Heritage; Your Money in Pictures: The Top 5 Charts of 2013

As part of our countdown to the new year, here are Heritage’s top five must-see charts of 2013.

5. What If a Typical Family Spent Money Like the Federal Government?

 

4. Obamacare’s Barrage of Tax Hikes 

 

3. Sequestration Cuts Only 2.5 Percent of Spending ....

 

2. Where Did Your Tax Dollar Go? ....

 

1. Each American’s Share of Publicly Held Debt ....

Charles Krauthammer; Story of the year

Washington Post  "The lie of the year, according to Politifact, is “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” But the story of the year is a nation waking up to just how radical Obamacare is — which is why it required such outright deception to get it passed in the first place.

"Obamacare was sold as simply a refinement of the current system, retaining competition among independent insurers but making things more efficient, fair and generous. Free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Free mammograms and checkups for you and me. Free (or subsidized) insurance for some 30 million uninsured. And, mirabile dictu, not costing the government a dime.

"In fact, Obamacare is a full-scale federal takeover. The keep-your-plan-if-you-like-your-plan ruse was a way of saying to the millions of Americans who had insurance and liked what they had: Don’t worry. You’ll be left unmolested. For you, everything goes on as before."

 "That was a fraud from the very beginning." ...

Pajama Boy a leftist Obama operative. What else did you expect? (UPDATE)

Pajama Boy: Obama's Smirking Commissar  "The effete visage of the ObamaCare pitchman known as Pajama Boy already is a figure of fun. But now it comes to light that Ethan Krupp is more than just a smirking, turnoff face for an ad. He's a leftist extremist.

"Krupp is more than just a hipster metrosexual cradling cocoa in his red onesie pajamas whose arch, supercilious expression is supposed to make young people want to run out and buy overpriced ObamaCare on government insurance exchanges.
"In reality, he's a long-time Obama operative, one of the president's leftover campaign shock troops active in The One's permanent campaign organization known as Organizing for America."

From the Daily Caller: Obamacare’s Pajama Boy: ‘I am a liberal f***

 

"As The Daily Caller reported, Krupp was accused of racism and anti-Semitism during his college-aged stint as the editor of the Madison, Wisconsin comedy newspaper the “Madison Misnomer.' ” Not the most important excerpt from this article, but the least obscene.

UPDATE: NBC Takes One Yet Again for the (Obama) Team   ... "It strikes me that more and more Americans are now viewing the president in a similar fashion. They’ve seen the Obama act for five long years, and it’s become tiresome. We’re on to the verbal tricks, the stale formulations, the endless straw men and unmatched sense of moral superiority. We’ve figured out that the reality has never come close to meeting the expectations and promises. And so words that had a magical effect before now elicit a roll of the eyes. Barry is just being Barry. Don’t take him seriously. He’s just a talker."

http://comicallyincorrect.com/2013/12/19/pajama-boy-ad-campaign/

Cruciphobia at Mt. Soledad; The cross the Left can’t bear.

Michelle Malkin

... "A pragmatic, tolerant resolution, with 76 percent of voters’ support? Heavens, no! The extreme secularists couldn’t have that. They sued and sued and sued and sued. By 2007, the state Supreme Court — affirmed by a state appellate court — had rejected the atheists’ campaign. The courts affirmed the constitutionality of the San Diego referendum (Proposition A) and the sale of the cross to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association. The American Civil Liberties Union intervened in an attempt to suppress and “de-publish” the ruling as a way to prevent its use in future litigation. They lost." ...

Man bites dog story: Despicable white man punches out 79 year old African-American victim.

This guy punches out a 79 year old man and deserves what I hope is coming to him; this was a despicable thing to do.

Washington Times  "The Obama administration filed a federal hate-crimes charge Thursday against a man whom authorities accused of using the “knockout game” to target a black man, videotaping it, and then bragging about the assault to strangers.
"The charge marks the first time the administration has taken action on a “knockout” case after the game became an Internet and media phenomenon. It chose a case in which the person accused is white, even though most other cases reported in the news have involved black assailants.
"In this case, the man accused is 27-year-old Conrad Alvin Barrett, who the Justice Department says attacked a 79-year-old black man in Fulshear, Texas, just west of Houston. Justice Department officials said they brought the case to make a point about hate crimes."...

But what about the many incidents of the reverse? I appreciate these remarks by Al Sharpton (of all people!) who for once seems to fill the role that we hope to see from African-American leaders.

Photo and accompanying article from The Jewish Press

O, great Government, we bow down to Thee

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Greenwald Snarks at MSNBC: I Defend Snowden Like You Defend Obama ’24 Hours a Day’

Mediaite  ... "Things got heated when MSNBC anchor Kristen Welker cited critics who’ve accused Greenwald of “crossing a line” in his defense of Snowden. “What do you say to your critics who say you’ve become more of a spokesman for Edward Snowden?” she asked.
 '“I think that’s ludicrous is what I say to that,” Greenwald shot back. “Every journalist has an agenda. We’re on MSNBC now, where close to 24 hours a day the agenda of President Obama and the Democratic Party are promoted, defended, glorified, the agenda of the Republican Party is undermined. That doesn’t mean the people who appear on MSNBC aren’t journalists, they are.' ”
 

Hospital Bans Christmas Carolers From Singing Religious Songs

CBS Atlanta
"When the students arrived to sing at the hospital Friday, they were given a list of only 12 Christmas songs that the hospital’s Pastoral Service had “deemed appropriate for celebration within the hearing range of all Veterans,” the Athens-Banner Herald reported."
....
“From our point of view, the purpose of Christmas and its carols is to celebrate and honor the birth of Jesus, and if that goal is taken from us, it is an issue we do not want to be a part of,” he said. “We do not think it is a good idea to systemically weed out religious Christmas songs from being sung in certain places.”

Which of these is hate speech? (Language advisory)

The Comical Conservative

A&E; the submissive forces behind political correctness

http://terrellaftermath.com/

A+E’s Duck Dynasty Dilemma   "It had never happened before. When big, powerful TV executives ask a star to apologize for what they deem inappropriate comments or behavior, the star simply complies. A team of publicists is assembled, the star does the obligatory apology tour for the press and promises never to do or say what he did or said again. Ever.

"But the TV gods never met a man like Phil Robertson. Or his family." ... 

Censorship by Stigma  ... “The challenge,” it turns out, was not intellectual at all. In fact, I have a hard time remembering more than a few civil, interesting classroom exchanges. Instead, I remember the boos, the jeers, and the hastily scrawled hate messages left in my mailbox (“Why don’t you die, you f***ing fascist”). I remember the efforts made to get other conservatives fired from their future jobs through obscene and angry messages left on judges’ voice mails." ... David French 

Time to Stock Up on Incandescent Bulbs Before They Go Out Permanently

Heritage

 

....  "Proponents of government-imposed efficiency standards and regulations will say, “So what? There are still plenty of lighting options on the shelves at Home Depot; we’re saving families money; and we’re reducing harmful climate change emissions.”
"The “so what” is that the federal government is taking decisions out of the hands of families and businesses, destroying jobs, and restricting consumer choice in the market. We all have a wide variety of preferences regarding light bulbs. It is not the role of the federal government to override those preferences with what it believes is in our best interest.
"Families understand how energy costs impact their lives and make decisions accordingly. Energy efficiency has improved dramatically over the past six decades—long before any national energy efficiency mandates." ...

 

At least we were all a lucky choice.

Via Fred Higgins at  Things that make you go ... Hmmm