges in court to attack DOMA. According to a nonpartisan panel interviewed by World Net Daily, this is a constitutional violation.


The signing of an executive order to grant amnesty to "accidental undocumented immigrants" was another gross misuse of executive power. Obama completely ignored existing immigration law to do what he did for those illegal aliens. Yeah, that's totally executing "the laws that are passed". The WND panel referenced earlier labeled this decision, the actions taken on recess appointments (Which the administration is STILL fighting for despite the courts ruling CORRECTLY that they were illegal) and the use of executive privilege in Fast and Furious "dubious actions".

The Obama administration has misused the court system and used intimidation and other threats on big issues as well, notably the Arizona immigration law. The administration has the right to sue a state, but when it loses in court it needs to respect the decision of the court instead of making threats and taking away resources, as was the case with Arizona when the Supreme Court upheld the key provision of S.B. 1070. The administration moved to punish Arizona by telling Arizona that any calls asking for federal agents to help pursue illegals would go unanswered.

And let's not forget the drone "hit list" for U.S. citizens and Obama's illegal war in Libya, both of which WND's panel classified as "impeachable high crimes". Both of these only further signal that Obama doesn't care about that Constitution and will do whatever the hell he wants to do if he can get away with it.

BUT, when something happens that prevents Obama from getting what he wants, then all the sudden he cares about rather or not an action is permissible under the Constitution. After Chuck Hagel's nomination for Secretary of Defense yesterday was postponed (not defeated, just postponed) by Senate Republicans, Obama was out there whining about how "there's nothing in the Constitution that says somebody should get 60 votes."

Well, Mr. President, if you would actually open those giant ears of yours and listen, then you would have realized the Senate wasn't taking an actual vote on Mr. Hagel's nomination. All that happened was a vote to postpone the nomination until after the upcoming recess. And that action by Senate Republicans is entirely legal. Yet, because it doesn't benefit Emperor Obama, he whines and says it's unconstitutional. Funny how that works out.

Jimmy Williams

Mental Health and the Recent UMD Tragedy

Recent events at my school, University of Maryland-College Park, have compelled me to alter my posting schedule a little bit. I had originally planned to post something related to Tuesday night's "State of the Union" (or "Misstatement" as detractors jokingly called it), but that just has to be tabled.

For those of you who do not yet know, at approximately 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, there was a murder-suicide at a house just off campus. The shooter set multiple fires in and around the house and when his housemates came to investigate, they all went outside. Once on the front lawn, the shooter opened fire, killing one of his housemates and injuring the other as he tried to flee the scene. The shooter then went to the backyard off the house an killed himself.

Of course almost immediately, rather than mourning, some liberals on this campus broke out in cries for gun control yet again. They did the same thing right after the Newtown shooting. Can this country get all the way through any tragedy without politicizing it? Just once I would love to see us get all the way through a tragedy before bringing politics into it. It is something we are all guilty of, me included, and something we all need to work on.

Within hours it came to light that the shooter was, surprise, surprise, mentally ill and had been for over a year. Various media outlets are reporting the shooter suffered from schizophrenia and maybe other issues. Yet in the time the shooter, 23-year-old graduate student Dayvon Maurice Green, was mentally ill, he was able to pass a background check to legally purchase a 9mm handgun and another to join the University Police as a police aide.

This issue really raises some red flags. The biggest concerns those people who are pushing for more and more background checks prior to purchasing guns. Clearly that might not do anything to stop a mentally ill person from purchasing a gun because, according to the Prince George's County Police, Green was already ill when he passed his background check to purchase the murder weapon.

The second concern that I have is this: with all of the studies which show college students are among the most stressed people in the country and with the mental health services already in place here at Maryland, how did Green slip through the cracks? How did his housemates, his classmates, his professors, co-workers (Green was in a NASA internship program), etc. all go through this past year without noticing anything wrong and trying to get Green the help he needed? And obviously people did know he was mentally ill, otherwise the police wouldn't have been able to report it. Was Green really that good at hiding his problems? Or was everyone else really that unaware?

I know no one could possibly hope to answer the questions I have posed here, but they definitely make one wonder. Obviously no one wanted to see this situation come to this, but why did Green have to involve his housemates in his problems? If the only option Green felt like he had left was suicide, why did he have to try to take his housemates' lives with his?

This is a very said situation for the university community, but trying to say that more gun control measures would have stopped this just isn't true based on the facts of this tragedy. Mental health has become a real problem, especially over the last several months, and that is the problem that really needs to be focused on. We don't need more gun control or more background checks. Before we try and impose additional laws on gun owners and potential gun owners, perhaps we should actually enforce the laws that are already on the books.

Jimmy Williams

"There's no such thing as voter fraud! You're Crazy!"

Oh am I?! Liberals off all ages have been feeding me that stupid line, or a variation of it, for at least the last four years now. Liberals tell me that because I support voter ID laws, I support Republicans in cheating to win an election. Oh the irony!

I'm the one trying to cheat to win an election?! Really?! How about we all talk to Democrat Melowese Richardson of Cincinnati, Ohio, who has been an official poll worker for the last 25 years. According to the story which I have linked to for you, Richardson has herself admitted that she voted TWICE for Obama in November. She is also facing other charges for her election day actions. And if that wasn't enough her granddaughter, India Richardson, also cast two ballots in November, presumably also for Obama. And to top it all off, she thinks what she did was totally okay!

What Richardson says she did, what she says is okay, I've actually heard a variation on before. Here on campus, I heard two girls my age discussing how they sent absentee ballots back to their home districts and then used a system we have called TerpVote to change their voter registration to their campus address so they could vote on campus! One even said, "Maybe I'll get to vote twice because of this." In these girls' situation where there was a change in address processed, I'd like to think the state board of elections caught it but it doesn't sound like it was caught out in Cincinnati. But I'm really very silly in all this, aren't I? There's no voter fraud at all. I and everyone else who want voter ID laws are just crazy nut jobs.

"There's really no voter fraud," they said. "How can someone vote twice?" they said. "You're not really concerned about voter fraud, you're just trying to disenfranchise minorities so your people win an election," they said. Yes, there is rampant voter fraud and there always has been, it's just very difficult to prove. But the story this post revolved around is a start. And thanks to groups like Project Veritas and other watchdog groups, we have an ever growing pile of video evidence of voter fraud. But it's videos like those that undermine the liberal narrative of the alphabet networks, so they never report on those kinds of stories.

It's INCREDIBLY easy to vote twice when your election officials don't ask you for an ID or your voter registration card when you go to the polls. I've voted twice in my life now for the primary and general elections in 2012 and I have yet to be asked for an ID or my voter card, which I thought all first time voters had to present. At the primary I was asked to give DOB and address, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't even asked that much during the general election when I voted on campus. And it's EVEN EASIER when states refuse to clean dead and/or otherwise ineligible people off the voting rolls. Just look at what Florida tried to do and the backlash that resulted.

And yes, I am really concerned about voter fraud. The fact that it is mostly Democrat-favoring minorities who do not have ID cards is a pure coincidence that the media just loves to trump up. If Republicans were really trying to disenfranchise minority voters, then how come the voter ID laws that came under the heaviest fire, including those introduced in Pennsylvania and South Carolina, include provisions for those who do not have an ID to get a FREE ride to a state office where they can get their picture taken and then receive a FREE ID card? As a proponent of strict voter ID laws, all I want is a truly fair and honest election. My worst fear as a voter is what has already happened to far too many people across this country; showing up to vote and being told that I have already done so.

Jimmy Williams