Inside the Beltway: Choosing the dream

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“2016: Obama’s America”, The Roots of Obama’s Rage

Inside the Beltway: Choosing the dream

Can Americans discern between the “dreams” of President Obama and those of the Founding Fathers? The makers of the upcoming documentary film “2016: Obama’s America” hope so. “I’ve got a strong desire to defend against the changes in our culture, our life, our laws, our freedom. We now have someone in office who has professed a desire for change, and this has disturbed me,” producer Gerald R. Molen tells Inside the Beltway.

Mr. Molen, 77, is the Hollywood heavyweight and Oscar-winning producer behind “Schindler’s List,” “Rain Man,”and “Jurassic Park” among many other blockbusters. But he prefers life in Montana to that in Tinseltown, and as a former U.S. Marine, he has a strong memory of a traditional, cheerful, can-do America. He’s also not too keen on Mr. Obama’s penchant to “go around Congress,” among other things.

“We don’t have an imperial presidency. He’s not the king,” Mr. Molen says.

Above all, he hopes the film will jar a passive audience with proof of the political and cultural change that may not be for the better in the long run.

“I hope people find out that it’s time to do their own research, get involved and ask this question: What kind of country do we want?” the producer says, predicting that public reaction to the project “will come alive” once the film is released nationwide July 27. The documentary itself is based on conservative author Dinesh D’Souza’s best-seller “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” published last year.

“All Americans want the same kind of country. Being united would be wonderful. But we’re divided now, and it’s frightening,” Mr. Molen says.

Is there similar fare to come – perhaps another documentary meant to detect dangerous fissures in the bedrock of America?

“I hope it’s not necessary for me to stay in this genre. But if the need arises, I’m there. I’ll stand up,” Mr. Molen says.

THE CHENEY TOUCH

It is a meeting of the minds amid spectacular scenery and sumptuous mountain lodges. On Thursday, former Vice President Dick Cheney will open the doors to his own home near Jackson Hole, Wyo., to host a campaign fundraiser for Mitt Romney.

There’s a preliminary reception at Teton Pines Country Club, where the fare typically includes such delicacies as bacon-wrapped tiger prawns upon cheddar cheese grits and “sterling silver” beef tenderloins. The reception will be followed by a private dinner with Mr. Cheney and Mr. Romney, attended by notables from the oil, agriculture and venture-capitalist realms.

“It’s the old guard handing off the torch to the new guard here,” Republican strategist Ron Bonjean tells the Beltway. “They share a philosophy. A new Romney administration would follow the same Republican principles. And it would definitely foster a new age as well.” > > READ MORE

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Obama Guts Welfare Reform

Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley via The Foundry July 12, 2012 at 4:10 pm(4)

Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the reform law. The Obama directive bludgeons the letter and intent of the actual reform legislation.

Welfare Reform under Clinton

Welfare reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The underlying concept of welfare reform was that able-bodied adults should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving welfare aid.

The welfare reform law is often characterized as simply giving state governments more flexibility in operating welfare programs. This is a serious misunderstanding. While new law (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996) did grants states more flexibility in some respects, the core of the act was the creation of rigorous new federal work standards that state governments were required to implement.

The welfare reform law was very successful. In the four decades prior to welfare reform, the welfare caseload never experienced a significant decline. But, in the four years after welfare reform, the caseload dropped by nearly half. Employment surged and child poverty among affected groups plummeted. The driving force behind these improvements was the rigorous new federal work requirements contained in the TANF law.

Obama’s Trick to Get Around Work Requirements

Today the Obama Administration issued a new directive stating that the traditional TANF work requirements can be waived or overridden by a legal device called the section 1115 waiver authority under the Social Security law (42 U.S.C. 1315).

Section 1115 states that “the Secretary may waive compliance with any of the requirements” of specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: Any provision of law that can be waived under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself. The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements”). Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, are deliberately not listed in section 1115; they are not waiveable.

In establishing TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from the section 1115 waiver authority. They did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats. Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.

Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.

The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will.

Congressional Research Service: “There Are No TANF Waivers”

In a December 2001 document, “Welfare Reform Waivers and TANF,” the non-partisan Congressional Research Service clarified that the limited authority to waive state reporting requirement in section 402 does not grant authority to override work and other major requirements in the other sections of the TANF law (sections that were deliberately not listed under the section 1115 waiver authority):

Technically, there is waiver authority for TANF state plan requirement; however, [the] major TANF requirements are not in state plans. Effectively, there are no TANF waivers.

> > > READ MORE

Does the word Altruism mean anything to Americans these days?

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Preamble, the GENERAL WELFARE clause

What Can Your Hands DO for Another? Each of us have something to share!

Does the word Altruism mean anything to Americans these days?

ALTRUISM: means

1. the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others ( opposed to egoism).
2. Animal Behavior. behavior by an animal that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind, as a warning cry that reveals the location of the caller to a predator.

This question came up in a discussion that continues under the “Raked Over Coal” post. Perhaps some others of you might care to comment.

My general response can be found in these prior posts HERE or HERE and HERE

What is meant by the GENERAL WELFARE clause, as used in the openning sentence of the US CONSTITUTION?

The Preamble to the US Constitution:

WHO? – We the People of the United States,

in Order to form a more perfect Union, (establish a uniquely American culture, made up of a shared heritage and vision)

establish Justice,(legal system)

insure domestic Tranquility (peace within our borders),

provide for the common defense (provide an adequate military force to defend our borders against ALL enemies, both foreign and domestic,)

promote the general Welfare (enable commerce, build infrastructure – roads and bridges, provide general rules of safety, not give 50+% of the population Welfare!),

and secure the Blessings of Liberty (What are these “Blessings of Liberty?”) to ourselves and our Posterity, How can we SECURE LIBERTY for ourselves and our posterity? REDUCE & ELIMINATE NATIONAL DEBT!!!

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

OPINIONS SOLICITED!