SactoDan

White House press secretary Jay Carney struggled with questions on public equity in his Tuesday press briefing, after being challenged on how his justification for the government-loan program for energy differs from Mitt Romney’s on private equity.

REPORTER: Has the administration done a good job of making decisions about who to invest in, about where to invest?

CARNEY: Look, I think the program as created under the Bush administration and pursued by this administration, has always acknowledged that not every company invested in would necessarily succeed—that is why companies like that needed investments, in order to scale up, to allow them to grow and succeed. Not all of them would grow and succeed. The portfolio as I understand it, contains a number of companies that are progressing and succeeding. Again, if the suggestion is that the United States should wash its hands of these investments, you all need to assess that for what it means, which is saying: “The Chinese can have these industries; the Brazilians, the Europeans, the Indians can have these industries, and we’ll simply import that technology—just like we’ve been dependent on foreign oil.” I think that is a wrong-headed proposition.

REPORTER: Last thing, if that is the argument, how is that different from Romney’s argument about Bain Capital, which is that many succeeded and a few failed?

CARNEY: Look, there is the—the difference in that your overall view of what your responsibilities are as president and what your view of the economic future is. The president believes, as he’s made clear, that a president’s responsibility is not just to those who win, but those who, for example in a company where there have been layoffs or a company that has gone bankrupt, we have to make sure those folks have the means to find other employment, that they have the ability to train for other kinds of work, and that’s part of the overall responsibility that the president has.

Really?

More and more Americans have discovered they can vote people into office that promise them free stuff, paid for by others.

49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011….

…The more people who receive benefits, the harder it’s going to be to make cuts, and it’s never popular to raise taxes.

So many are receiving while others noisily clamor in the public square for more. There are power hungry politicians, many of whom are filthy rich themselves who are only too happy to oblige. Once they have a beholden majority, they will have perpetual power. They are nearly there.

With fewer and fewer are paying the way (whether you like this or not), how long can it be sustained?

WASHINGTON — Miami’s Temple Israel on Thursday canceled a program featuring Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz after a high-profile Republican donor quit the congregation to protest the top Democratic congresswoman’s speech.

Stanley Tate, a well-known philanthropist and prominent Republican who started Florida’s prepaid college tuition program, resigned from the temple after he learned Wasserman Schultz would be talking about Israel after services on Friday night, and that he wouldn’t get an opportunity for rebuttal.

The temple’s president, Ben Kuehne, a Miami attorney, said the event was canceled because of security concerns. He said they “certainly embrace the congresswoman’s willingness to participate in one of our programs,” but decided it was “unwise to proceed with the program tomorrow.”

Good for him.

Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, called it an unusual situation, due in part to the temple’s “internal politics.” Temple Israel, which invited her to speak, is just outside her Florida congressional district.

“I believe strongly that in a democracy people should be able to hear from and interact with their elected officials, which is why I gladly accepted Temple Israel’s invitation to speak as I have previously to many organizations and religious institutions throughout South Florida,” she said. “It is unfortunate that some would allow politics to stand in the way of citizens’ ability to interact with their representative.”

Such strong principles! I wonder if she was insisting Mr. Tate be allowed to rebut her?

When conservatives publicly exercise their rights to free political speech, those on the same side as Wasserman Schultz shout them down, demand they be fired, intimidate their sponsors or take out public ads to attack them personally. I celebrate Mr. Stanley Tate. The Temple? Apparently they know where their gelt comes from.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/24/2816241/temple-cancels-wasserman-schultz.html#storylink=cpy

Bill O’Reilly wins this humorous exchange with David Letterman.

Have you ever noticed how almost all the leftist politicians who hate and want to punish the rich with draconian tax increases…are filthy rich themselves? Confusing, isn’t it?…..

….These people are hypocrites of the highest order. They are angry and guilty for having never earned a dime of their own fortunes. By dumb luck they were dropped down the right chimney, lucky sperm club members who had everything handed to them…..

….Show me a self-made man or woman and I’ll show you a fiscal conservative. I’ll show you someone that is proud of their success and feels they deserve to keep more of their own money.

But show me a leftist politician who hates the rich, and 95% of the time I’ll show you spoiled brats who inherited their wealth, power and connections….

Read the rest here.

I wonder if Jodi Kantor of the New York Times went to Obama’s church to find out what subtle influences Reverend Wright might have had on him?

Gov. Jerry Brown’s solution to the state’s catastrophic budget might be called, “California Dreaming.” More likely, it will end up everyone else’s worst nightmare.

The governor’s best solution is to plead poverty and lower himself to beg voters to increase taxes. His outlook is fanciful, much like the Greeks’. Both are about to learn that responsible people who earn their own money have limits to how much they will turn over to irresponsible people.

Nevertheless, Brown last week implored the citizenry: “Please increase taxes temporarily on the most affluent and everyone else.”

Please?

Read more here.

Is this for real?