Last Call For Compassionate Conservatism

Not that Jeb Bush has any shot at even being the nominee right now, but as with Marco Rubio, it's very illuminating to see just how far to the right the "moderate" Republicans are going in order to try to win over the Tea Party disaster that Republican primary voters have become.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Friday proposed an overhaul of the U.S. welfare system that would eliminate what he called failing programs for the poor and send the federal dollars from them to the states to develop their own plans.

Bush, continuing an effort to position himself as the most serious, substantive candidate in the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, laid out his plan ahead of a poverty forum in South Carolina on Saturday.

Bush said decades of federal policy have not solved the vexing problem of how to help generations of Americans mired in poverty.

"We have spent trillions of dollars on the ‘war on poverty,’ but there are now still more than 46 million Americans living in poverty," he said in a statement laying out his plan.

Well, your father's cuts to programs and your brother's crashing the economy didn't help either, Jeb. America spent a total of 12 years under your family's policies as part of what you call a failure, let's not forget.

Bush, a former Florida governor, would take some controversial steps as part of his welfare plan.

He would eliminate the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps, housing assistance programs and a cash program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

He would use the money to give so-called "right to rise" grants to the states to let state governments fund programs they develop as the best way to address poverty.

To encourage more Americans on welfare to seek jobs, Bush would include in "Right to Rise" grants work requirements and time limits for able-bodied adults.

So Jeb would just eliminate federal welfare programs completely and let states deal with the problem, because states like Florida have such good ideas.  Block grants to states is the new universal fix for everything in GOP land, no doubt states wouldn't be required to use that money to help the poor, but it sure would be great if we could give it to rich people, right? They'll totally promise to creat jobs with it, Jeb pinky swears.

Compassionate Conservatism at its finest.

Marco And Greg Awesome Show, Great Job!

They keep telling me the smart money is on the GOP's great "moderate, establishment conservative hope" in Marco Rubio, but the reality is Rubio is far to the right of the entire country on issues like same-sex marriage and having abandoned his own immigration plan for political expediency, he's now publicly pushing the fringe notion of a convention of states to rewrite the Constitution.

America was built on the revolutionary idea that our rights come from God, not from government. To protect those rights, our founders created a government of the people, by the people and for the people. But today, that government has been hijacked by politicians and bureaucrats who disregard the will of the people, rack up trillions in debt and expand the federal bureaucracy into more and more aspects of our lives. As president, I will promote a convention of states to amend the Constitution and restore limited government. 

The framers of our Constitution allowed for a constitutional convention because they knew our citizens were the ultimate defense against an overbearing federal government. They gave the American people, through their state representatives, the power to call a convention made up of at least 34 states, where delegates could then propose amendments that would require the support of 38 states to become law. 

This method of amending our Constitution has become necessary today because of Washington’s refusal to place restrictions on itself. The amendment process must be approached with caution, which is why I believe the agenda should be limited to ideas that reduce the size and scope of the federal government, such as imposing term limits on Congress and the Supreme Court and forcing fiscal responsibility through a balanced budget requirement. Limiting the agenda will prevent the convention from being overtaken by special interests.

Let's keep in mind that this has never happened before.  The convention of states method of amending the Constitution has never been used, not even once.

Secondly, term limits for Congress has long been ruled unconstitutional and for good reason, where term limits are in place for state lawmakers, lobbyists control the agenda much more easily.

Finally, a balanced budget amendment would destroy the economy overnight.

Ahh, but it seems Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is taking Marco Rubio's advice and is running even further to the right with it..

Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday called for a constitutional convention to gather and adopt nine new amendments he proposed in what he’s billing as “the Texas plan.” 

“Departures from the Constitution are not the aberration. Now they have become the norm,” said Abbott, speaking at an event by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Austin. His proposed amendments — which include allowing a two-thirds vote of the states to repeal any federal law and preventing Congress from regulating economic activity that takes place all within the borders of one state — would “put teeth in the 10th Amendment” and guarantee states’ rights, he said.

It's all about states' rights when there's a black president, I guess.

Here are Abbott’s proposed amendments: 

“1. Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one State.

“2. Require Congress to balance its budget.

“3. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from creating federal law. 

“4. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from preempting state law. 

“5. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision. 

“6. Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law. 

“7. Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution. 

“8. Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds. 

“9. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a federal law or regulation.”

If you're wondering what tyranny of the majority looks like, here's your road map.

Part-Time Employees, Full-Time Liars

Remember conservative economists warning that the dangerous scourge of Obamacare would mean millions of Americans working full-time jobs would be limited to 29 hours a week and lose all full-time benefits in order for struggling employers to even stay in business?

Turns out that was a massive lie by the right. Surprise!

A new study further undercuts a major claim by critics of the Affordable Care Act, who contended that the law would encourage companies to slash full-time workers' hours and shift them into part-time work in order to avoid having to offer them health insurance.

The research "found little evidence that the ACA had caused increases in part-time employment as of 2015," according to a summary of the findings published in the journal Health Affairs on Tuesday.

"We can say with a large degree of confidence that there is nothing we can see nationwide when we look at the whole workforce" that would support a claim that the so-called employer mandate or other Obamacare features have led to increases in part-time employment at the expense of full-time jobs, said Kosali Simon, a professor at Indiana University, and a co-author of the report.

Simon noted that even the slight shifts to part-time employment from full-time jobs — of just about 0.5 percent from 2013 to 2015 — in two subgroups could not be attributed to the Obamacare employer mandate. Those subgroups are people with no more than a high school degree, and workers between the age of 60 and 64.

Oh, and there's more:

A related analysis released Tuesday also found that the expansion of Medicaid benefits to more poor adults in the United States — a crucial component of Obamacare — did not lead to job reductions or other significant employment changes in 2014, when the Medicaid expansion's effects began being broadly felt.

You mean JOB-KILLING OBAMACARE didn't actually kill jobs?  Hoocuddanode?  By the way, this morning we found out that December saw 292,000 new jobs and 50K in upward revisions to October and November, meaning 2.8 million new jobs in 2015 to go with 3.1 million in 2014.

Yep, Obamaxare is killing jobs alright.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama participated in a town hall meeting broadcast on CNN that discussed his executive actions on gun safety, taking questions from supporters and fierce critics alike.
• Alabama is the latest state to sue the Obama administration over the placement of Syrian refugees, claiming the White House was negligent in screening and placed state citizens at risk.
• Global stock markets appear to have stabilized after two days of intense selloffs in China's markets as Beijing has raised its currency higher.
• The first lawsuits against GM for its faulty ignition switches begin on Monday as the automaker faces potentially billions in damage claims.
• The FCC says that broadband internet is still unavailable to about 34 million Americans, but that's a major improvement from the 67 million figure from 2012.