-By Warner Todd Huston
The New nine-month budget bill called the CR/Omnibus spending bill is a $1.01 trillion spending bill that is over one thousand pages thick. But it takes care of spending for most of 2015 and one has to wonder why the Republicans pushed a spending bill that will prevent them from affecting spending for most of the entire first year they will be in control?
It is absurd that the GOP didn’t push a continuing resolution that only tides the government over for a few short months because next year the GOP will be in full control of both houses of Congress. Yet, the GOP was not just *sighing* and agreeing with this nine-month spending bill, GOP leadership was pushing it. This is a bill that will cut the GOP out from having any influence on spending for most of their first year they are in control.
Still, many of the hundreds of policy riders–little bits of instruction that affects spending–are good for the conservatives. Of course, some will upset Democrats and some Republicans.
Anyway, here are some of the riders of interest in the new budget bill (in no particular order):
Obamacare Fully Funded
The bill fully funds Obamacare, though it does put a limit to any growth in spending and cuts the budget by $10 million for the “death panel” board called the Independent Payment Advisory Board. It also does not give the IRS any new funding so that the taxing agency can implement the Affordable Care Act.
Clean Water Act
In a victory for farmers, the spending bill will prevent the EPA from taking upon itself the power to regulate farm ponds and ditch water. This is also a victory for Republicans–not to mention the country!
EPA Funding Cut
Speaking of the EPA, its budget was cut by $60 million over last year’s budget. The EPA will get $8.1 billion. This is another decrease. Since 2010 the agency has lost 21 percent of its budget.
No Pot Legalization for Washington DC
The City Council of the District of Columbia will be prohibited from legalizing marijuana and will be forced to hew to the federal ban on pot. On the other hand, federal drug enforcement agencies and law groups will be prevented from interfering in state-based pot industries.
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The New Budget Bill: Still Funds Obamacare, Still Bans Abortion Spending, Still Bans Internet Taxes”
Hear that pounding at your door? It is the Beloit, Wisconsin, police chief demanding that you allow him and his jackbooted thug officers to roam through your house looking for guns. Seriously. That is what Chief Norm Jacobs wants citizens of his town to allow.
A taxpayer paid professor in Denver is forcing students to recite a satirical version of the pledge of allegiance that attacks the United States for targeting blacks and women and says that Republicans are homophobic and against “the poor.”
The police Chief of Austin, the most left-wing city in Texas, is demanding that citizens tell police if they have a friend, neighbor or family member who loves guns. You read that right. Just like in Soviet times when the KGB demanded that people inform on each other, this officer of the law is demanding that citizens snitch on anyone that owns a gun so police can create some sort of hit list of gun owners in the city.
A group of some 24 liberal mayors from across the country have come together in order to help President Obama implement his amnesty policies.
Unions are having a tough time of it in Wisconsin of late. Since Governor Scott Walker saved the state budget with his new union rules and since he gave workers a choice, Wisconsin’s teachers unions have been in steep decline and this year’s certification vote was further proof that workers don’t want unions.
On Saturday, Nov. 29, some five days after a grand jury decided not to indict a Ferguson policeman for murder, a group of 100 people gathered to walk from Ferguson, Missouri to the state capital in Jefferson City to protest the grand jury decision. In the last week protests across the nation echoed the discontent seen in Ferguson. But as these protests now seem to be winding down, what did they accomplish?
The left is all balled up in knots over the false claim that voter ID laws are meant specifically to “suppress” the vote of minorities and to swing elections to the GOP. This is a lie. And even The New York Times essentially agrees that this is a lie.
One of the claims that the left is erroneously using to justify Obama’s new amnesty policy is that he has the “prosecutorial discretion” to do what he is doing and on Thursday Fox News’ Dana Perino agreed with the left that Obama does, indeed, have that power.
A recent encounter that Obama had with ABC so entirely illustrates his arrogance that it can only make you laugh. George Stephanopoulos asked Obama what would stop a future president from following his example of selectively enforcing laws by refusing to collect certain taxes. Obama was shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, at the suggestion and told Stephanopoulos that it would be “wrong” of a president to decide not to enforce tax law.
Inner city blacks have a skewed and untrue view of what America “is” today and it is because they live in all black neighborhoods. This often self-imposed isolation is also why white people don’t understand why blacks don’t see the progress that blacks have made in this country.
Hillary Clinton has been pretty silent over Obama’s amnesty. She has not chastised this president for his abuse of power. But this might seem to be inconsistent with her past comments because there have been at least five times when she said that our presidents need to be reigned in and have their powers limited.
The man who was trying to shop the Gruber videos to the media was rebuffed by the Old Media Establishment repeatedly because they had no interest in highlighting the fact that Obama and his Obamacare cohorts were lying to the American people about the President’s signature healthcare law.
Transparency, shmansparency. Once again we see a government doing its level best to keep you, the people, from being able to find out what it is that government is doing to you. This time it is in failing Illinois where lawmakers are trying to make it much, much harder to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
After the murder of American hostage and aide worker Peter Kassig by members of the Islamist terror group ISIS, Obama claimed that Christians were more responsible for terrorism than Muslims are.
Hillary Clinton is likely running for president. This is probably the worst kept secret in politics. But how is she running? That is the big question. Will she run as the far left candidate, to the middle, even toward the right side of the Democrat coalition? What ever side she angles for, there is one candidate, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who, if he runs, would surely run to Hilary’s right and he could beat her doing it.
Only days after the 2014 election that gave Illinois a new business-minded, tax-cutting Republican as its new Governor, Illinois State Senator and nominal Republican Dave Syverson gave us all a perfect example of why the Illinois GOP is such a crashing failure when he chirped up that he’d love to make the “temporary” state income tax hike permanent, BEFORE the new Governor even gets a chance to take office.
After the shellacking that President Obama received at the hands of voters in the midterm elections, his chief advisor, Valerie Jarrett is finally in the hot seat. Over the weekend, two articles attacked her as all that is wrong with the White House with one piece slamming her the “Obama whisperer” and another one flat out advising Obama to fire her.
In a revisited interview, the architect of Obamacare is seen saying that the lack of transparency in the President’s healthcare law is a feature not a problem. After all, if you rubes could figure it out, you’d really understand what an un-American mess Obamacare is. Obamacare is a total mess, a Gordian Knot that cannot be cut through by mortal men. And it was made that way on purpose.
After months of rioting, one of the main themes that many left-wing rabble-rousers have been pushing on residents of Ferguson is to register to vote so that they can “change” their local government. But despite all the rhetoric, few Ferguson residents bothered to vote last Tuesday.
Obama’s Secretary of Education, Chicago operative Arne Duncan, is hoping to make taxpayer funded, universal pre-school a “civil right.”
The Republicans bumped up their gains in the Senate and the House of Representatives and also gained in Governor’s mansions across the nation and even deep, deep blue Illinois was affected by this GOP wave. But even with these few bright spots, Illinois is the worst state in the union on every level.
A few days ago, First Lady Michelle Obama was in Southern Illinois and during her speech she noted that Illinois leads the nation in job creation. This is a flat out lie. Not just political spin, but based solely on statistics, a straight out lie. And where was the media? Practically silent.
An interesting new TV ad campaign that targets the left-wing media instead of just a political party or candidate has begun in North Carolina as Election Day bears down upon the nation.