Sunday, September 30, 2012

Beyond Obamacare (Obama advisor: "We need death panels")

New York Times ^ | Published: September 16, 2012 | By STEVEN RATTNER

We need death panels...unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.
But in the pantheon of toxic issues — the famous “third rails” of American politics — none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical....
Take Britain, which provides universal coverage with spending at proportionately almost half of American levels. Its National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence uses a complex quality-adjusted life year system to put an explicit value (up to about $48,000 per year) on a treatment’s ability to extend life.
At the least, the Independent Payment Advisory Board should be allowed to offer changes in services and costs. We may shrink from such stomach-wrenching choices, but they are inescapable.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

DAILY DOOM ANTIDOTE: Desperate Democrats Deploy Racism Accusations Early to Justify Obama Loss

HillBuzz ^ | September 30, 2012 | Kevin DuJan

Here comes the Washington Post today, claiming that the reason Obama “could” lose the election is racism.

I want to tell you a story about what it was like working in a consulting firm here in Chicago. We had a very nasty VP at the firm who was the old school, screaming and yelling type; the guy was a real ogre. The firm would pitch to about three big clients a month…in deals that would be 100 million+ and would typically take several months of research to put together all the proposals and materials to make a successful bid for the job. There was a lot of lobbying involved regarding the decision-makers across the table who would decide if our firm would land the deal or not. In a lot of ways, it was like a political campaign because we were one candidate out of a handful who wanted to be hired for these jobs.
I could always tell if we were going to land an account by how crazy that one VP would be in the lead up to the final meeting that would determine whether the firm was hired or not. If he felt the account slipping away, that VP would resort to all sorts of nastiness in the last few weeks to try whatever he could to not so much make the case for our firm…but to kind of scorch the Earth and make weird threats if we didn’t get our way. There was general nastiness in the office, screaming and yelling, open hostility amongst the “big bosses”, and tons of excuse-making so that the angry VP wouldn’t take any of the blame for the failure (though, to be honest, I think we lost a lot of these deals just because people didn’t want to have to work with this ogre for the next several years).
When I look at the corrupt, vintage media I actually have a sense of deja vu: the way they behave towards Obama and this election is very much like how that VP would act when he knew we were losing an account. I think dragging out “racism” as the reason people don’t support Obama is only 20% about trying to motivate the most low-information of black voters to turnout on election day “to stop the racists from preventing Obama’s second term”; 80% of the reason the Washington Post is trotting out this old canard is because they are laying the groundwork to excuse away an Obama loss. This is not something they’d be doing if they really expected him to win. What would be the point?
If Obama was really cruising to a victory the news would look a lot like the interoffice memos from when my old firm would know it was close to sealing a very big deal. There is no joy in the corrupt media these days. There is nothing like the 2008 campaign days when the newscasters were all euphoric and waxing about “Hope” and “Change” and singing high hosannas to Obama on the air. That’s all been replaced by a brittle ugliness on the part of the people delivering “the news” that is laced with accusations of racism before-the-fact to explain away the loss that’s coming for “The One”.
I hope you can see this…and can pick up on the fact that despite all their bluster, the Obama acolytes in the corrupt, vintage media are very much behaving like people who expect Obama to lose…though they very much want him to win. They’re desperately trying to salvage his bid for reelection by throwing everything they’ve got at us. It’s going to get so crazy and nasty, folks. I got out of the consulting business here in Chicago because I just couldn’t take the emotional terrorism of working in a firm where every losing bid for a project was accompanied by several weeks’ of open hostility and excuses-making or blame-shifting.
This is what we are going to see on the national stage for the next five weeks. It is going to be brutal.
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Yesterday, my friend Penny Arcade visited Chicago for something and Justin and I got to spend some time with her out and about around town. We decided to wear our matching Romney shirts — the ones that Justin designed and Penny had made through that OOshirts.com site. It’s just a simple shirt with no text and a pic of Romney/Ryan together on the front. Justin and I met Penny at the Chicago Red Line stop, which just happens to be in front of a McDonald’s where a lot of angry, crazy people tend to hang out and mutter things. It had been a while since I’d been down to that particular Red Line station so I completely forgot about the congregation of mutterers and lunatics that assemble there. In retrospect it was not the best place to meet someone who had just flown in from California…but it was the closest spot to the Chick-Fil-A that’s downtown (which is where we wanted to have lunch…to support a local business that is being harassed by an Alderman here in Chicago who needs to score points with gay voters and lefties who think it’s appropriate for an Alderman to wage jihad against small businesses).
I wouldn’t say I particularly go LOOKING for trouble in life but I’m just not all that scared of finding it. Justin felt uncomfortable waiting for Penny to emerge from the subway station because he and I had on our Romney/Ryan shirts and the majority of the mutterers in front of that McDonalds were black…and he thought they’d start shouting things at us or would try to physically harm us because we were not supporting Obama. I’ve actually been wearing these Romney/Ryan shirts everywhere I go for the last few weeks now and I have not had a single bad thing said to me about it. This is night and day opposite of what happened in 2008…where I couldn’t get more than 30 feet out my front door before someone in my neighborhood would shout something nasty at me for supporting McCain/Palin. Whatever psychotic zeal people had for Obama four years ago is completely gone and even in Chicago his advocates and acolytes just can’t muster the same old passion to “get in the faces” of those who don’t belong to his cult.
Well, no one said a damn word to us even in the heart of Chicago, in a mob of squabbling derelicts and street people who’d sporadically shout at one another about something or another. While we were waiting for Penny, we saw a few disagreements break out amongst the street people for one thing or another…mostly turf battles for spots on the sidewalk to panhandle…but not a single nasty remark to Justin or me regarding our shirts. When Penny joined us, I half-expected there to be shouting as we were leaving, because this is classic for Obama supporters (to wait until you are leaving and your back is turned and they feel more emboldened). But, no, not a peep.
I know people clearly SAW the shirts because they are hard to miss. Justin did notice people staring every now and again and he’d say they were obviously trying to process what they were seeing: Romney/Ryan supporters walking around in downtown Chicago. Since there were three of us together, it looked like we were on our way to some event, or possibly just had an event. Some of the gawkers thought it was odd to see us out on the streets of Chicago but not a single person screamed or yelled or even took a nasty jab.
Penny wanted to see Boystown so after lunch we took her up north and showed her around and we didn’t get a single nasty remark or even so much as a cross look up there. This is 100% different from 2008 where I’d routinely be pushed and shoved and spat-at for openly supporting McCain/Palin.
This is something that the Eeyores and Tokyo Roses out there in conservative ranks aren’t factoring in when they write about how “the tee-vee says Obama is winning!’…that win in 2008 came on the back of a relentless and almost religious zeal for “electing the first black president”. Anyone who tried to stand in the way of that just had to be destroyed. Not stopped, but DESTROYED. Those were the marching orders for Obama supporters just four years ago. Here in 2012, these same people can’t even muster a cross word for people openly supporting Romney/Ryan. They just don’t have the enthusiasm they did before.
There is no way this will not translate to the ballot box in November. A great many Obama voters from four years ago just don’t care anymore. While they won’t be voting Republican…I have a feeling a lot of these people just won’t be voting, period. The Obama cult is rooted in Chicago and if those most likely to be cultists aren’t in seek and destroy mode on his behalf this close to the election, then he’s just not going to deliver anywhere near the numbers he brought to the polls in 2008.
Please remember Eeyores and Tokyo Roses: all of the polls the corrupt, vintage media cites showing Obama leads assume he will have even greater voter turnout on his behalf this year than he did when he was elected the first time. What I am seeing on the ground and hearing about in other states just doesn’t support that line of thinking anecdotally.
I think the biggest problem a lot of people have when it comes to politics is that they assume the tee-vee knows so much more than they do. You can learn more about what’s going on in the world just by getting off the couch and walking around your city and interacting with people. The ones reporting “the news” on the tee-vee rarely leave their studios or cushy offices; they have no idea what regular people are thinking, saying, or doing on the ground.
I’m sure I’d be ripped to shreds if I walked into MSNBC headquarters in my Romney/Ryan gear…but I wouldn’t hear a bad thing said to me from anyone I passed on the street if I walked all the way from downtown Chicago to Manhattan to get there. So, it looks to me like the last Obama zealots are working in the corrupt vintage media and are not reflective of what actual people on the ground feel about the man.
Are you having similar experiences?
********************************************************
About Obama and his golfing.
I want to highlight today an article that’s up at Ace of Spades: “Why Doesn’t Obama Take More of an Interest in Golf?”
This is just hilarious to me, because it’s an example of straight people being as blind as bats.
So, in the article, the writer (a straight conservative male) wonders why Obama doesn’t talk about golf more, show an interest in the Ryder Cup, or generally act like someone who plays golf as much as he does. The thinking is that this is abnormal, since the last president to play golf as often as Obama (Bill Clinton) would go on about the game to no end…but Obama seems to know little about golf despite playing it much more than Clinton.
The reason for this is simple: he’s not really playing golf, folks. ”Golf” is a cover for him getting out of the White House and heading to private clubs with three guys he likes and getting up to all sorts of other things.
I most often hear that Obama’s doing drugs when he’s supposedly “golfing”…and this is happening either in the locker room or in private rooms that the clubs would make available to him. Once he’s outside of camera range on the links, he could be doing drugs openly in the golf cart too. What a great place for him to do this, with a few male “friends”, and have some privacy outside of the White House.
I also think he’s probably engaging in sexual acts in the steam room and sauna at those country clubs. Those locker rooms are plush and very posh, so they might even have the big jacuzzi tubs that fit a half dozen naked guys. Obama has a few regular “golfing buddies” that appear to be an odd cast of characters for a sitting US President to be golfing so much with. Some of them are very young white guys who work in the press office…and others like Bobby Titcombe are men Obama’s age who have been arrested for soliciting sex from male prostitutes. None of these people are the equivalent of a Vernon Jordan — the Washington power broker who’d often golf with President Clinton. Back in the Clinton days, the presidential golfing foursomes would include governors, Senators, royalty, and Cabinet members.
With Obama, it’s twenty-something males and guys who have been busted for soliciting male prostitutes. This is very, very strange and most conservatives are scared to talk about any of it. The corrupt, vintage media is loathe to talk about any of it.
But there are a great many sexcapades that happen in exclusive, expensive, private clubs and golf course locker rooms. Obama used to engage in this sort of behavior when he was a member of the East Bank Club here in Chicago before he became president. This is behavior he engaged in when he was a state senator in Illinois and still had a low enough profile to go to bathhouses like Man’s Country for sex. Just because Obama is now too famous to ever go to a low-rent bathhouse again does not mean he still doesn’t enjoy that sort of sexual experience.
He’s just getting his kicks in a new way…by going “golfing” so much.
The action for him is just not on the links…but with whatever kink he gets up to in the wet steam and sauna area or wherever he and his “golfing buddies” can do drugs together.
For whatever reason, there are a lot of straight people out there who have trouble accepting the reality that the current President of the United States is a gay man who regularly does drugs and engages in sex with other men since in the past bad behavior like this was limited to guys like Kennedy who’d be womanizing while they were drugging. Newsweek didn’t tell you the half of it when they declared Obama the “first gay president”.
All the clues are there if you care to piece them together. You don’t need my help in doing that.
Even that writer at Ace of Spades thought Obama’s “golfing behavior” was odd…but he just didn’t put the pieces together to explain WHY it was so odd. Well, just ask yourself WHO Obama keeps going out golfing with…how long is he gone for…how does he look en route to the golfing and how does he look afterwards (hint: they NEVER, ever show him or let him speak anywhere near a camera AFTER the golfing trips)…and what a lot of married supposedly “straight” men actually get up to in locker rooms of very pricy clubs when they say they’re just “spending some time with the guys”.
This is classic down low club behavior.
It’s just hilarious that straight male conservatives are oblivious to it in many cases.
*******************************************************
This is an Open Thread…so what’s on your mind today?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
How will your city and state vote in the upcoming election?

President Gone Royal: Your Taxes Are Being Used For Obama's Luxuries: {video or link to book}

http://moonbattery.com/?p=18373 ^ | Robert K. Gray

From the sublime to the ridiculous to the truly obscene, the various perks and privileges bestowed on our Chief Executive, our self-proclaimed man of the people, include the extravagant foolishness of having twenty-six cabin crewmembers on Air Force One, along with FIVE (5) chefs! In the White House theatre, two projectionists sleep in in order to remain on duty at all times, should a First Family member or guest fancy a film. A dog walker is also always on hand. One was reported to be paid $102,000 a year to walk and pick up after the first-family s canine. On at least one airline trip in the presidential fleet, the only passengers aboard were the First Canine and his handler. In 2009, the military payroll at Camp David was $8,000,000. And these men and women were not there as replacement for the Secret Service to protect the President, but rather to serve the First Family and its guests
(Excerpt) Read more at moonbattery.com ...

Obama's Lies and Double Standard on Outsourcing

Political Realities ^ | 09/30/12 | LD Jackson

We are getting close to being one month away from the election and all the polls seem to be showing President Obama leading Mitt Romney. Other than the fact that Romney's campaign seems to be stuck in neutral, I can see no real reason the majority of Americans would want Obama to have another four years with which to destroy our country. He seems to be successful in persuading Americans to follow his vision for America, instead of the vision of Mitt Romney.

One method he has used to do that is to attack Mitt Romney for things he has not done and is not guilty of. One such accusation came in the form of an ad that attacked Romney for outsourcing jobs to China. The information for the ad came from The Washington Post, but as it turned out, their information was false. Mitt Romney had left Bain Capital well before the jobs in question left America and landed in China. That hasn't stopped the Obama campaign from running with the story and their friends in the media have been more than happy to lend a helping hand by spreading the word. It doesn't matter that the facts just don't check out.
(Hot Air) Two electronic outsource manufacturing services companies controlled by Bain Capital closed plants in the U.S. and moved work to Mexico. But Romney had left Bain more than a year before the plants closed at both companies. A picture frame company with operations in the Far East, including in China, closed a plant in South Carolina. The Obama campaign cites the plant closing, but those workers were manufacturing photo albums for professionals — a line of work that the company discontinued because it was such a small part of the business.
Let’s take the companies one at a time.
The first is Modus Media, an outsource manufacturing services company controlled by Bain. The TV ad cites a June 2, 2000, news brief by Bloomberg News about Modus Media’s announcement that it would close its plant in Fremont, Calif., in September and open a plant in Guadalajara, Mexico. The company provided “customer support, inventory management, software packaging and computer assembly for companies such as AT&T Corp., Dell Computer Corp., and other technology and Internet companies,” Bloomberg said. About 200 jobs in California were eliminated.
But the announcement of the Modus Media plant closing occurred more than a year after Romney had left Bain. Romney took a leave of absence in February 1999 to head the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and he did not return to the company. He became governor of Massachusetts in January 2003.
A similar situation existed at SMTC Corp., which is also an outsource manufacturing services company. The company closed a plant in Denver, Colo., and moved some of its production to Mexico. The TV ad cites a March 29, 2002, report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by SMTC Corp. The report (page 7) says: “In June 2001, we closed our assembly facility in Denver, Colorado. … Production at the Denver facility … has been migrated to SMTC facilities closer to locations and to our recently retrofitted and expanded lower cost Chihuahua, Mexico facility.” But, again, Romney did not work at Bain in 2001.
Now, we come to the most interesting part of this entire story. While President Obama and his campaign have consistently blasted Mitt Romney for something he didn't do, outsourcing jobs to China, it turns out that some of Obama's top fundraisers have been the ones pioneering the tactic of giving China, and other low-wage countries, jobs that should have been preserved for Americans.
(Breibart) Obama’s second largest fundraiser is John Rogers, the CEO of investment giant Ariel Capital Management. He has Obama Outsourcingraised more than $1.5 million for Obama’s reelection campaign. Bully for him, except for one thing: Ariel Capital Management owns a $48.6 million stake in Accenture, which just happens to be, according to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, the nation’s “best” outsourcer. And that’s not all for Rogers; he stated that he wants to intensify the trend that started with moving call centers and factories overseas to outsourcing “day-to-day activities” including pest control, landscaping, and secretarial functions. And Rogers isn’t ashamed one bit:
“We’re making a very big bet right now on outsourcing. People have generally soured on the idea, and many companies are trading at discounts to their private-market values. But we don’t think that view accurately reflects the powerful secular growth we’re going to see as companies and individuals outsource more of their day-to-day activities.”
Of course, Rogers isn’t just anyone; he and Obama were buddies in Chicago, and Rogers’ ex-wife Desiree left a $350,000 per year job at Allstate Insurance Company to serve as White House party planner.
There is much more at the link, including how DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt have both been guilty of outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. You will also learn that many of the jobs Obama claims to have created in the new "green economy" weren't even created in America. If you will follow the link to Breibart, you will discover this story originally ran on July 8, 2012. This tells you just how successful the media has been in burying the fact that Obama and his merry band of followers have been much more guilty of outsourcing jobs than Mitt Romney or Bain Capital. No amount of whitewash, however, can hide the truth. The double standard and the lies are both glaring and they beg the question to be asked. If we can not trust Obama to tell the basic truth about his own record, as well as that of the people who are raising his campaign funds,on outsourcing jobs, how can we trust him to do what is right for America? I'm still waiting for a good answer to that question.

Editorial: Dallas Morning News endorses Mitt Romney for president!

The Dallas Morning News ^ | Saturday, September 29, 2012

Candidate Obama, an orator of great skill and cadence, might have overcome everything and put the U.S. on a brighter path. President Obama, unfortunately, fell short of the challenge. The wars have largely faded from headlines, but the economic struggles remain, along with an attendant worry about future federal spending, deficits and debt.

Obama’s Democratic supporters would argue that no one could have succeeded in what he inherited, that the nation’s problems were far more severe than anyone could handle in four years.
We respectfully disagree. On the central issue that will define his presidency — a stalled U.S. economy weighed down by crushing annual deficits and accumulated debt — Obama showed himself to be less leader than follower. While he expended his political capital on new government programs, unemployment stayed at debilitating heights.
For that reason, this newspaper recommends Republican challenger Mitt Romney for president.
We see evidence of Obama’s shortcomings in his re-election campaign, a relentlessly negative push to disqualify his opponent instead of standing on his accomplishments. His campaign has worn voters’ patience thin by constantly blaming predecessor George W. Bush for “the mess he left behind.”
Cleaning up that mess, however large, was what Americans trusted to Obama.
Romney had to survive a fractious primary by steering too far right on some issues. At his core, however, we see him as a “Chamber of Commerce Republican,” more attuned to business interests than the tea party/social conservatism that defines today’s GOP.
Importantly, Romney speaks the language of industry.
SNIP
Obama himself once said that if he didn’t repair the economy “in three years, this would be a one-term proposition.” The facts show it’s time for a principled, pragmatic leader who can get Washington working again.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...

Black v Brown Clashes -- Who Are the Racists Then?

CBS Los Angeles ^ | Sep 28, 2012 | CBS Los Angeles

VICTORVILLE (CBSLA.com) — Students at a high school in Victorville said violent fights have been breaking out between African-Americans and Latinos for the past two days. . . . .

I just cannot wrap my mind around this.

How do we apply the usual Liberal "racist" template to this event, when there are apparently no whites around to blame?

Who are the racists, here? The blacks? Or, the browns?

Or, are both equally racist -- or, since they are non- white, are they given a "get-out-of-all-charges-of-racism-free" cards, meaning that they are color blind and not racist at all.....
... Except that, if they were color blind, would they be fighting along color lines?

Hmmmm... Life can be so complicated sometimes.

(Excerpt) Read more at losangeles.cbslocal.com ...

New Mistakes

Ignore All

Bumps in the road...

The Play Stands...

Trust Me...

Overboard

Gamy

The View

The Chevy Volt: One Part Social Security, Two Parts Postal Service!

Townhall.com ^ | September 30, 2012 | John Ransom

Georgia Boy wrote: Actually, President Obama has not raised taxes on anybody, but I think he will raise taxes on the wealthiest (back to historic levels) when he gets his second term. That said, Ransom is just another Rat-wing speculation, pretty much full of bovine manure. -France’s “No Limit” Tax Perfect for Zero
Dear Comrade Boy Georgia,
You’re right about Obama wanting to bring taxes to historic levels, although like most liberals you don’t understand what you are saying. Still, rest assured, if you did understand what you said about taxes at historic levels, you’d be for that too.
And that’s really the problem with modern liberalism: It’s a creed with solutions designed to provide pre-determined outcomes. Now, if they could only find the problems in need of their solutions.
Faultroy wrote: It is unfortunate that Ransom is so blinded that he cannot see that it is neither Obama nor Hollande that is doing this. It is a percentile of people in the USA and France that is promoting this. Ransom forgets that France is a social democracy and the USA is a republican democracy. If you are going to blame anyone, blame the voters in their respective countries. What Mr. Ransom should be doing is railing against the people not those they elect to bidding. We should further ask Mr. Ransom to stop being a mouthpiece for the establishment Repubs. -France’s “No Limit” Tax Perfect for Zero
Dear Comrade Faultroy,
I don’t even know where to start with you.
Oh, yes; Here it is: I’m not a mouthpiece for anyone, let alone establishment Republicans.
But I’ll play along for the sake of the entertainment value.
So you’d like for some entity to run a political campaign that blames voters?
“Vote for me, ‘cause you suck”?
Is that the idea?
Catchy bumper sticker, but isn’t that the campaign Carter ran in ’76 and Obama is resurrecting?
Ericynot wrote: As I understand Obama's tax proposals, they are to raise taxes on those making over $250,000 / year back to where they were before Bush lowed them in 2001 and 2003. The Bush tax cuts were sold to Congress as temporary measures, so why should they not be put back? That was the deal to begin with. Obama also wants to tax capital gains as ordinary income. That seems right to me, and almost all of my income is from capital gains. Income is income. Why should some of it be taxed at a different rate?
The real solution? Dump the income tax and move to the FairTax (on consumption). -France’s “No Limit” Tax Perfect for Zero
Dear Comrade Y,
Face facts Y: Democrats in Congress extended the tax cuts and Obama approved the extensions…twice.
You know why? Because it’s really hard to make the argument that you are concerned with bringing in more government revenue when your tax policy is designed to bring in less in the interest of “fairness.”
Under Bush government revenues by 2005 had recovered from 9/11 so at they approximated 2001 receipts. By 2007, government revenue was $200 billion higher than 2005. Under Obama, we are still below the government revenue receipts from 2001. What Bush did on tax policy brought more money into the system. Obama would do well to cut taxes, not raise them as he has.

Why do you American Socialists have such a big problem with others making a ton of money when it will actually provide you more government revenue to fund the programs for the poor people you say you care about?
How long do you think a government with economic policies that foster social outcomes at the expense of the economy as a whole, government revenues as a whole, the wealth of the nation as a whole, last?
I’d say the third week of January 2013.
Yulee wrote: Sir and I say that losely obama was handed this screwed up economy from one george bush who got our country into such extreme debt I don't know if you remember his huge credit card press conferance but the moment I saw that I knew what kind of mentality the bush years were going to be on sept 11 alcada blew up some real estate here in america so what does bush do go after alcada no he invades iraq and our grandchildern will still be paying for that but that's ok because patriotic company's like halaburtan ha ha made a huge profit back in ww1 or ww2 that company would have been called a war profiteer and the leaders tryed in coart and found guilty and punished at the same time the great leader mitt romney had a little company called bane interprizes who liqudaed so many little bussiness acros america and out sorced all those jobs to china and india etc that he destroyed the middle class so be a real reporter and tell the truth not the party line you big fat liar -Obama’s God Fails Him Again
Dear Comrade Yulee,
The period; capitalization; complete sentences; spell check. These and many other innovations have been brought to you over the last 7,000 years of literary history sponsored in part by Halliburton.
That said, lets get to the meat of your argument.
Fat? Yes, guilty.
Liar? Sure, in a Mark Twain sort of way.
More than that, I’ll let readers decide.
CRW wrote: I think most of the public is too dumb to appreciate the sarcasm in this article. I think that most people will take your words at face value and believe what you have said. Hence I feel this is a POOR way to get your message across. -Obama’s God Fails Him Again
Dear Comrade CRW,
I think that you need to get your own column and write things dumbly to appeal to the dumb people you want to reach. Hence, I feel that this is a GOOD way to get your message across.
Ootvos wrote: If the wealthy understand economics, why did the banking system collapse? Many wealthy persons are also crooks. It's the best way to get wealthy. Financier now means manipulator of other peoples' money. -Obama’s God Fails Him Again
Dear Comrade Ootvos,
Many poor people are also crooks. It’s one of the best ways to stay poor actually. But being poor or rich is incidental to being a criminal.
Wealthy people may be clients of the banking system, but then so are you.
By your logic, poor people understand economics better because they have never caused a banking system to collapse. Dogs aren’t criminals and have never caused a banking system to collapse. In your world, maybe we should just put dogs in charge of our money.
If you were arguing that maybe we should send more dogs to Congress, or make a Labrador Retriever president, you might have had me.
Jose wrote: All religions have done more harm than good. Wars have been fought solely on religious believes. My Rx.believe in god but have no church-religion. All religions endoctrinate and the main message is to fear god. Based on fear and punishment. -Obama’s God Fails Him Again
Dear Comrade Jose,
As a type of reader you annoy me more than any other.
Pick up a freakin’ book and read about the world around you.
I though agnostics and atheists were supposed to be “fact” based people? Isn’t science your religion?
If you added up all the people who died from all the wars gone before, including religious wars, it wouldn’t come close to the horror that the atheistic, materialist regimes of the 20th Century produced.
So just in sheer numbers, you are in fact wrong.
231 million people died in the 20th Century from war and famine related to war, including civil war according to a study by Cornell. The total number of people who had lived on the earth by 1900 was 1.6 billion. To match the massacre from the 20th Century, all other populations in previous century would have had to sustain 14 percent fatalities from war.
Whole armies that go into battle don’t sustain 14 percent casualties.
Then there is the matter of religion’s contribution to peace and refinement of humanity.
From: Godless Morality? Why Judeo-Christianity Is Necessary for Human Rights:
Some prominent thinkers who are neither religious nor even politically conservative — most recently the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who is both an atheist and a leftist — have expressed the view that the values of individual rights, moral equality, and human dignity might not survive the decline of the Judeo-Christian cultural framework within which they first developed. And there are very good reasons for believing that there's an essential connection between those values and the framework in question — a connection that ought to lead even non-believers to hope for the revival of the religious traditions of Western civilization. A thoroughly secularized Europe will not long remain a free and civilized Europe.
Scott S wrote: Please explain exactly how Quantitative Easing prints more money. - Obama Owns These Oil Prices
Dear Comrade S,
Money isn’t printed anymore because most of it is just a digital entry in a computer.
But where does the Federal Reserve Bank get the money to buy back U.S. Treasuries?
Well they just create it out of thin air. And they can do that too. They are the reserve bank for the entire banking system:
From the BBC talking about the UK’s Central Bank, but the principle applies:
These days the Bank doesn't have to literally print money - it is all done electronically.
However, economists would still argue that QE is the same principle as printing money as it is a deliberate expansion of the central bank's balance sheet and the monetary base.
This is why you see the value of currencies for countries do this go down.
“The Fed ceased publishing M-3,” writes Shadowstats, “its broadest money supply measure, in March 2006. The SGS M-3 Continuation estimates current M-3 based on ongoing Fed reporting of M-3’s largest components (M-2, institutional money funds and partial large time deposits) and proprietary modeling of the balance.”

The chart records only the rate at which the money supply is GROWING, not the money supply. There was a very brief period in 2010 when they money supply actually contracted, but otherwise the printing presses have been active.
When the economy is growing sluggishly less than 2 percent and you are increasing the money supply by 10-20 percent, the value of your dollar will go down.
Yactsman388 wrote: 81% of the "speculators" are nothing but bettors at the crude casino never touching the oil, never intending to touch the oil. Taking physical delivery of the oil would create a major expense and problems they don't need. - Obama Owns These Oil Prices
Dear Comrade Boat Snob,
Here’s a fact that won’t penetrate your skull, but I say it for the benefit of others.
On every trade, including those of speculation, there is another person on the other side either buying or selling. The relative value that each of the counterparties put on a thing being bought or sold determines the price, not the mere fact that people are speculators.
Having said that, there is a high degree of speculation in the markets, especially for oil, gold and other assets.
You know who their banker is? Barack Obama.
Two reasons why we are seeing oil prices remain high even though demand is coming down: 1) Central banks under direction of politicians like Obama are printing more money and that causes prices of assets to go up and currency values go down; and 2) There is more money out there as money supply chasing a smaller pools of assets around like gold and oil, meaning prices will go up.
Either way, it’s Obama’s fault.
Everyononesfacts4usall wrote: Dropout rate is correct. This seems about average across the US for a district that has 87% of students at or below poverty rate. Never understood why people care where others send their kids to school. The interesting thing here is that teachers are more likely to send kids to public schools than others with the same financial status. This is something I know, but don't particularly care about but Ransom & Kevlar I think will. -You Can't Teach Liberals Anything
Dear Comrade 4,
33 percent of students fall at or below poverty in Chicago. Could you at least not just make up “facts”?
I care where public schools teachers send their kids because it’s their political machine- the union- that has turned public schools into crap machines.
This is how stupid these people are. The Chicago Teachers Union cries that “42 percent of Chicago’s elementary schools lack full funding for arts and music teachers,” says Thinkprogress.org. Maybe it’s me, but shouldn’t the CTU be more concerned that only 20 percent of students are proficient at math and reading?
Seriously, we’ve public schools all the resources they need to teach our kids. If we left kids on their own in an empty classroom with books they’d probably produce a better outcome than what we are paying for.
Public schools in America need to start doing their job.
Dbrynes wrote: Lies. All lies. The CBO assumes the only difference, or benefit to electric engines is too save money on gas. But all else is NOT equal. All the other facts listed in this article were wrong as well. Apparently it is accepted in journalism to reference other articles or news even if the facts are wrong. This has happened repeatedly with the "losing $50k" on each Volt GM sells. This fact has already been debunked as that figure includes the fixed costs in production costs. The fixed costs were already spent. You don't keep losing that money on each sale of a car. - Even War and Rumors of War Can't Save Chevy Volt
Dear Comrade D,
Sure you keep losing your fixed costs. You lose your fixed costs until you recoup those costs. Duh. You have to see return on investment when you “invest” money into a new project like the Volt.
There are other products they could build with that money. Or here’s an idea: Maybe they could have paid the taxpayers back with the money?
No one would care if they were losing a little money if they could accomplish their own goals, or even tell the truth.
But they can’t do either.
For the Volt, they aren’t hitting their sales goals; they aren’t hitting their financial goals. They put out a press release telling us that sales for the Volt are at historic highs, yet neglect to mention that they have dropped the price 25 percent?
As a government program, the Volt will have to fit somewhere between Social Security and the US Post Office.
That said, the Volt would make an excellent, all-electric, US Postal stamp, collectors edition.
As a car though, it sucks.
Jerome41 wrote: Ransom is a joke. His beliefs have led to drug lords unleashing violence in Mexico and the U.S. He ignores growing support for legalizion of marijuana in the U.S. Recent polls show even majority support for outright legalization of marijuana. The fact is marijuana is very easily acquired on the black market by teens, because it is illegal. There is no regulation so drug dealers don't check I.D.s YOu want to continue a losing policy that costs us billions and destroys constitutional rights, than keep right on doing what Ransom says. If you say, enough, than he should be ignored. -Mile High Idea: Smoke Dope, Build Schools
Dear Comrade Jerome,
Sorry I don’t like pot. I have an aversion to substances that have links to mental illness.
I want the government out of the pot business and I want the sale of pot to have nothing to do with funding schools or anything to do with children.
You want to decriminalize marijuana, go ahead.
I won’t do it.
That’s it for this week.
V/r,
JR    

Get A Grip: Americans Must Demand Better Government in November and Beyond!

Townhall.com ^ | September 30, 2012 | Austin Hill

Barack Obama is beating Mitt Romney.

Wait- Romney and Obama are tied in Pennsylvania.

And how about all those bungled calls from the NFL fill-in refs?
Americans are seriously pre-occupied as we enter the fourth quarter of 2012. Obsessions about the football season and “Dancing with The Stars” are a pleasant diversion from our present hardship and gloomy future, and frustrations over the logic-defying presidential polls makes for interesting talk show fodder.
But after the election – and after the close of 2012 – Americans will need to grapple with myriad problems in our government. Whoever wins the White House will face an avalanche of trouble in the months ahead, and the ways in which these problems are addressed will reverberate for generations.
Americans must begin to see through the rhetoric of politicians and the slant and soundbytes of the media, and demand better government from those elected to serve. The “pass the bill and then figure out what’s in it” approach is unacceptable. So let’s start with our “get a grip” agenda with this: Americans must sober-up about our economic and fiscal condition.
At present it would seem that we’re taking the upcoming election about as seriously as a football game. Team Obama has the home field advantage, while Romney and company are the visitors trying to upset Obama at his homecoming. The make-up of the Congress will then round-out each team’s roster, but the “players” are thought to be all essentially the same.
Yet America is in serious trouble. Private industry is suffering shell shock from the flurry of demands and restrictions placed upon it in the last three years, most of which have stemmed from environmental constraints, so-called “banking reform,” mortgage restrictions, and Obamacare. Our currency is being debased by the minute, as our government’s debt exceeds 70% of our GDP and the Federal Reserve continues to print money while keeping interest rates artificially low.
President Obama is committed to making matters worse- he promises higher taxes and more government spending, and has offered no vision for undoing the disastrous and damaging components of Obamacare. Mr. Romney is moving in the correct direction by proposing an expansion of free trade and modest spending cuts, but does not (and in political terms perhaps cannot) come close to where we must go.
So Americans must decide – do we want prosperity and opportunity for the long-term, or do we want the short-term yet unsustainable pleasure of politicians satiating our petty jealousies towards “rich people” and dolling-out lots of free goodies? If it’s the former we want, then we’ll have to seriously change some things: freeze income tax rates where they are; cut corporate taxes; raise the Social Security eligibility age to 72 (for, say, American workers age 45 and younger) and allow for private investment of portions one’s withholdings; gut Obamacare and start over; and cut taxes on small businesses and restrictions on small business lending.
And here’s another agenda item: America must begin utilizing its own resources again. While the currencies of Europe, Japan and the U.S. have fallen in to varying levels of disrepute over the past four years, the dollars of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have remained relatively strong. And these three countries share something else in common as well- they all harvest and export their own natural resources.
Canada exports oil and natural gas. Australia exports iron ore. New Zealand uses its land to produce and export food, wood products and heavy machinery. Americans must decide – do we want to be more prosperous and secure, or do we want to feel like we’re doing something nice for plant and animal life by not using our natural resources?
A radical environmental agenda has co-opted the national dialog to the point that we only talk about drilling and refining when gasoline surpasses four dollars a gallon. And as for manufacturing and farming – plenty of us blindly accept the notion that these endeavors do nothing but rape and pillage the earth and consume “too much” energy (if you don’t believe this, ask a farmer in California). It’s time to utilize our resources and unshackle our farmers and manufacturers – and to do this we have to demand change with our government.
And agenda item number three: Americans must respect private enterprise as the necessary engine of our sustenance, instead of allowing it to be co-opted for political agendas. President Obama’s “renewable energy” agenda sounds noble and makes people feel good. But after running up untold billions of dollars in debt with the financing of “green energy” companies (over 80% of which were headed-up by Obama campaign donors), there has been no such energy produced and a majority of these companies have already lapsed into bankruptcy. What masquerades as the “green energy industry” is nothing more than debt for future generations spent financing the President’s environmental politics of today.
A similar phenomenon took hold last decade. Despite President Bush’s attempts to slow things down, both Republican and Democrat leadership in the Congress enabled the cheap credit, lax lending, and “affordable housing” policies that supposedly drove “home ownership” to an all time high (it’s hard to say no when “everybody gets a house”). It made the politicians popular in the short-run, but it drove us to the brink when the bubble burst. Government co-opted the real estate and lending industries, and it failed us in painful ways.
We are not helpless victims of politicians. But will we demand better?

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Congressional Black Caucus Honors Eric Holder

Biggovernment.com ^ | Sep. 29, 2012 | Mary Chastain

Attorney General Eric Holder was awarded the Congressional Black Caucus’s Chair Award last Saturday at the Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, DC. In her keynote speech for the event, First Lady Michelle Obama gushed over Mr. Holder’s “outstanding contributions to our nation.”

Contributions? Does that include Operation Fast & Furious, the government gun walking scheme that allowed 2,000 guns to land into the hands of already dangerous Mexican drug cartels? These guns are linked to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and over 300 Mexican citizens. Hundreds are still missing and have recently been found in Colombia. Mr. Holder has not held anyone in the Department of Justice accountable.

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

41 MILLION TEA PARTY SUPPORTERS SET TO VOTE

Breitbart Big Government ^ | 9-28-12 | DUSTIN HAWKINS

The Tea Party is regularly ridiculed and declared "dead" by the mainstream press and their elitist allies in Washington and Hollywood. Not surprisingly, when Tea Partiers show up and rally by the thousands, they get all but ignored, while 30 Occupy Wall Street crazies in masks will always get wall-to-wall coverage and admiration.

TV shows and movies take cheap shots at Tea Party conservatives, often linking them to murder-of-the-week cases on insipid crime procedurals or dismissing them as “birthers.” But a new Associated Press poll shows tea party supporters may have the last laugh in November.

The AP/GFK poll shows that 31% of likely voters consider themselves Tea Party supporters. With 131 million votes cast in the 2008 elections, that translates into an incredible voting bloc of 41 million Tea Party supporters waiting to cast ballots. These voters have already made their voices heard in Wisconsin earlier this year, as well as in Republican primaries in Texas and Nebraska.

That 31% of likely voters figure is greater than the 19% who described themselves as either strongly or somewhat liberal.

Surprisingly, liberals have escaped media characterization as being a small, fringe-like group with little power or influence. At 19% of likely voters, self-described liberals would have a turnout of 25 million voters, some 16 million fewer voters than the Tea Party.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

Music to Watch Girls By - Andy Williams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7iXpTJk15s&feature=related

Voters Say Free Stuff Better than Freedom!

Semi-News/Semi-Satire ^ | 28 Sep 2012 | John Semmens

Despite polling data indicating that over 60% of those surveyed see GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's concern about Americans becoming too dependent on government as valid, most still say they will vote to reelect Obama.
“As a general proposition, it might be a bad thing for people to become too dependent on the government,” said one poll respondent. “But this whole freedom thing is kind of abstract compared to actually getting stuff for free. I mean, take the 10 million free phones the government has given out. A phone is something I can hold in my hand. I can use it to call my friends, play video games, download tunes—you know, have fun.”
“Freedom might have been important to people when they were fighting taxation without representation in 1776, but what's that to me here and now?” asked another poll respondent. “I don't have to pay taxes, but I still get to vote. My vote counts just as much as the sap who has to work. Shouldn't I use it to keep the free stuff coming?”
In related news, Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection effort bragged that “Democrats have locked up the women's vote. We're giving them free birth control and free cell phones—two items of critical importance to the modern woman. The Republicans offer what—lower taxes, fewer regulations? Even if we were to concede that these are desirable—which we don't—they'd provide equal benefits for men. Why should any woman vote for that?”
If you missed any of this week's other semi-news posts you can find them at...
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Opinion/119701-2012-09-28-semi-news-a-satire-of-recent-news-september-30-2012.htm

Muslim, Mahdi, or Anti-Christ? (Obama's unequivocal defense of Islam...)

Canada Free Press ^ | September 28, 2012 | Erik Rush & Jim Garrow

It should come as no surprise to those of us who read classic literature that those who make pacts with the devil eventually meet with desolation. Daniel Webster understood this, as do many preachers who stand in their pulpits and proclaim that you cannot enjoy the avails of sin for long; the pleasures, though real, are short-lived, and judgment always follows.

It seems obvious to those who watched the rise of the impertinent sham in the White House that something almost “magical” had accompanied his ascendancy, something other than his silver tongue and the ever-present teleprompter. How could an unknown with no track record for accomplishing anything of significance ascend to the Mt. Everest of power in our known universe?
These are questions that will likely persist for some years; until then, it is obvious to all but his most devoted followers that something has changed dramatically in the sphere of President Barack Obama since 2008. As though an angel had pulled the plug, we have seen an increasingly bumbling, fumbling shlub on the campaign trail. From time to time, Obama has waxed almost incoherent, a departure from his tightly-scripted, messianic oratory of 2008, and his cool, collected, “don’t you wish you were me?” presence.
In a less corrupted environment, this would bring Obama’s detractors almost pure joy. Instead, we have the feeling in the pit of our stomachs that ultimately, inevitably, this is a fraud sustained by those whose cravings for power and full pockets have led to their total submission to the myth that sits in the Oval Office. Though the myth is losing its lustre as the wheels of state begin to fall off, Muslims in the Middle East are showing their solidarity with Obama, just as he predicted.
Why have some religious leaders in the East
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...

Will The Post be about news or opinion? (We already know the WP is in the tank for Obama)

washington post ^ | 9/28/2012 | Ombudsman

Republicans think the news media are being too easy on Barack Obama. In fact, 60 percent of them say so, a figure that’s up from 55 percent four years ago, when Obama ran against Sen. John McCain. That’s the conclusion of a poll conducted Sept. 20-23 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

This finding reflects the e-mail I receive from people who identify themselves as Republicans and conservatives, and even from some independents and Democrats, who say The Post is too easy on Obama.
My e-mail is not a scientific survey — it’s really an index of complaints and unhappiness with The Post — but I think my e-mail trends and surveys that Pew has done in the past year should be food for thought for The Post.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...

Obama Family's In-Your-Face Bingeing Cost Joe Taxpayer 20,000% More Than Entire British Royal Family

Reaganite Republican ^ | September 29, 2012 | Reaganite Republican



All that noise about Obama family luxury vacations with a huge entourage, Romanesque White House parties, Manhattan shopping sprees, over-sized 'crew' packed with cronies...
it was just the embittered clingers again, mean people spreading lies about our nation's perfect First Family (who we're lucky to have) -right?

Well, numbers don't lie (except at Gallup)- and what they say is that the Obama family blew $1.4B on travel and entertainment for themselves and their (overpaid) personal staffs last year:
that's 200 times more than what the entire British Royal Family cost the UK ($57.8M)!

Alas, at 27 million bucks a week, them clingers must have only seen the tip of the iceberg: White House sources claim Michelle went through $10M of taxpayer money last year on just her own private trips and shopping sprees, with one calling the First Lady's self-indulgent spending orgy -including extravagant massages, top-shelf booze, and five-star hotels- 'disgusting'.



Adds author Robert Kieth Gray says in a new book just out:

________________________________________________________________________________

From the sublime to the ridiculous to the truly obscene, the various perks and privileges bestowed on our Chief Executive, our self-proclaimed man of the people, include the extravagant foolishness of having twenty-six cabin crew members on Air Force One, along with FIVE (5) chefs!

In the White House theatre, two projectionists sleep in in order to remain on duty at all times, should a First Family member or guest fancy a film.

A dog walker is also always on hand. One was reported to be paid $102,000 a year to walk and pick up after the first-family s canine. On at least one airline trip in the presidential fleet, the only passengers aboard were the First Canine and his handler.

In 2009, the military payroll at Camp David was $8,000,000. And these men and women were not there as replacement for the Secret Service to protect the President, but rather to serve the First Family and its guests.

On the political front, we learn that in the first months of his presidency President Obama appointed 43 high-priced czars a number far greater than any previous president, and not one of these professionals voted to office by taxpayers or subject to the approval of any other governmental body or official.

During his current term he has also appointed 469 professionals who could be called, assistant presidents. 226 of them are paid over $100,000 a year and 77 of them paid as much as $172,000 a year.
________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Leader is now being accused of spending as much taxpayer money as possible to get himself re-elected, abusing government assets and funds as he jets-around campaigning on Air Force One, saving his faltering campaign millions.

The Obamas behave like some Chicago trash that won the lottery, which is pretty much their whole life story, isn't it... hard to see any repression in that.
________________________________________________________________________________

America the Great or America the Dependent

Political Realities ^ | 09/29/12 | LD Jackson

By now, most of us have heard about the woman who was protesting outside of a Mitt Romney rally in Bedford, Ohio. In short, she dislikes the GOP candidate and seems to be in love with President Obama. Her main reason for that love seems to be centered around the phone she says Obama provided for her. She affectionately called it her Obama phone and she was very proud of the fact that it was so easily accessible to her and other minorities or people with little to no income. I think it is safe to say, she is dependent on the federal government for her sustenance. She could be the poster woman for America the dependent.
Before this week, I have been fairly optimistic that Barack Obama could be defeated. I have held the opinion that enough Americans would finally wake up and realize the path America is on is not the straight and narrow, but rather a winding path that is leading us in an ever-increasing downward spiral. After seeing the attitude displayed by the woman in Ohio, and seeing some the reactions to some of the attacks on Mitt Romney, I am beginning to question my optimism. I honestly wonder if enough Americans will wake up before November 6.
America was founded upon the principles of self-reliance and perseverance. It was meant to be a country where everyone has a chance of achieving whatever goal or dream they had for themselves, or their families. It as conceived as a place where men and women could be out from under a domineering government that dictates everything they could or couldn't do. Our system of government was designed to set the citizens of our country free to be as great as they wanted to be.
What we see today is a far cry from what America was intended to be. Instead of freedom and liberty, we have a federal government that is growing stronger every day. It seems we can not decide what we should eat without the advice of bureaucrats in Washington. With that advice comes rules and regulations that are clearly not in the purview of the federal government. Our food isn't the only area into which Washington has inserted itself. Light bulbs, healthcare, and birth control are other areas that we can't seem to get along without the folks in Washington imparting their knowledge and influence.
It seems there is a federal program for every situation Americans may find themselves in. Whereas we used to rely on our families and churches to take up the slack when we were in trouble, we now turn to the federal government. All assistance is routed through Washington and our churches find it hard to pitch in and help, without violating the regulations that come with that federal assistance. Remember, no good deed goes unpunished.
America used to be a great nation of great people who worked their tails off to make it in life. People like my Mom and Dad who had no give up in them. When faced with troubles and trials, they buckled down and worked harder. Many of the generation we are seeing today have no such backbone. When they come up against a wall, they just turn to the federal government and say "gimme".
American DependenceInstead of a nation full of great people, it seems we have far too many people who are dependent on the federal government. I could quote statistics to show you the percentages, but we can all see it happening. Unemployment is rampant in our nation and when the unemployment benefits run out, many of those people are applying for, and receiving, disability, for one reason or another. That means one thing; the dependent class is growing every day. More dependents and less independents equals an unsustainable and untenable situation in America. Sooner or later, it will have no choice but to collapse.
This brings me back to the reason my optimism about this election is failing me. The people in the dependent class are not stupid people. They know full well the free ride they have is a good thing, at least for them. They are not thinking about what is good for America, but rather what is in it for them. They listen to President Obama and his class warfare mantra, about how the rich are not paying their fair share, and they hear one thing. Obama is going to take from people like Mitt Romney and give to those who are less fortunate. After all, everyone deserves a fair shot, or so Obama keeps telling us. The people like the woman who loves her Obama phone are not about to rock the boat.
Mitt Romney has been in the news lately for his remark that 47% of Americans are dependent on the federal government. His words have been twisted and applied in ways he did not mean. He has no doubt suffered some in the polls because of that, but he did nothing but tell the truth. The man isn't perfect, but he realizes the situation we are facing in our country is not sustainable. The truth may hurt and it may very well cost him the election, but it is still the truth. America can not continue in the direction it is going. If action is not taken to reverse our current course, our country can not help but implode. No amount of rhetoric will change that.
It's up to us to change that course. We can continue down the path we are on and become America the dependent, on the verge of fiscal collapse, or we can decide to become America the great, once again. We can choose to complete our transition to total dependence on the federal government, or we can choose to break the bond of dependency and to make things happen for ourselves. It really is that simple, but it isn't going to be easy. The election on November 6 is one of the battles we have to win, otherwise we may lose the war to save our country.

Same-Sex Couples Granted Protection in Deportations (Once again, Obama ignores the law)

ny times ^ | 9/28/2012 | JULIA PRESTON

The Department of Homeland Security has stated in writing that foreigners who are same-sex partners of American citizens can be included under an Obama administration policy suspending deportations of some immigrants who pose no security risk.

In letters sent late Wednesday to several Democratic lawmakers, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was clarifying guidelines that enforcement officers had used when applying a policy of prosecutorial discretion in cases of illegal immigrants with no criminal convictions.
Under the guidelines, which were first issued in June 2011, officers can consider “ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships” when deciding whether to halt a deportation.

Ms. Napolitano wrote that she had ordered her department to issue written instructions specifying that those “family relationships” include “long-term same-sex partners.”

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

Room Doors


"Ever walk into a room with some purpose in mind,
only to completely forget what that purpose was?
Turns out, doors themselves are to blame for these strange memory lapses.
Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what's known as an event boundary in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the next.
Your brain files away the thoughts you had in the previous room
and prepares a blank slate for the new locale."
It's not aging, it's the damn door !
Whew! Thank goodness for studies :-)

Friday, September 28, 2012

The Condensed Liberal Handbook of Racial Code Words

Michelle Malkin.com ^ | 9/27/12 | Michelle Malkin

Thumper the Rabbit’s parents always taught him, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” If the left’s self-appointed Omniscient Diviners of True Meaning have their way, conservatives in the public square won’t be left with anything at all to say. Ever.

It’s a treacherous business exercising your freedom of speech in the age of Obama. As a public service, I present to you: “The 2012 Condensed Liberal Handbook of Racial Code Words.” Decoder rings, activate!

–Angry. On the campaign trail this summer, President Obama has become — in the words of the mainstream Associated Press — more “aggressive.” But don’t you dare call him “angry.” According to MSNBC host Toure, that’s racist!
“You notice he said ‘anger’ twice,” Toure fumed in response to a speech last week by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “He’s really trying to use racial coding and access some really deep stereotypes about the angry black man.” Or maybe Romney is just accurately describing the singular temperament of the growling, finger-jabbing, failure-plagued demagogue-in-chief. It’s about the past four years, not 400 years. Sheesh.
–Chicago. The Obamas and their core team of astroturfers, pay-for-play schemers and powerbrokers hail from the Windy City. This is a simple geographic fact. But in progressive of pallor Chris Matthews’ world, it’s an insidious dog whistle. The frothing cable TV host attacked Republicans this week who have the gall to remind voters of the ruthless Chicago way.
“(T)hey keep saying Chicago, by the way. Have you noticed?” Matthews sputtered. “That sends that message: This guy’s helping the poor people in the bad neighborhoods and screwing us in the ‘burbs.”
Actually, it’s a pointed reminder that the radical redistribution politics of Chicago-on-the-Potomac have done little to alleviate the suffering of impoverished Americans in violence-plagued, job-hungry inner cities everywhere. Racist!
–Constitution. Fox News contributor Juan Williams, who proudly calls himself a “real reporter,” has apparently added real telepathist to his curriculum vitae. Earlier this year, he read the minds of Republicans and conservatives whom he accuses of deep-seated bigotry when they show any public reverence for our founding principles, documents and leaders.
“The language of GOP racial politics is heavy on euphemisms that allow the speaker to deny any responsibility for the racial content of his message,” Williams wrote. “References to a lack of respect for the ‘Founding Fathers’ and the ‘Constitution’ also make certain ears perk up by demonizing anyone supposedly threatening core ‘old-fashioned American values.’”
So, if you ever find yourself wanting to hum the “Schoolhouse Rock” version of the Preamble, heed these three words: Stop the hate!
–Experienced. A significant population of American voters believes that qualifications actually matter when running for the highest office in the land. Chilling, isn’t it? They might as well sport KKK hoods. In the judgment of one Basil Smikle of The Century Foundation, “experienced” is a dreaded “racial code word.”
Intoned Smikle: “Experienced? Does it really mean the time that he spent in the Senate, or does it mean, ‘Well, does that guy have the same kind of experience in life that I have?’ … What does inexperience really mean?”
Maybe it just means what critics meant it to mean: “Does this guy have experience beyond the measly 304 days he served when the U.S. Senate was in session before he announced his first presidential bid?” I know: Racist!
–Food Stamp President. At the dawn of the modern federal food stamp program, one in 50 Americans was enrolled. This year, one in seven Americans is on the food stamp rolls. The majority of them are white. Obama’s loosening of eligibility requirements combined with the stagnant economy fueled the rise in dependency. “Food stamp president” is pithy shorthand for the very real entitlement explosion.
Democrats fumed when former GOP candidate Newt Gingrich bestowed the title on Obama and decried its purportedly racist implications. But who are the racists? As Gingrich scolded the aforementioned race troll Chris Matthews last week: “Why do you assume food stamp refers to blacks? What kind of racist thinking do you have? You’re being a racist because you assume they’re black!” Time to find a new code word.
–Golf. This one’s a gobsmacker. Beltway barnacle Lawrence O’Donnell appeared on cable TV to decry Republicans who mention Obama’s frequent golf outings. He singled out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s convention speech Wednesday night, which joked that Obama “was working to earn a spot on the PGA tour.” The warped racial radar of pasty Lawrence O interpreted this golf joke as “Obama equals Tiger Woods equals RACISM.”
Huh? “These people reach for every single possible racial double entendre they can find in every one of these speeches.” O’Donnell expertly explained. “Things are getting lower and lower by the day,” host Martin Bashir agreed.
I’d say this is all Greek to me. But that’s probably racist, too.
–Holding down the fort. Obama’s State Department diversity officer now advises us, based on admittedly dubious history, that “holding down the fort” is an anti-Native American idiom that has no place in U.S. discourse. Example: “I know you guys have been holding down the fort.” Oops, that was Obama at a Tampa rally in 2008. Next…
–Kitchen cabinet. Radio talk-show host Mark Thompson jumped on Romney for using this phrase — coined to describe Andrew Jackson’s administration in the 1800s — at the NAACP convention in July. Romney was referring to a close member of his staff during his tenure as Massachusetts governor.
“To talk about being in the kitchen and not talk about an African-American actually being in your cabinet is really not a good metaphor to use with African-Americans,” Thompson blasted. Is it racist to ask: Huh?
–Obamacare. Left-wing Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky accused Romney of “race-baiting” by wielding the term “Obamacare.” The Beltway shorthand for this behemoth federal spending program exposes Romney as a “spineless, disingenuous, supercilious, race-mongering pyromaniac” because it is a “heavily loaded word,” Tomasky railed.
How then to explain the use of the Bull Connor-channeling epithet by none other than the Obama campaign, which peddles “I like Obamacare” T-shirts on its website? Logic is racist.
–Privileged. Stay with me here. Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart has a problem with Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry calling Obama “privileged.” Spotlighting his elite education is tantamount to racial bigotry because it insinuates that “he took the place of someone else through affirmative action, that someone else being someone white.”
And here I thought it was a simple description of an out-of-touch academic whose crony Chicago ties of all colors gifted him with access, money and power that the vast majority of Americans don’t have.
–Professor. Several progressive black intellectuals excoriated 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for this statement: “They know we’re at war, and to win that war we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”
“Professor,” professor Charles Ogletree said, was code for “uppity.” This translation service is available only to credentialed Ivy League eggheads. A saner criticism would be that Obama was never a professor of law, but an untenured lecturer. Racist? Tell that to Hillary Clinton, whose 2008 campaign made that very point.
–You people. Asked last month whether her husband would release more tax returns, Ann Romney told a pack of reporters: “We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how, you know, how we live our life.”
A chorus of faux-ragers from the Huffington Post to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell hammered Mrs. Romney for her double-whammy sandwich of elitism and racism. Apparently, “you people” is the verbal equivalent of putting black people back in chains. One little, teeny-tiny problem: ABC News admitted: “Our ruling after reviewing the original audio is that she did not include the ‘you.’”
In other words, it was manufactured out of whole cloth. Give the dog-trombone media another black mark for ridiculous bias denial. “Black mark”? I know: Raaaaaaaaaaacist!

Woman steals wedding rings from Virginia veterans!

NBC 12 ^ | September 26, 2012 | Marcos Chappell

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) -

A nurses' assistant at a Virginia nursing home will go to prison for selling wedding rings that were stripped from the fingers of veterans under her care.

24-year-old Ashley Michelle Sweeney of Franklin County was sentenced to five years by a Roanoke court.

Sweeney said she pawned four wedding bands taken from Virginia veterans in order to support her drug addiction.

She was ordered never to work as a nurse or nurses' assistant again.

10 Fun Facts About Free Government Cell Phones


Free Government ^ | 1997 | Sraff

Free government assisted cell phone programs have become more popular, in part, due to the poor economy and heavy promotion by the many free government cell phone carriers across the United States. So you may already be familiar with the Lifeline cell phone program. We have gathered ten interesting facts, which we think you should know about free government cell phone programs.

10 Million free government cell phones have been distributed to needy Americans since the Lifeline program expanded the service to cell phones in 2008. Lifeline Cell Phone Service Everywhere! You can now sign up for a free government cell phone in 38 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and Lifeline cell phone carriers have plans to introduce service in the remaining states.

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

just allow me to recap..
welfare recipients get..
free lodging (section 8)..
free food..
free clothing..
free healthcare..
paid heat and air conditioning..
free cellphones..
and even some folding money for extra stuff..
and it is all tax free..
Now I get..
to pay my mortgage..
pay my electric and gas..
pay my water and sewer..
pay my car payment (so I can get to work)
pay my insurance for my car (so I can get to work)
buy my own food..
buy my own clothes..
pay for my healthcare (I am fortunate in that my employer offers healthcare, but my copay runs in the hundreds per month)
Now factor in property taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, use taxes and fees, gasoline taxes, sin taxes (for a beer every once in a while)license plates and car taxes,and last by not least, TAXES ON MY OWN DAMN CELLPHONE...
I effectively pay over 50% of what I earn in taxes of one kind or another..
So that a select group of people can have for free what I have to work for everydamnday...
perhaps I am on the wrong side of this argument...


MEDIA IGNORE INDEPENDENTS' SWING TOWARD ROMNEY

Breitbart's Big Journalism ^ | 27 Sep 2012 | Dustin Hawkins

Not long ago, Independents were the go-to demographic for determining who would win elections. How the Independents swung, so too would the election.
In 2008, Barack Obama carried Independents in Ohio by 8 points and in Florida by 7 points. That victory among Independents contributed a great deal to his 2.8-point win in Florida and his 4.5 point win in Ohio.
A victory by Romney among Independents could tilt both key states in his favor.
Curiously, Independents seem to be mostly ignored this election cycle, and their presidential vote preference is almost unanimously ignored by the MSM. Instead, “women” have replaced Independents as the key demographic.
This emphasis and sudden fascination conveniently ties in nicely with the Democrats’ fictitious “War on Women” meme.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

The View

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"Rich" deffinition

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More Flexible

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Wondrous Things

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Still In Business?

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Obama’s God Fails Him Again!

Townhall.com ^ | September 28, 2012 | John Ransom

Just when you thought it couldn’t get more Orwellian, news came Thursday that government economists overstated 2nd quarter GDP numbers by whopping 31 percent. The BEA’s third revision to GDP for the quarter show that the economy actually grew at a pathetic annual rate of 1.3 percent rather than the previously-stated 1.7 percent.
According to a Bureau of Economic Analysis report issued last year, the mean revision of this estimate since 1983 is 0.12 in real dollars. That means that the current revision of 0.4 is more than three times the norm.
And while the media will be busy blaming the GDP numbers on “peaceful Libyans outraged by American disrespect for the Prophet,” a closer look at the numbers say that it was an act of god, not the Prophet, that is responsible.
Not an act of the God, but rather an act of a god.
Because the other reason put forth by the media for the poor GDP numbers are that an act of God- the drought- brought down farm inventory levels. And while no doubt it’s true that crop inventory levels have been affected by the drought, it’s also true that the only upward revision in GDP went to the only act of god that Obama and liberals recognize- government spending.
Contrary to Obama’s assertion that the private sector economy is doing “just fine” inventories for businesses are dropping, meaning businesses are holding on to cash.
“Inventory investment posted the largest downward revision,” reports financial wire service MNI, “now reported at a $41.4 billion rise for the second quarter compared with the $49.9 billion increase in the second estimate. The contribution for inventory investment now stands at -0.46, compared with -0.23 in the second estimate.”
Also revised downward were numbers for personal consumption, residential and nonresidential fixed investment.
The widening trade gap, largely a function of high oil prices- thanks Obama and Ben Bernnake!- and troubles in the Eurozone and Asia, also contributed to the downward slurge.
Apparently economists didn’t see the revision from the “drought” coming, which we all know was brought on by global warming incited by insults to the Prophet.
Also contributing to the drought we know now is the war on women that Republicans are waging by concentrating on private job creation versus really important issues like Sandra Fluke making a religious organization pay for her copulation on demand- another act of God moment - or god moment - depending on whether you bitterly cling to your religion, or. Alternately, you gave up being a liberal long ago.
“Economists polled by Reuters had expected second-quarter GDP growth would be unrevised at a 1.7 percent pace. The economy grew at a 2.0 percent pace in the January-March period.”
“The worst drought in half a century,” explains Reuters, “which gripped large parts of the country in the summer, saw farm inventories dropping $5.3 billion in the second quarter after slipping $1 billion in the first three months of the year.”
“Data in hand for the third-quarter suggest little improvement in the growth pace,” concludes Reuters, “even as the housing market digs out of a six-year slump.”
Oh. My. God.
What a disaster Obama’s god has created.
While the numbers probably don’t mean much for the markets, they should give pollsters, wonks, the media, economists, experts and the professional policy types a bit to ponder.
The markets will roll on because what pollsters, wonks, the media, economists, experts and the professional policy types want finally came to pass. Ben Bernnake, in conjunction with the god of great government, is printing dollars again.
Oil prices are up, stocks are making new highs, so who cares about jobs?
Only suckers don’t have jobs in this economy.
The pollsters, wonks, the media, economists, experts and the professional policy types are too busy bowing to the god of government to worry about mundane stuff like jobs and the economy.
And yes, I’m taking about the only god they have ever recognized: Obama.
God, isn’t government great?

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