Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

March 25, 2011 By Fausta

Send @icaito to @lacasablanca!

Tonight Pres. Obama will give a speech on education on Univision at 7PM Eastern, so the White House tweeted this in Spanish,

Es El Momento: Presidente Obama habla directamente al comunidad Hispana sobre el futuro de educaction. 7pm en Univision.

There are a couple of things wrong with this:
For starters, if you insist on using that statement, which is not a good translation, it should read,

Es El Momento: Presidente Obama habla directamente a la comunidad hispana sobre el futuro de la educación

The correct statement, however, would have been what @icaito tweeted,

@lacasablanca El Presidente Obama hablará directamente con la población hispana sobre el futuro de la educación. 7pm EST, en Univisión.

@Icaito followed up with,

@lacasablanca Really, who does the Spanish translation for you? Just wondering. :) I’m Active Duty Navy, willing to lend a hand if needed.

The White House ought to take him up on his offer.

Cross-posted at The Green Room.

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Filed Under: WhiteHouse Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Spanish, White House

March 24, 2011 By Fausta

VIDEO Obama locked out of the White House

Who’s in charge? Part 2,

President Barack Obama gets locked out of White House

White House staff was apparently not informed that the President was coming back to work before his arrival.

Just another day at the empty office presidency (h/t Betsy).

A: A good start.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Democrats, WhiteHouse Tagged With: Fausta's blog, White House

March 16, 2011 By Fausta

It’s a miracle! The White House garden produces ONE TON of produce

No loaves and fishes, but miraculous all the same, since the garden apparently has produced 1 ton of fruit and vegetables in 0.03 of an acre,

The 1,500 square foot garden has produced more than 2,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables, the White House touts, over the first two years of its existence. Many of those vegetables harvested from the garden contribute to meals that guests eat at the White House, as well as on the plates of the Obama family’s nightly dinners. The rest of the garden harvest goes to charity, the First Lady’s office says.

The folks who make MiracleGro would probably eat their hearts out, but does the 2,000 lbs include the produce that had to be thrown out because of the toxic sludge, and the stunt vegetables used for the Iron Chef White House stint,

Except for the honey, no food on the show came from the White House.

Fret not. After all, it’s an equal opportunity garden.

That alone ought to make it prodigious.

At least as long as ABC News is out there writing puff pieces.

In case you want to reproduce the irreproducible results, there’s a book in the making, too.

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Filed Under: Democrats, Michelle Obama Tagged With: Fausta's blog, White House, White House garden

April 6, 2010 By Fausta

How many trees died for the eggs? and a roundup

Michelle Obama’s Mirror’s Blog reports,

By all accounts this was the best Eggroll ever. Unprecedented, actually. For one reason, this is the first year we sent the kiddies home with wooden eggs in place of candy filled plastic eggs from China.

The White House couldn’t give the kids candy, so trees had to die. Mexican trees, that is.

Foreign Ownership of U.S. Debt Continues to Grow. Take a look at the graph (click for larger):

Women go topless in protest, then get angry when men ogle

For old-school GOP, a hard lesson on fiscal issues

The message for the GOP establishment is clear — be careful what you wish for. For too long, it turned up its nose at the grassroots activism of social conservatives and said they should focus on fiscal issues that unite the party. Now, the grassroots activism of fiscal conservatives is driving the debate in races across the country. This popular movement for limited government and fiscal responsibility might well sweep the Democrats out of power in November — but it might also sweep some establishment Republicans out with them.

Time for the full truth about TARP

Geography of a recession:

And if you weren’t depressed enough already, How America might get a VAT of its own. Why – in addition to having yet more taxes to separate you from your hard-earned money – is this depressing? Because, as a friend and I were discussing yesterday,

wait until the folks at the IRS get their hands on the regulations for the application of the new tax

Irwin Seltzer explains the world of Small Bras and the Value-Added Tax
Taxing consumption sounds easy. Wait until government starts to carve out the political exceptions.

WORLD:
Jordanian King (Son of Black September) Abdullah Piles on Israel, while Phyllis checks out what Biden had to say.

Colombians Detained For Spying On Venezuela’s Electricity Grid, via Vlad

Meet Inzulaya and his friend Inchavastro

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Filed Under: Colombia, Democrats, economics, economy, Honduras, Jordan, USA, Venezuela Tagged With: Easter, Easter Eggs, Fausta's blog, foreign debt, TARP, Value Added Tax, VAT, White House

February 22, 2010 By Fausta

The President’s $1 trillion health bill

White House Unveils $950 Billion Health Bill To Bridge Differences Between House And Senate Legilsation.

One question:
How are we going to pay for this?

To finance the changes, President Obama proposes raising taxes even more than the Senate plan does. Under Obama’s proposal, higher income workers would see their portion of the Medicare payroll rise even higher. The tax would create a marriage penalty by applying to individuals earning over $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000. When the original version of the Senate health care bill was produced, the Medicare tax on those earning over $200,000 was supposed to be 0.5 percent. In the version that passed in December, the tax had been raised to 0.9 percent. And though it hasn’t even been made law yet, Obama is raising the Medicare tax for the third time, by assessing an additional 2.9 percent tax on income “from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents…” This follows the historical pattern of payroll taxes, which have increased 20 times since first introduced in 1935, going from a combined total of 2 percent (including employer/employee contributions) to 12.4 percent today.

The Obama proposal would also raise the proposed tax on drug makers by $10 billion, to a combined $33 billion over 10 years, while delaying enactment by a year. It also delays enactment of the tax on medical devices and health insurers.

The Senate bill’s version of the individual mandate taxes those without health insurance by charging them either a flat dollar amount, or a percentage of income — whichever is higher. The Obama proposal lowers the flat dollar tax slightly (to $695 from $750 when phased in), but raises the percentage of income. This would result in even higher taxes for many individuals for whom the percentage of income is higher. For instance, when fully phased in, somebody earning $40,000 who chooses to go uninsured would be subject to a tax hike of $1,000.

And, may someone please explain to me how will giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, which are overburdened by government-ordered mandates to cover every thing including hangnails, make health care more competitive and affordable?

For instance,

What is most disturbing about the President’s latest proposal, and similar ones in Congress, is the apparent lack of understanding that one of the most basic purposes of insurer financial regulation is not to prevent “price-gouging,” but rather to prevent the problems that occur if insurers under-price their products. Specifically, if an insurer fails to charge enough in premiums to cover its expected claims costs, then it is at risk of being unable to make good on the promises made to its customers. That can leave policyholders with worthless coverage or spark demands for government bailouts that impose on taxpayers the cost of covering the losses.

Be assured of this:

Government determining insurance premiums is the same as government determining what services can be offered.

While the government mandates what services can be covered now, the limitation on rate increases means the rationing of care. The insurance companies will cease providing coverage, which will mean the government will be the sole provider of medical coverage.

And for starters, it’ll cost $1 trillion.

Now, how much did they say Medicare was going to cost?

UPDATE
Just how much will the Obama Administration’s Health Care Proposal cost?
Your guess is as good as any. The Congressional Budget Office cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, health care, healthcare Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Senate Health Bill, White House, White House Health Bill, White House healthcare proposal

January 20, 2010 By Fausta

The White House iPod app is up

… and it’s “for free,” too:
WhiteHouse.gov: Anywhereiphone

One feature that stands out is live video streaming. Now anyone with this app can watch the President’s public events at the White House, frequent web chats with Administration officials, and other events like key speeches and press briefings in real time.

Heck, I have an iPod touch and I’m already paying for it with my tax dollars (but it’s “for free!”) so might as well get it, right?

Yeah. I did.

Today I could have watched the “Streaming live: First Lady Michelle Obama Surprises White House Tour Visitors”, had I looked it up on time (the “surprise” ended a while ago) and been interested in the first place.

But hey! There’s the photo section, featuring items such as “Glass of Water Under the Podium”, and Obama’s “Folded Hands” (not to be confused with the praying hands).

I knew you’d get excited over those.

Back to my favorite iPod app, the Virtual Zippo Lighter:

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama Tagged With: Fausta's blog, White House, White House iPod app

November 7, 2008 By Fausta

Thank you, Mr. Allen

My latest post, Thank you, Mr. Allen, on former Whte House butler Eugene Allen, is up at LadyBlog. Please read it and leave a comment.

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Filed Under: Fausta's blog Tagged With: Fausta's blog, White House

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