Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Obama Signs Negro Education ExOrder! (What would have happend if he was white?)

The White Hut ^ | July 26, 2012 | The ManChild

I noticed this one from a few days ago. The full text is available of course at the link, but here's a few highlights I got from a scan of the verbiage:

Section 2a: There is hereby established the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans (The Initiative), to be housed in the Department of Education (The Department). There shall be an Executive Director of the Initiative, to be appointed by the Secretary of Education (The Secretary). The Initiative shall be supported by the Interagency Working Group established under subsection (c) of this section and advised by the Commission established under section 3 of this order.

So now we have a new Black Education Czar, supposedly under the auspices of the Dept. of Education. BUT, as we see buried in Section 2b(4)(iv), we learn that the new Czar will:
work closely with the Executive Office of the President on key Administration priorities related to the education of African Americans;
So the Czar will have access to the Preezy outside the Department's channels.

Moving on, we see Section 2c:
(1) There is established the Federal Interagency Working Group on Educational Excellence for African Americans (Working Group), which shall be convened and chaired by the Initiative's Executive Director and that shall support the efforts of the Initiative described in subsection (b) of this section.
(2) The Working Group shall consist of senior officials from the Department, the White House Domestic Policy Council, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and such additional agencies and offices as the President may subsequently designate. Senior officials shall be designated by the heads of their respective agencies and offices.
Lots of tentacles there, aren't there? The Black Education Czar will have access to at least five Cabinet-level offices, just to start off. Lots of revenue sources from which to siphon.
Like the late-night infomercials say, BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, LOOK AT WHAT ELSE YOU GET! Section 3 of the EO does this:
(a) Establishment. There is established in the Department the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans (Commission).
(b) Commission Mission and Scope. The Commission shall advise the President and the Secretary on matters pertaining to the educational attainment of the African American community, including:
(3) efforts to engage the philanthropic, business, nonprofit, and education communities in a national dialogue on the mission and objectives of this order; and
(4) the establishment of partnerships with public, private, philanthropic, and nonprofit stakeholders to meet the mission and policy objectives of this order.
Okay, now we see that the new Czar will "engage" and otherwise "establish partnerships" with private business and nonprofits to meet their "policy objectives". That means basically, shaking them down for revenue, and the usual threats/intimidation by the race hustlers to "willingly" promote the agenda or face reprisals.
In Section 3c, we see that the Czar will be the head of this commission, that the Preezy will appoint all its members, and they may be drawn by him personally from
"a variety of sectors, including the education sector, labor organizations, research institutions, the military, corporate and financial institutions, public and private philanthropic organizations, and nonprofit and community-based organizations at the national, State, regional, or local levels."
So, we can see what the new Black Czar will be doing. The czar will not only be involved in just social engineering, but wealth transfer from other departments, appropriations that don't get voted on by Congress, and Federal jobs access for labor unions and ACORN activists who otherwise would be locked out of the system.

Mayhem at GM (Government Motors Meltdown)

Daily Caller ^ | July 30, 2012 | Mickey Kaus

This wasn’t supposed to happen until Nov. 7: It’s like the last act of Titus Andronicus over at GM corporate headquarters.

Two weeks ago, Opel chief Karl-Friedrich Stracke presented numbers to Dan Akerson. Akerson fires him. Opel gets two interim chiefs in a week. Last Thursday, Opel’s new design chief Dave Lyon doesn’t even start his job. Today, media in the U.S. and Germany report that Lyon had been escorted from the building and to a waiting car by GM’s head of personnel. A day later, global marketing chief Joel Ewanick suddenly leaves. Instead of wishing him all the best for his future endeavors, GM spokesman Greg Martin puts a knife in Ewanick’s back: “He failed to meet the expectations the company has of an employee.”

(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...

Is Rubio Eligible?




100812_marco_rubio_immigration_ap_605


I would like to address an issue that is apparently of concern to a significant number of people. In my “Ask Fred” column, several people have expressed concern (some have been adamant and angry) that Marco Rubio should not be selected as the Vice Presidential nominee because he would not be eligible to be President, if the need arose. They contend that at least one of his parents were required at the time of his birth to have been a citizen for him to fulfill the constitutional requirement of eligibility, even though he was born on American soil.
To buttress these arguments, these writers have sent along a number of snippets, quotations and irrelevant comments by judges – often taken out of context – that they say support this position. They are all incorrect.
Let me make a couple of things very clear.
First, this is a legal question. Therefore, the test with regard to a question such as this is, “What would the Supreme Court likely hold if the question were presented to it?” This is a common exercise. There are many unresolved legal questions in our society. That is why we have the Court. It doesn’t mean that we have to like the decision or agree with it or that we even have to like the Supreme Court. That’s just the way we determine the law or the probable law in this country.
Second, I’m not touting Rubio. I think that he is a charismatic politician with a bright future. He is also untested on the national stage. I can see arguments for and against him. But I won’t sit back and watch him get caught up in a bunch of foolishness that misleads people about his eligibility to be President. Besides, this question affects others in addition to Rubio.
This may raise questions about Gov. Bobby Jindal, Gov. Nicki Haley, as well as Ted Cruiz, a candidate for the Senate in Texas. Mind you, a person has the right to believe anything he or she wants about anyone’s qualifications. But these questions that have been raised about the qualifications of these Republicans of great promise are simply not based upon precedent or history. Specifically, the chances that the Supreme Court would rule that Marco Rubio is not eligible to be President because of the citizenship of his parents at the time of his U.S. birth are less than remote, regardless of the future composition of the Court.
So why do I say this with such authority?
The answer is the English common law, which formed the basis for our own legal structure, opinions of our Founding Fathers, U.S. court decisions, and the 14th Amendment. Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution says, in part: “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President….” Therefore, the issue becomes who is a “natural born citizen” (NBC)? It is not defined in the Constitution.
For many years there have been people who have contended that being born in the U.S. was insufficient to be a NBC and that one’s parents have to be citizens also. Comments to that effect have appeared in Congressional debates, treatises, and even in a court opinion or two many years ago. Some writers in recent years, arguing for the logic of this position, have pointed out that the requirement of natural born citizenship was intended to protect the nation from foreign influences. The fact that there are folks on this side of the issue should not be surprising. The meaning of almost every word of the Constitution has been argued over.
The fact is that these opinions are in the distinct minority. And in the rare instance when a judge has said that a NBC must have parents who are citizens, it has not been part of the decision in the case. Such comments have been gratuitous or “dictum,” as the lawyers say. That is, not necessary to the actual holding in the case.
Previous Court Scenarios
Where the issue has been squarely before a court, the result has been otherwise. In Lynch v Clark, decided in 1844, the issue was the right to inherit. The New York court held that the child, born in the U.S. of British subjects, could inherit because she was a NBC. In 1898 the Supreme Court in U.S. v Wong Kim Ark held the same way. Those cases are still good law today. These courts relied upon , in part, the English common law in deriving the intent of the Founders and pointed out that in England being born on English soil was sufficient for citizenship. The statements of James Madison, for one, make it clear that the Founders had no intention of deviating from the common law in this regard. This is further supported by official opinions of our nation’s Attorney Generals going back several years.
Finally, the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which states, in part: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Reading this together with Article 2 would indicate that the additional “natural born” requirement of Article 2 for a citizen to be eligible to be president meant that being “naturalized” would not suffice. He must be born here.
In 2011 the Congressional Research Service accurately stated, “The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term “natural born” citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth” …by being born in the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents…”
While the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question of a specific presidential candidate’s eligibility as a NBC, it is inconceivable that the Court would depose a president who was born on American soil. Some people love to excite and stir us up but we have an election coming up, folks. May I suggest that we resist the temptation to chase every rabbit that comes down the trail and focus, instead, on that?
- Fred Thompson

The Season of Pandering: Obama's Affirmative Action EO to excite negro voters!

Flopping Aces ^ | 07-31-12 | Mataharley

In what is likely to be a vicious battle to a close finish, both Presidential candidates turn to the traditional carrot-on-a-stick method of campaigning… pandering to a particular demographic with glittering promises. While Romney is delicately walking the balanced beam, hoping to win the hearts of the Tea Party fiscal conservatives without ostracizing the moderate voters, Obama has turned his attentions to pandering to America's black voter with a new Initiative, outlined in an Executive Order issued last Thursday.
Obama's official kick off of his Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans was in a speech to the Urban League the night before in New Orleans.

An administration official tells NBC News the order will create a new White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans that will “work across Federal agencies and with partners and communities nationwide to produce a more effective continuum of education programs for African American students.” The official added that the initiative would be housed in the Education Department, which will work with the Executive Office and other Cabinet agencies to identify practices that will improve African Americans’ achievement in schools and colleges. The administration official did not yet know how much funding the program would receive but said more information would be released Thursday when the president signs the executive order.
The president has previously received criticism from some black leaders for not doing enough to help the African American community as rates for school dropout and unemployment among African Americans continue to be higher than the national numbers.
For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the dropout rate for African American students ages 16 to 25 was 8 percent in 2010; by comparison, white students in that age range had a 5.1 percent dropout rate. Further, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 14.4 percent, significantly higher than the national average of 8.2 percent.
Last August, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) told a crowd of Congressional Black Caucus members in Detroit, “We want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he’s prepared to lead on. But our people are hurting and the unemployment rate is unconscionable.”
Obama has in the past responded to such criticism. In an interview on BET last September he answered a question about why he didn’t create more policies specifically targeted at African Americans: “That’s not how America works,” the president replied, “America works when all of us are pulling together and everybody is focused on making sure that every single person has opportunity.”
But when election season hits, and enthusiasm is low, Obama no longer believes that America means "pulling together" and "every single person" should have the opportunity. Tis the season of pandering, and that means focusing special attentions of those of a particular race.
Prior to this, Obama has attempted to keep any actions that smack of Affirmative Action low profile. I.e. the lack of media focus and follow up on his March 2010 EO #13532, Promoting Excellence, Innovation, and Sustainability at Historicallly Black Colleges and Universities.
And how's that been working out?
Considering that the majority of black Americans can be safely counted in the pockets of the Democrats by tradition, one wonders why Obama feels it necessary to resort to more useless pandering and fake solutions. After all, this initiative is nothing more than feel good promises, advisory committees and the administration throwing money at studies and chit chat. But it does give the appearance of "doing" something, and provides handy fodder for demographic specific campaign stops.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...

The Real Crash is dead ahead as 2008 is forgotten!

MarketWatch ^ | 7-31-2012 | Paul B. Farrell,

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — “Facebook will become the poster child for the current social-media bubble,” warns economist Gary Shilling in his latest Forbes column, “just as Pets.com was for the dot-com bubble.” Yes, Wall Street is repeating the 2000 dot-com crash as today’s social-media bubble crashes and burns.
Think history folks: Remember 2000-2002? The economy suffered a 30-month recession and a brutal bear market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at 11,722, then crashed, losing over 4,000 points dropping below 7,500, down more than 43%, with massive losses of more than $8 trillion in market cap.
But it gets worse: Shilling’s bluntly warning: “If we aren’t already in a recession, we’re getting very close.” Yes, he’s more reserved than Nobel economist Paul Krugman, whose latest book goes beyond hinting that the America economy is repeating the 2000-2002 recession, His title says it all: “End This Depression Now!”
But the scariest fact is that America’s warring politicians, CEOs and Super Rich can’t even see the obvious link between the 2012 social-media bubble and the 2008 Wall Street credit bubble that nearly bankrupt our monetary system and forced Congress and the Fed into bailing out our too-big-to-manage banks to an estimated $29.7 trillion in cash, credits, cheap money loans and debt relief.
But, unfortunately, the banks still haven’t learned the lessons of history. Instead, they dug in their heels, spending hundreds of million on lobbyists, fighting all reform efforts, went back to business-as-usual, sabotaging America and ultimately themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...

Taxpayers Help Fund Chevy Volt Village (This is outrageous)

National Legal & Policy Center ^ | July 31, 2012 | Mark Modica

Akerson & Volt
Well, I really have to hand it to the Obama Administration and General Motors when it comes to promoting green energy initiatives and the Chevy Volt; if nothing else, they are persistent. Unfortunately, that persistence continues to come at the expense of US taxpayers. The latest folly, as reported by Edmunds Inside Line , involves a $10.4 million grant from the Energy Department to create what Edmunds calls "Chevrolet Volt-ville."
GM and OnStar have joined a partnership (which includes GE Energy, of course) that had been formed to create a community in Texas called Pecan Street Inc. GM says the community will be home to "the greatest concentration of Chevrolet Volts in the world." In addition to the tax credits already available to Volt buyers, residents receive another $7,500 rebate for purchasing a Volt or $3,000 for leasing one.
Goals of Pecan Street include delivering "reliable and affordable energy to a growing population" and "possibly eliminate the need to construct polluting power plants." Really? I don't think that giving taxpayer money away to lower the cost of Volts makes them "affordable." And any claim that this community can "eliminate the need to construct polluting power plants" is highly dubious. But when it comes to green energy initiatives and the Chevy Volt, it seems like over-promising and under-delivering is the norm.
GM has been falling well short of reaching sales goals for the Volt, despite loads of subsidies. I can see no benefit being derived from giving more taxpayer money away to promote Volt sales. This car should be allowed to succeed or fail in the free markets without the politically motivated support that is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The Obama Administration continues to freely spend taxpayer dollars to promote an ideology that has not benefited America by significantly creating jobs or lessening foreign oil dependence. The Department of Energy continues to throw good money away after bad as it doubles-down on failing causes under the guise of a green policy that supposedly will free America from oil dependence. It is time to consider whether or not the country can afford to keep throwing money at a green cause that promises much, but delivers little.
Mark Modica is an NLPC Associate Fellow.

To Those Who Want To Redistribute What I’ve Earned


By Charlie Daniels


When you make your living in the public arena as I do and when you let your opinion be known as I do in mainstream and social media, you expect some criticism and this is as it should be, this being America where our very way of life is centered around free speech.
I don't mind the criticism and usually give as good as I get, respecting all comers, regardless of how far afield or how vehement I consider our differences to be. But, lately, I have been receiving a small amount of correspondence from people who resent the headway that, through the blessings of God and hard work, I have made in my life.
They seem to be of the opinion that anything I possess or have accumulated has been due to luck or having some special advantage over them and others, and that a goodly portion of what I earn through my labor should be taken away and given to people like them.
I would like to personally address this attitude for a moment.
I come from humble beginnings, a blue-collar background, and the first house I remember my family living in didn't even have running water.
I have worked all my life - in my younger days in the log woods, the peanut and tobacco fields, on the blistering work yard of a creosote plant, in a factory with an assembly line. I have picked cotton, plowed a field with a horse, cleaned out a chicken house, and I've even been a water boy. I know what hard work for little money is all about.
I am not a natural musician; I have to work a little harder, put in a little more time and really concentrate to have any degree of dexterity or proficiency and have put in untold hours of trial and error, sweat and effort to arrive at what you hear come out of my fiddle and guitar today.
I took a big chance when I left a stable daytime job with a future to pursue a career in a business fraught with uncertainty and gambles. I desperately wanted to be a full-time musician, but it meant giving up a regular salary.
But, if you’re never willing to take some chances, to cut the apron strings, with nobody to guarantee your next paycheck or your health insurance or your retirement, if you’re not willing to adopt a “me alone against the world” attitude and be willing to find out what you're really made out of, you’re never going to rise above the fray. Maybe, you don't really want to be above the fray. It gets rough out there and if you want to play it safe, there’s nothing wrong with that.
But there will always those who take the rocky road less traveled, lay it all on the line, sail the ship into stormy waters with a destination…but no map. Many will not get to where they're going; some will arrive but not appreciate what they've achieved and quickly fall.
There will be others who will put their feet on the path, but when the hills get too steep they will give up.
There's been a lot of water under the bridge since those early days, but the challenges never cease.
It's an awesome responsibility to know there are 25 families depending on you to deliver a paycheck twice a month. My trip to my job every day may well be 700 miles or more and it's my responsible to provide dependable transportation for 16 people and our equipment where we are going safely and on time.
What I'm trying to say in all this is that success requires sacrifice and going out on a limb, slogging through a lot of mud before you get any solid ground under your feet, signing the contracts and the bank notes, and shouldering responsibilities that can make you lie awake at night.
Has it been worth it? To me, it has.
Have I had help? The Lord has blessed me with the most efficient and dedicated employees I could ever hope for, an understanding wife and son, the desire and drive to keep standing up every time I got knocked down and a love for my profession that time and age has not dulled.
I am truly blessed by God and give Him credit for every good thing that has ever happened to me. He has seen me through some difficult times and taken me to some heights I would have had a hard time even dreaming about all those years ago when I left my regular job and took the biggest chance of my life.
I have worked extremely hard and made a lot of sacrifices to arrive at what my life is today and everybody else has the same chance at the American dream that I did, but nobody owes it to you, you’ve got to go out and earn it.

Barackward! Obama's Job Deficit!

Townhall.com ^ | July 31, 2012 | Bob Beauprez

After a review of the Labor Department's March 2012 economic report, I published an analysis showing that America had a jobs deficit of nearly 10.4 million jobs as compared to a "normal economy." In the four months that have followed, because the population continues to grow more rapidly than job creation, the total jobs deficit has worsened by an additional 229,000. That flies in the face of the President's recent assertion that "the private sector is doing fine."

Instead of "doing fine" and a steady recovery from the effects of the recession, net job creation continues to fall backwards. The arithmetic is straight forward using Bureau of Labor Statistics for June:

Current Total Available Population 243.155 million
Normal Labor Force Participation Rate multiply0.6653
Active Labor Force Total equals161.771 million
Normal unemployment level = 5.4% minus8.736 million
Normal total employed population equals153.035 million

Unfortunately, instead of more than 153 million that should be employed in a normal healthy U.S. economy, only 142.415 million people had jobs in June according to the Labor Department's report. That's a jobs deficit of 10.62 million people.

For this analysis, I calculated the average monthly Labor Force Participation Rate from January 1990 through December 2008 using BLS statistics; the 19 consecutive years prior to Obama taking office. I used the Congressional Budget Office's definition of a "normal unemployment" rate of 5.4%.

Until there is a significant change in the two big variables in the above analysis, the Labor Force Participation Rate and the Unemployment Rate, there is not going to be much good news for President Obama to crow about. The most recent LPR (63.8%) and unemployment (8.2%) are each nearly 3% worse than levels that exist in a typical healthy American economy.

President Obama has tried to spin the paltry new job creation numbers as "a step in the right direction." But, clearly, the small growth in jobs isn't even keeping up with population growth, much less returning the workforce to a healthy level. Specifically, the 80,000 new jobs credited in the June BLS report were barely half the population increase of 156,000 for the month.

Obama is also fond of pointing out that 4.4 million new jobs have been created in the last 28 months. But, what he conveniently doesn't mention is that the workforce population has increased by 7.3 million people during the same period. He's short of break even by almost 3 million jobs.

Obama's economic policies obviously have not worked, and have left the American market place with enormous uncertainty and anxiety. Obama's and his Capitol Hill Democrat cohorts' latest attempt at a solution is a bizarre proposal to punish with a tax increase the same segment of the population they are trying to convince to create more jobs.

By contrast, Mitt Romney succinctly put forward a five step plan last week on CNBC with Larry Kudlow that demonstrates why by more than a 2:1 margin voters trust Romney to manage the economy over Barack Obama. The five point plan stands in stark contrast to "most of the measures the President pursued that hurt job creation" according to Romney, and includes the following principles:

  1. Take "extraordinary advantage" of America's Energy Resources
  2. Opening up Foreign Trade, particularly in Latin America
  3. Convince the world that America is serious about Balancing our Federal Budget
  4. Improve our Human Capital with training for adults and better schools for our kids.
  5. Restore Economic Freedom – "Keep tax rates down. Get regulators to see themselves as allies of enterprise; not the enemies."

Romney asserted, "If we do these things, you'll see America's economy come roaring back…We'll see the kind of economic resurgence the American people expected some years ago."

Romney told Kudlow that he would lay out more details of his plans to restore our economy to health in coming weeks of the campaign. In various speeches and policy briefs, the GOP nominee has already done that.

Compared to Obama's war on fossil fuels, his seizure of the health care and financial services industries, his 50% increase in the federal debt with trillion dollar annual deficits, an avalanche of new taxes particularly in ObamaCare, and a "regulation-gone-wild" philosophy throughout the bureaucracies, Romney's bullet point plan sounds like good place to start over. November can't come soon enough.

Ex-Time editor: Dem Party 'criminal organization'!

WND ^ | 31 July 2012 | by Chelsea Schilling

The entire history of the Democratic Party is one of crime and corruption, according to former Time magazine associate editor Michael Walsh.

In a radio interview with WND's Greg Corombos, Walsh provides a detailed analysis of the party's dark past – from Aaron Burr's building of Tammany Hall and how Democrats tried to defeat Abraham Lincoln's re-election bid to Franklin Roosevelt's rise to the presidency and the Chicago machine connected to the Obama administration.

"What distinguishes them is a real desire to win," he explained. "They're the oldest party in the country obviously. ...

(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...

Why The Stimulus Fails

Has Obama Peaked?

American Spectator ^ | 7-31-2012 | J.T. Young

Democrats' biggest concern isn't the economy; it's whether Obama has already peaked. There are numerous reasons to believe it's true. If true, there are rapidly diminishing opportunities for the Administration to reverse it, and a growing list that could accelerate it.
Pick your poll: the presidential race is a toss-up. ...
The race has been so tight for so long, that it is not news -- until we factor in campaign spending. While the focus has been on Republicans' advantage with Super PACs, the overlooked story is how much Obama has outspent Romney on campaign advertising.
....
Looking at the polls in this context, the worry should be clear: despite significantly outspending Romney, Obama has gotten no separation from him. Nor is it just Democratic spending that has assailed Romney. He weathered a long grueling primary, during which he was the constant target of all challengers.
.....
The realization should be emerging that Obama was not really that strong in 2008, when he massively outspent a disadvantaged opponent. And he is even weaker now -- despite an early and significant spending advantage -- when he will be unable to financially overwhelm a stronger opponent. The questions Democrats must be asking is: Has Obama already peaked? And can he hold on just long enough?
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...

Regulator rejects government mortgage write-down plan!

reuters ^ | 7/31/2012 | Reuters

The top housing regulator rebuffed the offer of taxpayer funds to reduce mortgages held by struggling homeowners on Tuesday, a blow to the Obama administration which is keen to show voters it can help fix the housing market.

Calling it a challenging decision, the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said using funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program would not make a meaningful improvement in reducing foreclosures in a cost-effective way for taxpayers.

"The anticipated benefits do not outweigh the costs and risks," the Federal Housing Finance Agency's head Edward DeMarco told reporters.

The administration has been pressuring DeMarco to allow the government-controlled mortgage financing agencies to do more principal writedowns. But DeMarco has maintained that this would needlessly drive up the costs of their taxpayer bailout.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...

Praise the Troops, Screw the Troops!

Family Security Matters ^ | July 30, 2012 | RALPH PETERS

It's a rare politician, left, right or center, who won't grab a photo opportunity with our troops then plaster the image all over campaign materials. Even the hard left has learned to mouth insincere praise for the men and women in uniform before attacking our national defense. Nonetheless, we're about to see another shameless and shabby example of Capitol Hill hypocrisy: Those senators and representatives-including yours, my fellow conservatives--are going to put 100,000 veterans out on the street. And that's just the beginning.
It's not just the dreaded sequestration issue, which would force across-the-board cuts at the Pentagon. Those who have served our country in our recent wars are going to get served with pink slips over the next few years, no matter what happens before the automatic-cuts deadline on the Hill. Why? Because spending is going to get tighter, and Republicans and Democrats alike are going to slash troop strength to protect lavish spending on our defense-industry cartel. When the political chips are down, ain't nobody on the Hill loves a Soldier more than he loves Lockheed-Martin.
There really is plenty of fat, even now, in our vast defense budget. But instead of cutting the fat, we'll cut the muscle. You're going to hear the usual rationale: "We won't need ground troops in tomorrow's wars." We've been sold that same b.s. time and again. Replay recent history: After World War II, the advocates of airpower swore the age of the infantryman had passed. We demobilized and starved the handful of Army divisions remaining on active duty. And what came next? Korea, an infantryman's war, and we were embarrassingly unready. Then we were told that the age of the grunt had really, really passed, since atomic weapons would rule the battlefield. And we cut Soldiers again to invest in long-range bombers and missiles. And what came next? Vietnam, another infantryman's war.
After Vietnam, every "serious" person knew we'd never do anything like that again. So we hollowed out our ground forces. Yet, every significant military action over the following decades required boots on the ground: Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, the Balkans, even Sinai peacekeeping. Then a new Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, assured us that we didn't need all those ground troops anymore: Better to free up money for the technologies that single-handedly would win the coming wars, and we could start by cutting two Army divisions and paring down the Marine Corps. And what came next? Afghanistan and Iraq, where our too-lean ground forces were stretched to the limit (but did their duty nobly).
Now we're drawing down from Afghanistan. And for the fifth time since the Second World War, we're told that we don't need all those grunts, or gunners, or armored crewmen...because technology is going to be the only game in town in future conflicts.
Why does this happen again and again? Because members of Congress believe it? Naw. Follow the money. All those Hill-hugging hypocrites who trip over their Italian loafers to get one more picture with the troops know where their steak-house dinner rolls are buttered: The votes of our troops are statistically irrelevant in most home-district elections, and our troops aren't big campaign donors. Screw them, Jack.
Meanwhile, the big-enough-to-fail-again-and-again defense-industry behemoths, which have consolidated so that there's no true capitalist competition left, have broken free of the old business-school model that focused on efficiency. You don't need to be efficient, or to build reliable weaponry, when you've bought Congress.
How did the defense cartel buy your local party huckster, liberal or conservative? Not with outright bribes (at least, not in most cases). Bribes are "old school." And they've gone far beyond mere campaign contributions. They did it by turning their back on basic efficiencies to disperse sub-contracts, design offices, production facilities, shipping hubs, branch offices and anything else they can think of to all fifty states and to as many Congressional districts as possible, driving up production costs and reducing reliability. They've made it about jobs "back home," and that will always trump a serious approach to our national defense on the part of Congress.
We're already hearing it. Defense-industry execs testified before Congress this month on the effects of impending budget cuts. Not one of them defended the men and women in uniform. Instead, we heard an outright lie that budget cuts would destroy two-million defense-industry jobs. Folks, it just ain't so. They're lying like Bill Clinton with his zipper down in the Oval Office closet. But the big guns on the Hill shoot blanks in the showdown with the defense cartel. Nobody, not a single member of Congress, asked hard questions.
Will some defense-industry jobs be lost if deep budget cuts go through? Yes, although in far, far smaller numbers than the corporate-jet executives claim. But should defense-industry workers be entitled to political protection denied our troops? I don't want to see any hardworking American lose his or her job, but if I have to choose between keeping the most-experienced troops in the world in American uniforms, or putting them back on the block so cartel CEOs-who despise true capitalism-can buy an even bigger ski lodge in Steamboat Springs to go with their seaside mansion on St. Bart's, well, I'll keep the troops, thanks. Let me stress again: Nobody on the Hill challenged the wild defense-industry claims. They never do. No one even asked why we should spend, say, an average of seven million dollars to preserve a $70,000-a-year job in the defense industry. Conservatives, especially, should be ashamed of what amounts to corporate welfare. If we want to both employ a wide range of workers and truly help our country, put the money into burying telephone lines, not into more buried profits for weapons-that-don't-work hucksters in five-thousand-dollar suits. How many of you realize that, two decades ago, Congress essentially allowed defense contractors to write our weapons-procurement laws? Think they had the taxpayers' best interests at heart? As a result of that shameful episode, when the big corporations (there's still integrity and value in smaller defense companies, but the big guys crush them whenever they can) land contracts that run into the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars, they're written so that there's no real liability, if the product doesn't work.
And don't get me started on "cost-plus" contracts, after the shameless waste I saw in Iraq.
Take one current example of how Congress helps to scam us, the F-22 fighter, which we were told would be so versatile it would do everything except cure cancer. It's been in the inventory for several years now, at a cost of $350 million per airplane (some analysts claim it's $500 million per plane), not including maintenance costs, training, etc. Well, that aircraft has yet to fly a single combat mission. It's had crippling software and avionics problems; the stealth material is unstable; there are toxic-substance fears; and, stunningly, it can't even reliably deliver oxygen to the pilots: One aircraft crashed and killed the pilot (although there's been an apparent cover-up of the cause, though not of the crash itself), and over a dozen other pilots have refused to fly the airplane after black-out experiences. Even for training missions, the F-22 has been grounded for up to six months at a time.
Would you, the taxpayer, call that a good deal? Would you cut a single decorated Marine gunnery sergeant with six combat tours to fund it? And did the contractor who foisted it on the Pentagon, Lockheed Martin, have to make things right? Naw. Lockheed Martin remains defense contractor number one-and you, the taxpayer, foot the bill for fixes to the F-22.
Imagine if you laid out your hard-earned money for an absolute-top-of-the-line washing machine you were told was going to be the best ever and worth every penny, then you got it home and hooked it up, and it never made it through a single wash cycle. Would you think it was fair for the store that sold you that machine to shrug and tell you it would cost another grand, maybe more, for them to fix it for you? And no guarantees it would stay fixed. Oh, and that sales contract you signed says you can't go to anyone else for repairs-proprietary information involved, plus, read that fine print, etc. That's how our defense-industry cartel does business folks. That ain't capitalism.
Now there's another "miracle" aircraft under contract, the F-35. It's on its way to doubling its projected cost and fraught with problems that limit its utility. Even if the cost per aircraft doesn't increase another penny, this will still be the most-expensive acquisition program in Pentagon history. And, faced with a choice, how many members of Congress do you think will stick up for keeping a veteran Army sergeant or Marine captain on duty, if doing so threatens F-35 funding? (I once had high hopes for the F-35 myself, before it turned into another disgraceful boondoggle.) Don't get me wrong: I'd like a bigger, stronger, more capable Air Force than we have. Numbers matter. And we need new tankers, global-reach bombers, dedicated ground attack aircraft (to replace the magnificent, dirt-cheap old A-10) and even next-generation transport aircraft. Instead, we're building air-superiority fighters that have no enemy. It's gotten so bad that the Air Force makes a show of "deploying" the F-22 to trouble spots, but always insures there's a squadron of old F-15s nearby to do the actual fighting. Yup, Washington just does wonders for your integrity.
Why does even the military brass fail to stand up for the troops or demand that weapons work? The most-shameful revolving door in Washington shuttles retired generals and admirals to outrageous, do-nothing positions in the defense industry. And these paragons of honor are not about to criticize defense contractors who deliver worthless crap. Wouldn't want to risk those multiple country-club memberships and the do-nothing annual board meetings at Pebble Beach (golf attire optional). By the way, my rule for buying new weapons is simple: "A.R.A.," for Appropriate, Robust and Affordable. Instead, we're buying weapons that don't address our real security problems, aircraft that require sixty hours of maintenance or more for every hour of flight time, and dubious systems that are breaking the budget to the point where we can't afford enough weapons to keep a serious war going. If we ever had to fight a "big one," the F-22, even if it made it into combat, wouldn't last three months before it wound up permanently grounded because of its fragility. Yet, a war with China, if one ever came, might last a decade. Every service has made some wasteful choices, not just the Air Force. Now the party's over. And who are the generals sticking up for? Not the troops. They're cool with dumping combat veterans into a weak jobs market (can't dump those industry workers, though-those jobs really matter, since they're in Congressional districts). Besides, General B. D. Joker knows he isn't going to unemployed.
When President Eisenhower-a former career Soldier and an underrated chief executive-drafted his famous speech warning of the "defense-industrial complex," the first version spoke of a "defense-industrial-congressional complex." Political advisers convinced him to cut the "congressional" reference to avoid a confrontation with the Hill. Well, Eisenhower was right the first time. And, since his presidency, things have gotten much, much worse.
The next time Senator Bucksbucket or Congresswoman Gimmeemo flashes one of those photos in which they're surrounded by troops, ask him or her why they're rushing to slash veterans we're going to need to preserve funding for weapons that don't work. You may get some boilerplate answer (if you get any answer at all), but the truth is that, for our "patriotic" members of Congress, our troops are as disposable as toilet paper. They praise the heroes, but count the zeroes. In the wise words of young Robert Zimmerman, "Money doesn't talk: It swears." And our troops are left voiceless.
Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/praise-the-troops-screw-the-troops?f=must_reads#ixzz22AoW5Djr Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Ray Stevens - Obama Nation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFaCytKXOSQ&feature=player_embedded

The Trusty Lap Dog

Posted Image

Business License

Posted Image

Freedom

Posted Image

You Didn't Lose...

Posted Image

OWE-LYMPICS

Posted Image

RICE

Posted Image

Catching Voters

Posted Image

It is better...

Posted Image

Voter Registration

Posted Image

The Media

Posted Image

Solidarity

Posted Image

Eat somewhere else!

Posted Image

Olympic Uniforms

Posted Image

Food Stamp Friday

Posted Image

We Object

Posted Image

Welcome to Texas

Posted Image

Convergence

Posted Image

Fighting

Posted Image

Dems register to vote any place!

Posted Image

The Jewish Dilemma of Barack Obama!

Pruden & Politics ^ | July 31, 2012 | Wes Pruden

The Democrats have a Jewish problem, and his name is Barack Obama. Reluctantly, many Jews, loyal Democrats by birth and tradition, have concluded that he’s not The One they thought he was.
With even greater reluctance, the White House has concluded that their Jewish problem is real, growing, and they better do something about it.

Mitt Romney’s dramatic declaration Sunday in Jerusalem that preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon is America’s “highest national security priority” and military force should not be excluded, and that he regards Jerusalem as the true capital of Israel, puts in stark relief the difference between what the two candidates think about America’s only real ally in the Middle East.
Mr. Romney is willing, even eager, to give heartfelt, emphatic, unadulterated, full-throated support for the Jewish state in its hour of greatest peril since the founding. Mr. Obama can’t do that because he doesn’t “feel the love.” He sprang from a culture of radicalism where Israel was regarded as illegitimate, if not evil. He gives the clear impression that he doesn’t like Jews very much.
Mr. Obama repeats only empty, bland assurances that everything is OK, that the friends of Israel shouldn’t worry because the messiah from Chicago is on the watch. U.S.-Israeli ties, he told a rally the other day in Palm Beach, are stronger than ever. That’s bunk, as Sen. John McCain bluntly told a television interviewer: “Everybody knows that relations with Israel have never been worse.”
Bland assurances are no longer enough to satisfy betrayed true believers; the monolithic Jewish support for Democrats, any Democrat, is fraying around the edges. Merely telling skeptical and suspicious Jewish voters not to believe their own eyes and ears is no longer effective. No one expects Mitt Romney to win a majority of Jewish voters on Nov. 6, or anything close to it. He doesn’t have to. If he can peel away three or four percentage points in certain swing states, particularly Florida and Ohio, that would change the game.
John McCain spent a lot of time, attention and money to attempt this four years ago. George W. Bush made such an attempt in 2004. Neither worked. But 2012 is a different ball game.
Jewish voters, like others of various passions and persuasions, have had four years to confront buyer’s remorse. Four years of Barack Obama have taught even slow learners to pay attention.
The proof is that a group of the slow learners, Jewish liberals still in love with Mr. Obama even if he isn’t in love with them, are putting together a campaign to answer the Republican Jewish Coalition’s successful work to get the friends of Israel to wake up and sniff the odor of harsh reality. This is not, a Democratic operative told Politico, the Capitol Hill daily, a case of Obama being “swift boated.” Nobody is telling stories about the president. His Jewish critics are merely laying out what everybody who has been half-awake during the past four years already knows.
Aaron David Miller, who has worked for several Democratic presidents over a quarter of a century, warns Democrats of “turbulence ahead” in a commentary in Foreign Policy magazine that has shaken up Jewish assumptions. “I’ve watched a few presidents come and go on this issue,” he writes, “and Obama really is different. Unlike [Bill] Clinton and George W. Bush, Obama isn’t in love with the idea of Israel. He has a harder time making allowances for Israeli behavior he doesn’t like. . . the president doesn’t emote on many policy issues, with the possible exception of health care. But on Israel, he just doesn’t buy the ‘tiny state living on the knife’s edge with the dark past’ argument.”
Alas, the knife’s edge is exactly where Israel lives, like it or not, and Israel must act accordingly. Mitt Romney, like his constituents – some Jewish, most not, and many of them evangelical Christians – understands that. Mr. Romney, like that constituency, is not embarrassed to “emote” about it. Barack Obama can’t “emote” because to him Israel is not a natural friend and ally, bound to America by considerations of blood, faith and circumstance, but a nuisance. Why can’t Israel just go away? This is hard for Jews, who have been voting Democratic since their grandfathers rallied to FDR and the New Deal, to accept as the new reality. It has been easier to pretend there’s no problem. But now there is a problem, and it’s too big to hide with convenient pretense.

House to vote on bill terminating federal workers who don't pay their taxes (100K owe $1 billion)

The Hill ^ | 7/30/12 | Pete Kasperowicz, Bernie Becker

The House will vote on legislation as early as Tuesday that would require the federal government to terminate workers with "seriously delinquent" tax debts.

The bill, which also would prohibit the government from hiring people who are late on their tax payments, tries to deal with the roughly 100,000 federal workers who are usually behind on their taxes each year.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the bill’s sponsor, has cited IRS data indicating that these workers owed a combined $1 billion in delinquent taxes in 2009, up from roughly $600 million in 2004.

Even with the increased amount, the number of federal employees who are late in their tax payments has remained steady, at about 100,000 each year.

"Federal employees, contractors and grantees have an obvious obligation to pay their taxes," Chaffetz said when he introduced his bill in 2011. "Because they draw their compensation and funds from the American taxpayers, they owe it to the taxpayers themselves to be compliant. Those that do not should be fired or lose funding."

The vote on the measure, H.R. 828, comes after Republicans and Democrats, especially those from the Washington, D.C.-area, have sparred for months over proposals dealing with the federal workforce.

Top Democrats like House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) voted against this year’s payroll tax cut extension, a top White House priority, because future government employees would help foot the bill.

“Republicans have unfairly targeted federal employees throughout this Congress,” Mariel Saez, a Hoyer spokeswoman, told The Hill in a Monday statement. “Rep. Hoyer believes House Republicans are engaged in reckless and unconstructive political theater when they target federal employees with bills like this one.”

Republicans have looked to the federal workforce for savings to help undo the automatic spending cuts set to begin next year.

Chaffetz’s bill would open up all federal workers to be fired for not paying their income taxes, although it would require the Office of Personnel Management to put in place procedures ensuring due process.

The government would be required to give workers 180 days to show their debt is being paid off. Under current law, only IRS employees can be fired for income tax delinquency.

Chaffetz also pushed to exempt active service members from the measure, and the GOP accepted a Democratic proposal to ensure that the bill wouldn’t impede revenue collection.

House Republicans are considering the bill under a suspension of rules, which means a two-thirds majority will be required to pass it. Republicans can be expected to support it, so roughly 40 to 50 Democrats will be needed for passage.

The House Oversight Committee cleared the measure by voice vote last year, a sign of at least some Democratic support.

But unions representing federal workers and Democrats like Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight panel, argue only a sliver of federal workers aren’t compliant on their taxes.

“We find this measure redundant, since there are sufficient remedies already in place, including wage garnishment, to deal with those who fall behind in their tax obligations, but are capable of repayment,” Colleen Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, told The Hill in a statement.

Corn for Food, Not Fuel!

NY Times (Op-Editorial) ^ | July 30, 2012 | COLIN A. CARTER and HENRY I. MILLER

IT is not often that a stroke of a pen can quickly undo the ravages of nature, but federal regulators now have an opportunity to do just that. Americans’ food budgets will be hit hard by the ongoing Midwestern drought, the worst since 1956. Food bills will rise and many farmers will go bust.
An act of God, right? Well, the drought itself may be, but a human remedy for some of the fallout is at hand — if only the federal authorities would act.

By suspending renewable-fuel standards that were unwise from the start, the Environmental Protection Agency could divert vast amounts of corn from inefficient ethanol production back into the food chain, where market forces and common sense dictate it should go.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

GAO says expanded food stamp eligibility raises costs, chances of abuse!

The Hill ^ | 7/30/2012 | By Pete Kasperowicz

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Monday that says the ability of states to expand eligibility for federal food stamps made about 473,000 more people eligible for food stamps, and added about $460 million in extra costs in 2010. The GAO also said this increased expansion has increased the chances of fraud and abuse of the food stamp program.

The report was requested by Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and leaders of the House Agriculture Committee, in light of dramatically rising costs to administer the $70 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp program.

GAO found that eligibility for SNAP has more than doubled in the last decade, which its costs have nearly quadrupled. And while GAO said the recent recession has contributed to increased eligibility and increased costs for the program, the ability of states to expand eligibility for the program is also a significant factor.

(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...

Dems dump Pelosi just like Obama!


Abby W. Schachter

We've reported here and here about the mounting number of Democrats who will not be following President Obama to Charlotte for his reelection party.
Today comes word that an even more significant number of Democrats are abandoning Rep. Nany Pelosi in her time of need as the Democratic Congressional Committee has tried and failed to get fellow Democratic congresspeople to pony up their dues for the November election.
"64 Democrats — around one-third of the entire caucus — hadn’t paid anything to the DCCC, according to a party document provided to POLITICO. Another 109 members had paid only a portion of what they owe in dues, which are calculated based on seniority and committee assignments."

The DCCC needs the money to help its members campaign for reelection and election against surging Republicans, who have made sure their party's coffers are full.
"In June, GOP members flooded the National Republican Congressional Committee with nearly $6.4 million. The DCCC secured just $1.8 million from Democratic lawmakers."
Aparently close ties to Pelosi herself doesn't seem to matter either.
"Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and George Miller of California, two close allies, had paid less than $300,000 apiece. They each owe $450,000," Politico reports.

And this on the heels of news that Obama's campaign spent more in June than it took in.
What's the opposite of a rising tide lifts all boats?


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/capitol/pelosi_abandoned_just_like_obama_KrhYfWPVhrCI2vmC5AYLcK#ixzz22CVqREPs

Obama Administration To Increase Fast & Furious After Aurora Shootings

Red State ^ | 7/27/2012 | Staff

The Obama Administration: Where Irony Goes To Die



The only saving grace of having a president devoid of principles, experience, or class is that he and his sycophants, when under pressure, routinely push forward statements and ideas that are so bizarre as to be unbelievable outside a very low-brow comedy routine.

For instance. Having suffered through 40 months of economic mismanagement unlike anything we’ve experienced since FDR, we’re told by the president, with no apparent sense of irony, that the private sector is “doing fine” and it is the government sector, that sector which is loss center on the national ledgers, that is hurting. Ordinarily, hovering with 15+% unemployment (U-6) is not considered “doing fine” and reducing government workers would be seen a good thing for the economy. The same applies with Obama’s essay into economic philosophy where we found that all business success flows from government expenditures via his infamous “somebody else made that happen” comment.

Now we are seeing the same effect taking hold in the aftermath of the tragic shooting in Aurora, CO.
Unable to demagogue this particular tragedy for electoral gain, Obama has apparently decided to use the incident to shore up his base while not provoking a full-on fight with the majority of Americans who realize that laws only serve to restrain the law abiding. Criminals and outlaws, by definition, disregard laws the rest of us obey.
Like Obama’s actions in many other areas, this is shaping up as a case study of what happens when an administration has no sense of irony. This from Major Garrett at National Journal in an article called Three Simple Steps which alleges to lay out three regulatory steps the administration could take to restrict gun ownership in America:
2. Expand Obama’s new requirement issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that gun shops in border states report customers who purchase two or more domestically made assault weapons within five business days. The courts have upheld the reporting requirement, and it could be expanded nationwide without congressional action. Gun-control advocates credit Obama for taking the initial step on tracking multiple sales in border states (where Mexican cartel violence has risen), but a national system could help make multiple assault-weapon purchases more visible and traceable.
This statement is astonishing on a lot of levels. The first is that Congress will sit idly by and let the ATF increase reporting requirements via regulation. No one involved in the gun rights debate, from either side, believes that to be the case.
The most astonishing part is that an administration that is complicit in the killings of a few thousand Mexicans by weapons supplied to them with the full knowledge and cooperation of the federal government would even think about touting Fast & Furious as a success story worth emulating in the rest of the country.
That this could happen, and that it would be endorsed by the various gun-grabbing groups, indicates that there was more than a little truth in the supposition that the real mission of Fast & Furious was to create a bodycount on the border in order to push for more stringent gun control laws and regulations.

My Apologies: The White House is Always the Last to Know!

Townhall.com ^ | July 31, 2012 | John Ransom

Dear Fannie Mae,
It’s not you; it’s them.
The other day I wrote in a column, The Reddest of All Presidents, that a “host of economists, who always seem to be the last to know, have cut GDP growth forecasts recently, in light of rising unemployment and falling manufacturing output. The latest to see the light at the end of the tunnel in its proper context as a speeding train coming right at us is Fannie Mae’s chief economist, Doug Duncan. Fannie Mae always seems to be the last-est of the last to know.”
Please accept my apologies, Mr. Duncan. I was wrong.
The White House is always the last to know.
But, you know how busy the White House is building an economy “built to last,” while the rest of us don’t build anything.
On Friday, the White House surreptitiously revised downward their Gross Domestic Product forecast for the rest of year to 2.3 percent for the full year 2012, and 2.7 percent for the year 2013.
Given the subpar GDP growth already on the books for the year -1.75 percent before they revise the estimate downward again, which of course they WILL do- that means that the White House is projecting 2nd half economic growth of over 2.8 percent; and then an economic slowdown after that.
And THAT means the White House still has no clue.
The White House is predicting that the economy will speed up in the fall- based on what? Occupy Walmart spending?- and then slowdown for 2013.
Riiiight.
The Obamaconomy has only averaged about 2.2 percent annually in three and a half years of failed policies, says Jim Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute who compares Obama’s economy vs. Reagan’s. Pethokoukis also says that falling below the 2 percent GDP threshold- which I predicted back in December we would do this year- is a bad sign of things to come.
“Indeed, research from the Federal Reserve finds that that since 1947,” writes Pethokoukis, “when year-over-year real GDP growth falls below 2%, recession follows within a year 70% of the time. The U.S. economy remains in the Recession Red Zone.”
GDP growth is not one of those things that you can’t just jawbone via a teleprompter. Nor can you just borrow money and throw currency at the problem.
In all of 2010, when stimulus spending was supposed to be supercharging our economy, the Bureau of Economic Analysis' revised estimate released in July 2012 says that economy grew at a rate of 2.4 percent, far below what Obama thinks a do-nothing Congress can do in the second half of this year by getting Obama to do, um, nothing, finally.
And therein is the problem for Obama.
If you dig into the numbers, GDP, job growth, income and even tax revenues have been remarkably bad for an economy that is now spending a super-Keynesian 40 percent of GDP on super-charging GDP.
By the end of Obama’s first term, the country will have borrowed close to $5 trillion dollars, only to see that money return about 12 cents to the economy on every dollar borrowed- even if using the White House’s most hilarious gag-book estimates.
And the White House thinks that we should be borrowing more money so we can super-duper-charge the economy.
You’d really have to try hard to borrow $5 trillion and get back only $580 billion.
But that’s the type of math that Obama’s given us.
To put it another way, a twenty-year Treasury note, now at historically low rates, has offered better rates through the month of July- mostly- than all the fake “investing” Obama has done creating an economy “built to last” that “you didn’t build.”
If you take out the cost of financing all that growth, the country is in the hole.
They have borrowed all that money to support a presidency that has bought us less than zero.
You and I know it, because we live out here in flyover country and have to build businesses and pay for groceries and try to get raises to send our kids to college, while also supporting the 40 percent of government that drags down our GDP.
But in Washington, they are always the last to know.
You know? Yes, you do

Left-Wing Activists Admit Allen West Terrifies Them

PJ Media ^ | 7-31-2012 | Matthew Vadum

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is the activist Left’s number one congressional target this election cycle because he poses an existential threat to progressivism, a prominent professional left-wing organizer suggests.

West is “a national rising star in the Tea Party,” Becky Bond explained during a panel discussion at the Campaign for America’s Future’s recent Take Back the American Dream confab in Washington, D.C.
The famously outspoken retired Army lieutenant colonel with the special talent for getting under Democrats’ skin “is going to start to define” what the Republican Party stands for, said Bond, president of the well-funded Credo SuperPAC.
....
The danger, as Bond sees it, is that if West’s brand of politics catches on nationwide, American politics may shift rightward.
“And he’s a freshman,” Bond said. “If we don’t take him down now, he’s raising millions of dollars, and he’s going to set what the new normal is for the Republican Party.”
.... Read the rest.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...

Monday, July 30, 2012

Rep. Bachmann's Concern Over Muslim Brotherhood Connections in Government Grows

examiner.com ^ | JULY 29, 2012 | SCOTT PAULSON

Last week, when U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other GOP House members wrote letters suggesting that federal government personnel close to the White House be investigated more closely for Muslim Brotherhood connections, they were severely criticized. The criticism was due to a sentence in one of the letters that mentioned Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin.
...
Now, new information has emerged which is being called supportive of the letter-writing politicians’ assertion that there is a need for scrutiny of persons in federal government – including some that are close to the White House.

 Independent Sentinel reports that Huma Abedin was an Assistant Editor of the “Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs” (IMMA) from 2002 to 2008. She was also on the publication’s board the same time that Abdullah Omar Naseef, who allegedly has strong connections to al-Qaeda via fundraising for the terrorist group, served on the board in 2002 and 2003.

The latest allegations regarding Huma Abedin’s Naseef-connection is giving growing support for Bachmann’s call for an investigation of federal government workers and credence to her refusal to apologize and back down.

(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...

Roseanne Barr Wishes Cancer on Chick-Fil-A Customers!

Vision to America ^ | 7/27/12

ABC’s The View honored Roseanne Barr with a guest-host spot on July 19, which shows they probably aren’t in the habit of evaluating her sanity based on her Twitter rants. Take her wishing cancer on Chick-Fil-A fans this morning: “anyone who eats S–t Fil-A deserves to get the cancer that is sure to come from eating antibiotic filled tortured chickens 4Christ”.

This came after she told the restaurant chain to suck an appendage she doesn’t have.

This outbreak of hate was retweeted by comedian Joe Rogan, who recently hosted a newfangled version of “Fear Factor” on NBC. Shortly after her get-cancer tweet, she doubled down:
“off to grab a s–it fil-A sandwich on my way to worshipping Christ, supporting Aipac and war in Iran.”

What You May Not Know About License Plate And Cell Phone Tracking

ACLU ^ | 7-30-2012 | Kade Crockford, ACLU of Massachusetts

Today the ACLU is launching a nationwide effort to find out more about automatic license plate readers (ALPR). By snapping photographs of each license plate they encounter—up to three thousand per minute—and retaining records of who was where when, license plate readers are fundamentally threatening our freedom on the open road.

You may have seen the recent New York Times op-ed that admonished us to start referring to our mobile devices as “trackers” instead of “phones.” Perhaps as ALPR technology spreads we should start saying “tracker” in place of “car,” too. We need statutory protections to limit the collection, retention, and sharing of our travel information.

Obama's entrepreneurial Communist Manifesto!

World Net Daily ^ | 7/29/12

President Obama’s business comments a couple weeks ago in Roanoke, Va., in which he said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” sounded more communistic than capitalistic, especially since the “somebody” to whom Obama referred was, in fact, the U.S. federal government.

Progressives and the mainstream media were quick to come to the aid of the president’s economic gaffe by stating that similar statements have been said by other entrepreneurial moguls like Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Andrew Carnegie and Walter Chrysler. Others excused Obama by saying he “borrowed” his business verbiage from Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Ads by GoogleI Will Commit to Pray for our nation in 2012! Sign up now. BillyGraham.org/PrayerCommitmentThe Coming Of Jesus You Think You Know The Bible Well? Test Yourself With Our Trivia Game www.BibleTriviaTime.comNo one is denying the genius of collective contributions or the power of working together. One of my favorite acrostics is TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More. But the key difference between President Obama’s teamwork and all the rest of those inspirational innovators is that the latter were referencing other individuals’ collaborative efforts within their own entrepreneurship, while Obama was pointing to politicians and specifically the federal government as the business associates responsible for your success.
Look for yourself at how Obama progressively unveiled “government” as the “somebody” in his speech and rationale (underlines added):
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...

GM Stock Hits New Lows, Company in Turmoil

Breitbart ^ | 7/30/12 | Ben Shapiro

Remember that vaunted General Motors recovery ushered in by President Obama’s bold bailout program?

Well, not so much.

In June 2009, GM filed for Obama-managed bankruptcy, costing the taxpayer some $50 billion. The vast majority of that cash was never paid back by GM. In November 2010, GM issued a new initial public offering at a price of $33 per share. Today, GM stock is trading at approximately $19.36, down about 40% from its initial price.

And the executive turmoil in the company is reaching fever pitch. Opel, a majority-owned subsidiary of GM, dumped CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke about two weeks ago. GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky replaced him. Analysts immediately claimed, “GM appeared to be panicking as the change comes so soon after a turnaround plan for the struggling Opel was approved and a replacement was not named.”

Another analyst stated, “The timing of today’s announcement bodes poorly for the condition of GM’s European business.” Then, Opel’s new design chief Dave Lyon was thrown out of the building before even beginning his job. Within the week, global marketing honcho Joel Ewanick got tossed.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

Liberal Rage and Intolerance: Chick-fil-A is only the Beginning!

Les Femmes - The Truth ^ | 7/30/2012 | Mary Ann Kreitzer

If liberals needed exposing for their in-your-face-we-hate-you intolerance, the Chick-Fil-A episode has unmasked their bloody fangs. Nobody who believes in traditional marriage may go unpunished. Just like "gay" activists went after those who donated to Proposition 8 in California, they and their fellow travelers are now lunging for the throat of a business that's as American as apple pie and fried chicken.

Let's take a look at the back story that brought out the muttations foaming at the mouth for chicken blood and snapping at the heels of the company. It began back in January with a story about Chick-Fil-A donating food to several traditional marriage conferences. That was enough to put the company on the radar screen for annihilation. In November, the gay advocacy group Equality Matters revealed that the company had donated close to $2 million to organizations that defend traditional marriage. But the spark that ignited over-the-top intolerant rage against the company was an interview of 91-year-old president Dan Cathy with the Baptist Press. Here's the section of the interview that brought out the homosexual hatemongers:
The company invests in Christian growth and ministry through its WinShape Foundation (WinShape.com). The name comes from the idea of shaping people to be winners.
It began as a college scholarship and expanded to a foster care program, an international ministry, and a conference and retreat center modeled after the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove.
"That morphed into a marriage program in conjunction with national marriage ministries," Cathy added.
Some have opposed the company's support of the traditional family. "Well, guilty as charged," said Cathy when asked about the company's position.
"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.
"We operate as a family business ... our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized.
"We intend to stay the course," he said. "We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."
And there you have it folks. Surprise! Cathy is not calling for lynching homosexuals or banning them from lunch counters. He doesn't refuse to serve them at his restaurants. He is simply defending his own belief in traditional marriage as the bulwark of the Christian family and society. What he implies in the interview is a dislike of divorce, for heaven's sake! Thousands of years of history support Cathy's view. What exactly supports the "gay" redefinition of marriage? Nothing -- not a single thing!

When did anyone give homosexuals the right to define for all of us that marital intercourse is the same as anal sex? No one is denying civil rights of homosexuals by telling the truth that they can't marry. And I use the word CAN'T deliberately. It is a physical impossibility for two men or two women to marry each other because their bodies do not fit together. It's the natural law. It's like claiming your civil rights are being violated because you can't fly.

At any rate, liberal politicians are piling on telling the company not to open resturants in their cities. The intolerance and demagoguery of the politicians is shocking! Since when does a politician, elected by the people, have the right to use the force of government to discriminate against Chick-Fil-A. That's the discrimination here; not discrimination against homosexuals. Let the "gay" activists organize a boycott of the company. That's the American way. Frankly, I avoid Starbucks like bubonic plague. But that's not the same thing as using the power of the state to crush a business that is politically incorrect.

This is just the beginning and a warning to Christian businesses that kristallnacht is coming to them too. Stand up and fight while you still can!

Oh...and my advice. "Eat mor chikin."

Cantor calls Pelosi’s comments on Jewish Republicans ‘insulting’

Conservative Byte ^ | 7/30/12

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s recent suggestion that Jewish voters are “being exploited” by Republican leaders for political gain drew a sharp response Sunday from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish Republican, who said the remarks were “patronizing” and “insulting.”

The California Democrat suggested that Jewish voters were “being exploited” by Republican leaders trying to portray President Obama as un-supportive of Israel’s national security efforts.

Pelosi made the comment when asked during a weekend interview with Bloomberg TV whether she thought Obama would win the Jewish vote, which historically goes to Democrat candidates.

Rich Dems Are Rich People, Too!

New York Magazine ^ | Jul 27, 2012 | Jason Zengerle

Barack Obama—or, rather, “Barack Obama”—sent a downer of an e-mail to his supporters a few weeks ago. “I will be the first president in modern history,” he predicted, “to be outspent in his reelection campaign.” Not all that long ago, it looked like the president might smash the record $746 million he collected in 2008 by raking in $1 billion this time around; now the Obama team expects it will be Mitt Romney who brings in that much. There are many reasons for the reversal, including the rabid largesse of the anti-Obama side. But one key cause seems to have until recently gone oddly overlooked by the president’s fund-raising operation: Party affiliations aside, rich Democrats are still rich people, and expect to be treated as such.

A politico who travels in high-­dollar Democratic circles in New York divides the reluctant donors he knows into three categories: “A third of them were Jewish and were pissed off about Israel. Another third were from the financial sector and were mad at him because he called them ‘fat cats.’ And then a third say, ‘I raised a shitload of money for him and then I never heard from him.’ ” It’s this last group that feels most conflicted. Unlike the Democratic Likudniks and Wall Streeters, who have political or economic reasons for supporting (tacitly or explicitly) Romney, these rich Democrats don’t want to see their party lose the White House. But they also don’t want to reward Obama and his team for what they see as shoddy treatment.

(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...

Muslim American Owner of Santa Monica Shangra-La hotel: “Get the [expletive] Jews out of my pool!”

Atlas Shrugs ^ | 7/30/12 | Pamela Geller

If it were anyone other than a Muslim supremacist Jew-hater, people would be going to jail. Hamas-CAIR would be demanding jail time under hate crime laws if it had been a Muslim in the pool.

I expect his defense will be that Islamic Jew-hatred is in the quran. Obama say "respect it!"
Pakistani-American Muslim Owner of Santa Monica Shangra-La hotel: “Get the [expletive] Jews out of my pool!” July 30, 2012, Quite Normal, (thanks to Howard)

If such a story were the other way around, or involved any other minority, every state-run news agency in America would be squawking in indignation. But as it involves Muslims being Muslims, America isn’t likely to hear much of anything about it.

The event happened 2 years ago, but is only now going to trial.

The Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica, California.
(jewishpress.com) – An upscale hotel on a Santa Monica, California, beach is an odd place to be singled out from a crowd and removed because you are Jewish, but that’s what happened to 18 young professionals who are telling their story to a jury in a discrimination trial taking place in Santa Monica Superior Court this week.
Ari Ryan is the grandson of a Ukranian Jew who lost most of his family in the Holocaust and narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Nazis. Ryan’s grandfather moved to Israel in 1942 and served as a captain in the Israel Defense Forces.
Seventy years later Ryan says he got a small taste of what his grandfather lived through, but rather than in the forests of the Ukraine, it took place at an upscale hotel in Santa Monica. Ryan and more than a dozen others have brought a lawsuit alleging anti-Semitic discrimination against them by a multi-millionaire Muslim American hotel owner.
(Excerpt) Read more at atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com ...

T-Shirt