Anyway, the gay man evidently bumped one of them with a backpack and that’s where the trouble started. I’ll let the Boston Herald pick up the story.

But Carolyn Euell, 38, mother of two of the defendants, Erika Stroud, 21, of Dorchester and Felicia Stroud, 18, West Roxbury, told reporters the alleged attack “can’t be hateful” because both her daughters are lesbians.

Prosecutor Lindsey Weinstein said the two sisters and one of their domestic partners, Lydia Sanford, also a defendant, viciously beat the man Sunday, repeatedly punching and kicking him after he bumped them with his backpack on a stairwell.

She said the victim, who suffered a broken nose, told cops he believed the attack was “motivated as a crime because of his sexual orientation” since the three women “called him insulting homophobic slurs.”

Just wondering, but how does being a homosexual exclude the three women from being guilty of a hate crime? I mean, if hate crime legislation, as stupid as it is, is going to be applied fairly, why not against these women? From the evidence that has been released, they are clearly guilty of said hate crime. Instead, because they are homosexuals, their lawyers and their mother would like to see them given preferential treatment and not charged with the greater charge of hate crime. Chances are, had it been reversed, ie. three gay men beating up a lesbian, the three gay men wouldn’t be faring so well.

Now to the real reason I wanted to write this post. This case shows the complete and total foolishness of any legislation and/or law that specifically targets a crime because of why it was committed. As one of the prosecutors in this case has mentioned, it really makes no difference. It doesn’t matter what motivated the beating. No matter if these women beat this man because he was gay, or if he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, they are still guilty of assault and battery against a fellow human being. It wouldn’t matter if the women did it because their victim was of a different race than them. The motivation makes it no worse or no better. It’s still a crime and we need no more laws to define it.

Moving across the globe to the state of Pennsylvania, we find a case of Halloween parody gone bad. You can get the full story from Conservative Hideout, but here are the highlights. An Atheist decided to dress up as a zombie Mohammed. This was frowned upon by a Muslim in the neighborhood. The Muslim neighbor attacked the Atheist. The Muslim neighbor was arrested and went to court. The judge presiding over the case happened to be a Muslim as well. He ruled in favor of his Muslim brother and gave the Atheist a rather strong tongue-lashing in the courtroom. Go figure!

I ask again, why must we continue apologizing to the religion of peace? I don’t necessarily agree with disrespecting a religion other than my own, give me a break. Why does accidentally burning a book warrant the reaction we are seeing? Why do so many Muslims hold the opinion that it is perfectly acceptable to riot and march in the streets, kill innocent individuals, and otherwise throw a temper tantrum, all because the Koran was “desecrated” in some small and inadvertent way? Better yet, why was it necessary for President Obama to send a personal apology to Hamid Karzai? To be honest, this kind of mentality makes me wonder if we won’t be apologizing for what happened on 9/11 next.

Please understand, I mean no disrespect towards Islam or its followers. Part of the foundation of America is freedom of religion, freedom to worship God, or not, in a manner of our own choosing, without interference from the government.  As such, I have no use for anyone who would burn the Koran on purpose. Doing so is simply uncalled for. At the same time, I would ask for the same consideration for the Bible. It would trouble me greatly to see someone intentionally burning a Bible, but I wouldn’t consider rioting in the streets and killing innocent civilians.

Not so with the Muslims who seem to be so greatly offended by the burning of the Koran. They are out for blood and claim they are justified in their actions. I can not help but speculate how the Muslims would react if someone did burn a Bible. Would they think we would be within our rights to consider such actions? Would Christians receive an apology for the burning of the Holy Bible? I seriously doubt that would happen. That being the case, I ask one last time.

Why must we continue to apologize to the Muslims? Isn’t it about time they realized not everyone is a fan of their religion?

Now linked at Conservative Hideout.

Caine’s Pestilence is a novel of drama, tragedy, triumph, and satire set in a future America firmly in the hands of the ultra-liberals. This is one of its lessons…

Lesson #2: WHY OBAMA’S CORPORATE TAX REDUCTION PROPOSAL COULD BE THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF THE AMERICAN RECOVERY

In seeking insight into President Obama’s recently announced proposal to “reform and reduce” corporate taxes, we might turn to the two greatest fonts of wisdom in the history of humanity: scientist, mathematician and philosopher Sir Isaac Newton; and our moms. Newton, of course, revealed that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” And Mom told us…“be careful what you wish for—you might get it.” (Of course she also said if we made a rude face it would freeze that way, and if we didn’t eat our vegetables children in China would starve, but her points were always valid enough.)

So what’s the push back from Obama’s latest tax scheme, why would Mom be worried about it, and what’s all this have to do with John Caine?

Well, the fictional John Caine lived in a near-future world where Nancy Pelosi and her liberals ruled the White House and both legislative chambers in Washington. There, large corporations were taxed, vilified, regulated and prosecuted to mollify the long-suffering, if uncomprehending, American populace. And what were the results? American corporations shrank in size while foreign competition ate their lunch here and abroad. Multinational US concerns relocated overseas taking jobs and capital with them. Profits necessary for research and reinvestment evaporated in the American economy. And of course both unemployment and human misery increased here. But that’s just silly fiction…isn’t it? After all, what’s wrong with a plan to reduce the top corporate rate, close loopholes and create incentives for the return of jobs and capital to our shores by taxing foreign profits of US-based businesses?

Consider in comparison Obama’s ultra-liberal world of today where corporations are the refuge of fat cats, the wealthy and well-connected; a safe haven for hedge fund managers. The greedy and soulless millionaires and billionaires who are always dodging paying their fair-share. A world where polluting oil companies need to be brought to heel and taxed on their excess profits. A very real 2012 world that has seen the greatest increase in senseless and anti-competitive business regulation in modern history in the face of economic malaise and struggling employment figures. Is it really possible to imagine an Obama proposal designed to help businesses?

Then what are we to make of his latest corporate tax revamp? Wouldn’t it lower the top rate from 35% to 28% and in effect be a reduction in business taxes?

Well, the “fine print” in the announcement reveals that it will be “fully paid for” by closing loopholes (translation: incentives that were deliberately created), higher taxes on oil companies and on foreign profits. In fact, the administration says that it will “reduce the deficit”—code for an overall tax increase that simply shifts the burden from small business to energy and other multinational US concerns. But a tax increase nonetheless.

While that may be good for small domestic businesses at the expense of large ones, as discussed in Political Realities in my October 10, 2011 piece (…Obama’s Fixation on Small Business…), the small business community alone cannot produce the quantity and quality of jobs to restore American prosperity. Oil companies use profits for exploration and development of new energy resources. Higher taxes on foreign profits of domestically based firms act as an incentive to move expense incurring activities to overseas operations in order to reduce newly taxable earnings there relative to the US-based activities. And what are these “expense incurring activities”? Primarily labor costs—employment! Multinational enterprises with activities and revenues distributed relatively evenly around the globe have a new incentive to move headquarters elsewhere to avoid the new US tax on foreign profits of domestic firms. Who are some of these evil global concerns? General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, General Electric, IBM, Boeing, Citibank, Intel, Apple; all household names, major American business icons and many of the same bailed out by our current administration.

So Newton’s Third Law remains intact: a wolf in the form of a tax hike disguised in the sheep’s clothing rhetoric of a “cut” is still anti-growth and job killing. It penalizes the portion of the US economy—large businesses, mainly manufacturing concerns—that we most need revived to sustain a recovery. It encourages the relocation of businesses and jobs to other countries, while reducing capital necessary for energy exploration and production in a time of rising world prices and potential shortages. The incentive to produce more overseas (to reduce the newly taxable foreign profits) means not only employing labor there, but buying more materials there, too; worsening our balance of payments trade deficit and putting further downward pressure on the dollar. All pretty bad news for Americans.

Corporate tax reduction and reform?—once again, Mom was right: “…be careful of what you wish for…” So what did the fictional John Caine do when he saw the light of what the liberals where doing to the American dream? He quite accidentally created a substance—the liberals branded it a “pestilence”—that allowed ordinary people to comprehend the fraud of the liberal promise. What can we real-life Americans do today? Well, we can shine the light of truth and reason on the destructiveness of the liberal agenda. And in particular on the economy-choking, thinly disguised tax increase of their most recent proposal.

And in so doing—like Caine—we can “spread the pestilence” upon the liberal political machine.

John Bascom is the author of the novel Caine’s Pestilence. With degrees in economics and finance, he’s held senior executive positions in banking, finance and small business management. He now lives in rural northern Michigan where he writes, teaches college-level finance, and consults.

Especially in the opening segment, listen to his explanation of his and Rick Santorum’s “conservative” voting record. He gives a set of very clear reasons of why he votes the way he does and how Congress is completely broken. Agree or disagree with Ron Paul on many of the issues, such as Iran, foreign aid, and his handling of the social issues, but he simply makes sense when it comes to the issues that deal with our economy and fiscal problems we are facing.

It is not your money!

We are sure that it would not surprise you that President Obama is running for re-election as a tax cutter for all Americans – except of course for the “evil rich” who, according to his campaign, must pay their “fair” share.

 Yes, believe it or not, he is talking about that 10% of Americans that pay 70% of all taxes. We are interested to know the Administration’s definition of “fair”, but there again, perhaps we better leave it alone. When somebody asked Vladimir Lenin what he meant by demanding  the “fair” share of the bourgeoisie’s assets and land property in the nation, he responded, “that which you will voluntarily give to the state, comrade, so we won’t have to take it from you”.

 It seems that in the America of today, “take it” they will in 2013. For all those piddling tax breaks that you hear about with much fanfare today – like the payroll tax break that one hears at every campaign stop of the President – which won’t be around anymore by 2013 anyway, there is an avalanche of renewed or newly created tax increases coming to greet you in 2013 if President Obama gets re-elected.

 It seems that in the America of today, “take it” they will in 2013

Beginning in 2013 – just 9 months away – the American people and American businesses will experience the largest tax increases in the history of this nation, both, quantitatively and relatively. America didn’t get to be an economic powerhouse without business men and investors that are not the shrewdest and most creative on the planet. They already know what is coming their way by 2013 from Mr. Obama. It is the people, that 51% of them that do the electing, that do not have a clue of what is going to hit them or don’t care to find out. At any rate, at least half of them who don’t pay any taxes don’t know or care. The majority of those that do not care form that privileged constituency that not only don’t pay any taxes but, a great portion of them, pay minus taxes, that is, they take more out of the system than they put in.

But the engine of America still depends on those productive workers that contribute to the national wealth by working hard and creating jobs for other Americans. For these wealth creators we compiled some of the most important new taxes that are coming their way by 2013, a short 9 months away:

(1) All Bush Tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 will expire this December. By January 2013 the maximum tax rate for those earning $200,000 or more will rise to the pre-Bush tax rate of 39.6%. This includes 4.5 million business owners that fall into this category. It is these business owners that create 76% of all jobs in the economy. This single item is a tax rise of 13.1%.

(2) All itemized deductions and exemptions will be limited to those earning $200,000 or more. That is a difficult increase in revenue to quantify in relative terms, but some of the studies place it at around 2% to 3.6%, adding an average of an extra 2.4% point rise on the top rate.

- Items (1) and (2) takes the top marginal tax rate to 42%, an increase of 20%.

(3) Capital gains taxes will rise from 15% to 20%. A raise of 33%.

(4) Dividend taxes will go back to the pre-Bush era of 39.6% from 15% today. This is the tax that most affects the senior population. It is an increase of 164%. Yes, it is not a mathematical error – an increase of 164%.

- We might remind you that Capital Gains, as well as dividend taxes, represent “double taxation” – this money has already been taxed before. One for the “fair” count of Mr. Obama.

(5) A brand new invented tax, courtesy of ObamaCare, is a new tax of 0.9% on top of the 2.9% of the Medicare tax for those earning $200,000 or more. This is an increase of 31%.

(6) Equally for those above $200,000, a new 3.8% surcharge on investment income and including interest income. This automatically increases capital gains taxes to 23.8%, representing a total increase in taxation for this sector of 60%.

- Again, we would like to remind our readers that capital gains taxation punishes the element most needed for the creation of jobs – investment.

- Once we add to the top marginal tax rate of 39.6% the cost of new norms on exemptions and deductions and the investment tax surcharge from ObamaCare, plus the cost of the new corporate dividend rate, the total top marginal tax rate reaches 64% (estimated by the WSJ).

(7) The poor, or those that are presently paying no taxes but that are gainfully employed, will pay the old pre-Bush tax of 10%.

- An item that the Administration has not been able to extricate from the pre-Bush taxes but is keeping awfully quiet about it.

(8)  Estate and gift taxes will rise from 35% to 55-60%, and the exemption will drop from 5 million to 1 million. It represents an increase of 57-71%.

- This is another “double taxation” item.

(9) Oil and Gas production incentives will be repealed.

- Besides the estimated cost of $41 billion to the industry, it will be reflected in the price of gas. This one comes directly out of your pocket.

(10) The present payroll tax break expires in December and it will go back up by 2%.

(11) On top of this avalanche of taxation (only partly listed above) is another new tax called “the Buffet Rule” that will tax anybody making more than 1 million with a minimum tax of 30%. This, by all practical purposes, raises the capital gains tax from 15% today, to a final 30% – an increase of 100% on investment income.

- We are excluding the corporate tax rate which at 35% is the highest in the world tied with Japan. There are rumblings that the Administration will propose lowering it to around 28%, but this comes attached with a sea of nullifications of exemptions and deductions that could possibly make corporations actually pay more. But it is important to point out that America is the only country in the developed world that taxes its corporations for their operations at home as well as for those abroad, even though these foreign operations already paid taxes in their country of operation. Double taxation, again, and a great competitive disadvantage.

 You will be hearing from Mr. Obama and some of the Republican candidates on taxes soon. Please keep these list in mind and make the comparisons. America will become the highest taxed nation in the Western developed world, and still higher than in most third world countries, with all the dire anti-growth consequences that it implies. The tax inferno that is coming is the surest way to national decline.

 If most of you don’t need these high-jacking panorama to know how to vote this November, perhaps some of your more naive friends that voted for Obama in 2008, would like to know what exactly – in dollars and cents – they are voting for.

As I started browsing the news and blogs this morning, I discovered the news flavor of the day seems to be Rick Santorum. The Drudge Report evidently drudged up a speech he gave in 2008 at Ave Maria University. You can read more coverage about this at Conservative Hideout, where Matt points out that the speech was given at a conservative Christian university, to a group of conservative Christians. The speech contained a fairly strong tongue-lashing of Satan and I happen to agree with the portions of the speech that have been quoted in the news. For the record, I find nothing wrong with Rick Santorum giving this speech, especially after reviewing the context in which it was given. What truly troubles me is how the media is using it to turn the attention away from the real issues at hand. And yes, I blame Matt Drudge for his complicity in this.

What has Barack Obama done since taking office? The most notable offense would be his ramming of Obamacare down the throats of the American people. The problems I have with this are numerous and they include the fact that few people know what the legislation really contains. Thus, it has laid the groundwork for the contraception mandate and who knows what else.

What about Dodd-Frank, the bill that is supposed to reform financial institutions? What about his energy policy, which as done nothing but exasperate our energy woes? The price of gasoline continues to climb and everything he does seems to rub salt in the wound. It is a clear indication of the direction he would like to take America.

Should we even mention the debt? By some counts, we have $5 trillion in new debt, in three years. Our deficit continues to grow, with no signs of abating or being brought under control. In fact, his favored method of “controlling” the debt and deficit seems to be to tax the rich even more. His idea of cutting spending is focused on saving money from the military draw down in Iraq and Afghanistan and to further cut military spending, wherever he can find it.

In any listing of Obama’s record, it is worth noting that he has been on a campaign of class warfare since he took office. From the time he began his war on executive bonuses, he has continually used the bully pulpit to bash the rich. At every turn, he mentions how the rich need to “pay their fair share” and how they are using the backs of the middle class to make more and more money. The rhetoric he uses is disingenuous at best. At its worst, it is an outright lie. One a side note, if Mitt Romney is the GOP candidate in the general election, you can be sure this type of campaign rhetoric will be ramped up.

I feel relatively sure that President Obama and his campaign team are well-pleased with the turn the campaign has taken, if they didn’t orchestrate it themselves. They would like nothing more than to turn the talk of the nation to issues other than the high unemployment rate. The number I am talking about is the real unemployment rate, not the one published by Washington. They would like to turn the talk of the nation away from the economy we are currently experiencing. The economy that is still sluggish and unlikely to get much better under the policies of the Obama administration.

Never mind the numbers that tell us it is improving. Look at how the price of most necessities continues to climb. Look at how difficult it is to find a job that pays enough to make ends meet. Look at how many people are now on the government handout list. Look at how many people have simply given up finding a job.Tell me then that our economy is undergoing a recovery.

I do not mean to take away from the social issues. President Obama’s record on those issues is terrible as well. I believe they are important, but there is nothing more than the Obama administration would like us to do than focus on those issues. Once that is accomplished and we are no longer paying attention to the economy and other issues, they can turn their focus back to ruining this country with impunity. I believe I can say this with some certainty. If Barack Obama wins a second term, it will be a total and unmitigated disaster for America. If you think his record is bad now, stop and think how it will look if he no longer has to worry about winning a second term.

Obama is watching...

William McGurn had an interesting editorial today regarding Rick Santorum’s social conservatism and its portrayal in the media. I agree with McGurn that Santorum comes across as sincere on social issues, and when he says marriage is between a man and a woman, he believes it. That is why the liberal media so frightened of him. (His genuineness on social issues stands in contrast to his supposed conversion to fiscal and economic conservatism; no one is taking the Bush-era Keynesian big spender seriously on these issues.)

Obama, McGurn notes, also says that marriage is between a man and a woman, yet it does not elicit the same media uproar like it does when Santorum says it. McGurn believes the reason is that no one in the media believes him—it’s just a throwaway line to keep from creating ripples in the heartland.

Obama’s problem this time around is Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. He has made it clear that if governments are going to license or regulate marriage, the Constitution requires same sex marriages to be treated on equal footing with heterosexual marriages. Obama may agree, but he won’t say it aloud, and more importantly, won’t do anything about it.

So Obama’s disingenuousness has put him between a rock and a hard place. Johnson is actively courting a demographic that Democrats have long taken for granted. Tired of sitting on the back burner, many LGBT voters are enthusiastic about the first serious presidential candidate to embrace their vote-turning issue as his own. So either Obama is going to have to change his campaign trail stance on same sex marriage and risk angering the “bitter clingers,” or he will lose a large chunk of a voting bloc that was safely his four years ago.

The same goes for the marijuana legalization crowd. Obama has sent mixed messages about marijuana, such as saying that treatment is a better option than incarceration, but still says it should remain illegal (?). Worse, leaders of the marijuana legalization crowd are pegging him as “worse than Bush” and “worst president in history” regarding medical marijuana. Johnson, on the other hand, has made it perfectly clear that he wants marijuana legalized and regulated like alcohol. For the folks at NORML and other groups for whom marijuana legalization is a vote-turning issue, Johnson is a clear choice from a Democrat who has let them down like so many before him. Again, another voting bloc taken for granted by the Democrats is gravitating toward the Libertarian candidate.

And don’t forget the peace vote. Obama promised to get us out of Afghanistan, but what did he do? He ordered a surge! Plus, he’s keeping “all options” on the table vis-á-vis Iran, including ground troops and a Bush-era plan to use air strikes to destroy not only the Iran’s nuclear capacity, but their entire military as well. The president has blown his credibility with the peace vote, and they know who the true foreign policy conservative (non-interventionist) is—Gary Johnson.

But the largest Obama demographic Johnson is cutting into is the youth vote. Younger voters were overwhelmingly in the Obama camp in 2008, but now both Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are making major headway with this group. Many younger voters have told me they will switch their allegiance to Gary Johnson when and if Ron Paul concedes. Others are waiting for Ron Paul’s endorsement, which hopefully will be for Gary Johnson. (It’s too late for Dr. Paul to make an independent run, although he could conceivably run on the Americans Elect ticket.)

So Gary Johnson is poised to pick off a large chunk of voters who would likely have voted for Obama in November (assuming he gets the LP nomination, of course, which seems extremely likely). Part of this is Obama’s fault; he has mightily disappointed some issue-specific voting blocs. In the case of the LGBT vote, he won’t even stand up for their hot-button issue, even though many think he secretly supports their cause.

Those of us in the Gary Johnson camp know that this election isn’t about “anybody but Obama.” It’s about “anybody but Obama, Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich.” It’s about getting the country off the wrong track and getting it on the right track. By necessity it means emphasizing libertarian policies that appeal to the base of both halves of the “Big Two.” In some cases it means embracing the vote-turning issue of people who have never had a presidential candidate stand up for them before.

And have no doubt, Obama’s folks are watching the growing Johnson campaign closely.

This article is also posted at The Country Thinker.

One of the ways he has gone about this is to push for less oil and gas production. He seems to think that if oil and gasoline are not readily available, or so expensive that many Americans can not afford to drive, we will automatically fall in love with the Chevrolet Volt and other alternative energy vehicles. Where’s my evidence of that, you may ask? It’s fairly simply, really. Let us look first at the BP explosion and subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

What was Obama’s first reaction? He placed an illegal moratorium on any further oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf. Even after a court ruling ordered him to cease and desist with his actions, he ignored the ruling. He went on his merry way and did what he wanted to do. He kept the moratorium in place for six long months. Never mind what the courts ordered him to do. I wonder if that had anything to do with the price of gasoline going even higher?

To be fair, not all of this is Obama’s fault. We have been far too dependent on foreign oil for far too long. The actions of many administrations before him had taken their toll on our energy policy. However, that does not remove the responsibility of President Obama and the energy policy he has established since taking office. From the beginning, he stated that energy prices would necessarily have to skyrocket to further his agenda of cap and trade. In 2008, he made the statement that he would have preferred to see a more gradual adjustment of the price of gasoline, but he said nothing about it actually going up.

What conclusion are we supposed to draw from his actions? He nominated Steven Chu for Energy Secretary and we all know the statements he has made. He has made it no secret that he believes the government needs to come up with a way to boost the price of gasoline to the levels they are seeing in Europe. He says the price of gasoline should be expected to go up over the long haul. What does Obama say? “I’m just going to be honest with you. There’s not much we can do next week or two weeks from now.”

Oh, really? Not much we can do? What about approving the Keystone pipeline and getting it started on the road to completion? What about stopping the nonsense of wanting to end the “unwarranted subsidies” for oil and gas companies? What about speeding up the process of approving oil and natural gas leases, allowing domestic exploration and production to speed up? What about ending the nonsensical environmental concerns towards all things fossil fuel related?

When is the last time a new refinery was constructed the United States? According to the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, a small facility was built in Valdez, Alaska in 1993. The last large refinery was built in 1976. One reason for higher gasoline prices has been our ability to refine the oil into finished products, ready for public use. Isn’t it time we allowed more refineries to be built to increase our capacity to produce gasoline?

By many accounts, there is a lot of oil in America. According to the Institute for Energy Research, that number is around 1.4 trillion barrels of recoverable oil. As grand as that sounds, it seems much of that oil is protected and unavailable because of restrictions put into place by the federal government. A lot of good it’s going to do us, if the current administration has its way.

Current estimations are saying the price of gasoline could go well over $4.00 per gallon this summer. If we can judge the effect that will have on our economy from what happened in 2008, things are about to get a lot worse. It is certainly not good news for our economy.

I first read about this program in Bill Clinton’s new book “Back to Work.” He talks about the retrofit of the Empire State Building carried out by Johnson Controls. The building was obviously very old and much in need of an upgrade; but also so inefficient that Johnson Controls was able to guarantee a 38% annual reduction in energy costs. The guarantee meant that if the actual cost savings per year was less than 38% then Johnson Controls would pay for the shortfall. With that savings the Empire State Building will be able to pay the full cost of the work in 4.5 years and then enjoy the annual savings thereafter.

While 38% is a substantial savings I’m sure most of us live in areas where our schools are 30,40,50 years old and in desperate need of repairs and upgrades. Johnson Controls has a program called “performance contracting” that is exactly what I just described. In fact, they retrofitted every school in the city of Buffalo which allowed the school system not only to upgrade the buildings but to provide new technology programs and other major improvements in the classroom. Buffalo had a much bigger game plan but this can be very simple: have the efficiency experts go into schools, perform a full diagnostic evaluation of the systems, create a retrofit to improve HVAC, water, insulation, etc, and provide a guarantee on annual savings (others besides Johnson Controls are doing this). With that guarantee local school systems can get the upfront financing needed to pay for the work. On a broader scale state governments can issue “School Retrofit Bonds” backed by the efficiency savings and the guarantee of the contractors…and behind that backed by the federal government.

The general idea is that the work gets done immediately (stimulus!) so the schools begin to save money through lower energy bills; however, they are required to pay the net savings over to finance the loan on the retrofit. The savings exceeds the cost of financing the loan so the loan is paid back in a relatively short period of time. Once the loan is paid the school just enjoys the annual savings.

Does this all seem a little too good to be true? Maybe so. Maybe there’s something I’m missing. Maybe the efficiencies are insufficient to meet the debt obligation and the contractor guarantees will not be wide enough to meet demand. But this program clearly has enormous potential and meets every criteria you could ask for in a stimulus program while satisfying both Democrat and GOP demands. A federal guarantee program to the states that would then be able to allocate the resources across the state using only contractors with the expertise and financial capacity to provide a savings guarantee. No upfront costs – just loan guarantees that should never have to be touched if the states administer the program properly. Job creation across the country, especially green jobs — Obama and the Dems will be happy. The greenniks will be thrilled with the reduced energy used and lower carbon emissions. The nations overall energy usage declines. It’s stimulus that is not new government spending or tax reductions – the GOP should be thrilled.

Of course I’ve talked only about schools because that’s such an easy one to rally around. After the initial investment is paid off (it would probably take closer to 10 years) the schools cash flow immediately improves. New books, new computers, higher teacher salaries, the ability to finance pension shortfalls, whatever. But obviously this program can be implemented in any building, public or private. The public buildings are an easier “sell” because they don’t change hands – the legal gray area of a privately held building being sold while the payback program was still in effect may create some problems. But we’re talking about tens of thousands of jobs, perhaps substantially more, in effectively free stimulus dollars across the country. Like I said earlier, it’s a no-brainer unless…

….somebody can tell me what I’m missing.

The trouble with this is, the liberals are not satisfied. They want it included in the health care mandates that are part of Obamacare. That is why the President handed down his edict that all organizations or companies that offered health care insurance had to offer birth control as a part of their plan. Incidentally, said birth control is to be free of charge. It doesn’t matter to the liberals that some religious organizations, namely the Catholic Church, believes contraception to be immoral. They had to offer it, regardless. Oh, and the “compromise” he produce over the weekend? That isn’t a real compromise, just a rewording of the same mandate. The end result hasn’t changed.

Are the liberals bent on forcing the Catholic Church to violate their beliefs? I’m not convinced that is the case here, but I will say this. The religious liberty violation is a side effect of what they are attempting to do. A casualty of their own belief system, if you will. They have made the leap from the choice of a woman to use birth control, or not, to the idea that it is their right to have it supplied for them. Never mind the fact that birth control is already available for women to use, as I mentioned in the first paragraph. Never mind that it is inexpensive or free of charge. They have used this right to create a mandate that the rest of us will have to pay for.

This is really no different than the issue of abortion. Starting with Roe v. Wade, this country has been on a dangerous path. The Supreme Court decision created a right for women and their doctors to commit murder, to kill an innocent child who has no control over its own life. Whenever abortion is mentioned now, all you can hear is the clamor of “women’s rights”. Always, we hear how it is not right for a woman to be forced to carry the baby to full term and give birth, when she didn’t want the pregnancy in the first place. It is “her right” to terminate the unwanted pregnancy, we are told. Along the way, abortion rights advocates seem to have forgotten that it is also the right and responsibility of a woman to prevent that unwanted pregnancy from happening in the first place. Without being too plain-spoken, did no one ever tell these women what causes a pregnancy? I know this sounds like I am rude and uncaring, but let me remind us of something. Who is going to speak up about the rights of the unborn, if we do not? Planned Parenthood certainly isn’t and I dare say, liberals like President Obama will not.

With abortion, the liberals created a right to commit murder. How long before they create a mandate that it be paid for, via health care mandates and edicts, handed down by a liberal administration who cares only that Obama’s liberal agenda is furthered? How many more of our liberties have to be violated? How many more unborn children have to be murdered? How many more rights and mandates have to be created before we slam on the brakes and say enough is enough?