Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Media cooperating with Benghazi cover-up?

Hot Air ^ | 1:31 pm on October 30, 2012 | Ed Morrissey

There has been a curious lack of curiosity among the media about the chain of events that left an American consulate largely undefended in a terrorist attack, resulting in the death of four Americans, despite a number of military resources at hand. Does this equate to a cover-up by the national media, or at least cooperation on their part with the Obama administration to avoid answering questions about it?
Deborah Saunders, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, finds the lack of interest in this story very, er, interesting. She argues that this isn’t a total media blackout by any means, but implies that the aversion to this story has a lot to do with the party affiliation of the President:
Some readers tell me that they see The Chronicle’s failure to run a rash of front-page stories as proof of bias. They have a point, but they fail to appreciate the local emphasis in today’s front-page placement, especially during a presidential election and World Series, which the Giants, incidentally, won 4-zip.
Most important is the resources issue. Most dailies don’t have foreign bureaus or reporters with the sources needed to break this type of story. “I don’t think there’s a bias issue, but we do have to rely on our primary news services,” Chronicle Editor Ward H. Bushee told me.
That doesn’t let the media off the hook. Saunders notes some very troubling information that has come to light in the last few days — through some good work at Fox News, among others — but which haven’t prompted much coverage or follow-up elsewhere. And if this had happened in a Republican administration, Saunders argues, we’d be seeing a much different response from the media:
On Friday, correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources told her that a CIA team, including Tyrone Woods who also died in Benghazi, had requested military backup during the attack but was told to “stand down.” The CIA dismissed the story as “inaccurate.”
A drone was deployed over Benghazi during an attack that lasted about seven hours. Yet, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that he hadn’t known enough about what was happening in real time to authorize a military rescue.
The Chronicle’s most recent story on Benghazi ran on Oct. 25. It reported that on Sept. 11, the State Department e-mailed the White House that Ansar al-Shariah had claimed responsibility for the attack. That would be shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern time. What did Obama know that night, when did he know it and what did he do about it? Ditto Langley and the Pentagon.
Now ask yourself this: If George W. Bush were president, and the press didn’t know what he did on the evening of the Benghazi attack, do you think there would be the same focus in the media? I think we know the answer.
Michael Ramirez offers his Pulitzer Prize-winning perspective at Investors Business Daily on the media response:

Also, be sure to check out Ramirez’ terrific collection of his works: Everyone Has the Right to My Opinion, which covers the entire breadth of Ramirez’ career, and it gives fascinating look at political history. Read my review here, and watch my interviews with Ramirez here and here. And don’t forget to check out the entire Investors.com site, which has now incorporated all of the former IBD Editorials, while individual investors still exist.

Obama,Biden indicted by Florida Grand Jury

Freedoml Watch | 10/30/12

Obama and Biden Indicted by Grand Jury

(Ocala, Florida, October 30, 2012). Larry Klayman, the founder and chairman of Freedom Watch today announced that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden have been criminally indicted for having willfully released classified national security information concerning the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, U.S. and Israeli war plans concerning Iran and their cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The release of this information, among other harm to U.S. national security, resulted in the killing of members of Seal Team Six by terrorists and the arrest and imprisonment of American covert agents by Pakistan, such as the doctor who aided the CIA with regard to the bin Laden assassination. U.S.-Israeli war plans with Iran have also been compromised.
A true bill of indictment was issued by a Citizens’ Grand Jury in Ocala, Florida, who reviewed evidence and voted unanimously to indict Obama and Biden at 6:02 pm on October 29, 2012.
The authority for a Citizens’ Grand Jury can be found at www.citizensgrandjury.com.
The criminal defendants, Obama and Biden, will now be given notice of their indictment, arraigned and then tried for their alleged crimes.
Mr. Klayman, the Citizens’ Prosecutor, issued the following statement: “The Citizens’ Grand Jury, after having deliberated, yesterday issued a true bill of indictment. See www.citizensgrandjury.com It did the work that the government should have done, but does not have the integrity to do; that is hold these public officials accountable under the law. For far too long, government prosecutors, who are put in place by politicians, have looked the other way as high public officials like Obama and Biden violate the law to further their political agendas.
Now, as a result, the people must therefore exercise the rights given to them by the framers of the Constitution, and themselves take legitimate measures to restore the nation to some semblance of legality.
This indictment (see www.citizensgrandjury.com) of Obama and Biden is just the first step in a legal revolution to reclaim the nation from establishment politicians, government officials and judges who have represented only their own political and other interests at the expense of ‘We the People.’
Obama and Biden will now be tried in a court of law and I am confident that they will be convicted of these alleged crimes.”
For information see www.citizensgrandjury.com or contact Adrienne Mazzone: 561-750-9800 x210; amazzone@transmediagroup.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As many as 50 Obama-backed green energy companies bankrupt or troubled!

Daily Caller ^ | 10/30/12 | Michael Bastasch

The October bankruptcy of solar company Satcon Technology Corp. puts the number of bankrupt or troubled green energy companies as high as 50, according to one estimate.

During the first presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said the Obama administration had doled out $90 billion to green energy companies, half of which he said had failed, which sparked a media-wide debate over the accuracy of the claim.

The Romney campaign later clarified that he was talking about the DOE’s 1705 loan program which doled out $16.1 billion to green energy companies, according to the Washington Post. Of the 33 companies that received 1705 loan guarantees, only three have declared bankruptcy.

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

Sandy swoops in to save Obama

Chicago Tribune ^ | October 31, 2012 | John Kass

What a difference a storm named Sandy makes, eh, Mr. President?

Thanks to Sandy, Barack Obama can act presidential once again — at least on TV. Sandy allows him to get on that phone with those FEMA bureaucrats and tell them to stop talking and do something. And Sandy brought him praise from that chunky Republican governor from New Jersey.

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

Wasserman Schultz Involved in Police Altercation Outside Voting Precinct



by Javier Manjarres

A group of sign-waving campaign ralliers comprised of both Democrat and Republican supporters outside an Aventura, Florida polling location witnessed Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz get involved in a heated altercation with an Aventura policeman after she apparently took issue with his request to not engage in campaign activities in the street which would hold up oncoming traffic.
She listened to the police officer’s respectful and reasonable request, but Wasserman Schultz continued to argue with the police officer, according to several people who witnessed the incident.
Wasserman Schultz was greeting voters and waiving her campaign signs on a street that leading into the polling site and was obstructing traffic by stopping cars before they could even enter the parking area.
The police officer respectfully asked Wasserman Schultz to move onto the sidewalk as everyone else was required to do, but the Congresswoman was unhappy with not being able to campaign how she saw it fit. Unnerved by the simple request from a police officer, Wasserman Schultz made a “well placed” phone call to some unknown individual in a position of authority. Five minutes later, the Aventura City Mayor came to the scene and was confronted by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and proceeded to get an earful from her as well.
Wasserman Schultz stayed about 20 minutes before she left the scene with the six or so supporters she brought with her . After the congresswoman left, one of the Democrat supporters who witnessed the whole incident confronted the Mayor and told him that what she did was “extremely inappropriate” for her to berate him in the manner she did.
This altercation is just a few days removed from an earlier incident in which the congresswoman took issue with a Democrat voter who refused to campaign and support her and instead supported her Republican congressional opponent Karen Harrington.
Related: Wasserman Schultz Election Day Worries

Mitt Romney set to win, maybe by a mile: Republican momentum makes prez desperate


The Boston Herald ^ | October 31, 2012 | Michael Graham

One week from today, the Boston Herald’s front page will either read “Obama Pulls Out Victory” Or “Romney Wins.” (Actually, given that this is the Herald the headline will be something clever like, “He’s Barack In Charge!” or “Sweet Mitt-ory!”)
I predict the latter. One week from today, Mitt wins.
I’ll even go a step farther. I’ll ask the question poll watchers across America are thinking but afraid to ask: Is this election over?
If your source of news is MSNBC or the Boston Globe-Democrat, obviously not. If anything, you think President Obama is on the verge of a massive sweep from North Carolina to Nevada.
But if you’ve been watching the polls and the campaigns at all objectively, you’re starting to see a picture develop. One where Romney’s the winner well before bedtime.
I believe we’re on the verge of a solid Romney win for two reasons. One is the objective evidence. The other is the ugly desperation of the Obama campaign in its final days.
First the numbers. And let’s start with the big one: Before Gallup suspended polling due to Hurricane Sandy, Mitt Romney was at or above 50 percent among likely voters for 14 consecutive days. No candidate above 50 percent at this point has ever lost the presidential race.
Ever.
The president, on the other hand, has peaked at 47 percent. The Battleground Poll model shows Obama losing 52 percent to 47 percent. Rasmussen daily tracking has Obama losing 49 percent to 47 percent. Pew has him tied: 47 percent to 47 percent. But more important, all the polls show Obama sliding or stuck. None show any upward movement.
Obama supporters are quick to tell you “the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day.” Two things: a) that’s what candidates who are behind always say; b) this is election day.
Thanks to early voting, millions of votes have already been cast. Four years ago on this day — Halloweek — Gallup released a poll of folks who’d already voted and found Obama was beating John McCain by 15 points.
This year? He’s losing to Mitt Romney 52 percent to 45 percent — a set swing of 22 points. The wrong way.
But who cares if Obama loses the popular vote (and he will, by the way)? All that matters is winning the Electoral College vote in the “swing states!” That’s Obama’s path to victory!
OK. But what is a swing state? Forget Virginia and Ohio. Obama’s lost so much ground he’s been forced to send Joe Biden to Pennsylvania and Bill Clinton to Minnesota — a state so blue Ronald Reagan never carried it.
The president, on the other hand, is only up by 6 among the loony-left granola-crunchers of Oregon.
Those are the numbers. The campaign Obama’s running looks even worse.
Between desperate, last-second proposals for a “Secretary of Business” and embarrassing ads comparing voting for Obama to a girl losing her virginity, you can smell the desperation from the Obama camp.
These are the juvenile stunts of a second-tier congressional race, not the campaign of an incumbent president. Then again, has any other president posted a picture of his opponent in a dunce cap? Or called his opponent a “bullsh***er” on the record? Obama’s done both.
The Obama campaign is angry, it’s negative and it acts like — to quote Bill Clinton — its feelings are hurt. In a word: Losing.
More and more people sense it. Ben Domenech wrote at RealClearPoli tics.com about an “undertow” that seems to be pulling Obama’s support away. It’s not that Obama’s supporters have turned on him. They’ve just abandoned him. They’ve drifted away. Like so many of us, they’re just done with Obama.
If I’m wrong, I’m counting on you to mock me for it mercilessly next Wednesday. But I’m not wrong.
And isn’t it interesting how many people already seem to know it.

Obama’s Layoff Bomb

National Review Online ^ | October 31, 2012 | Michelle Malkin

In June, a diffident and self-deluded President Obama claimed that “the private sector is doing fine.” Last week, the private sector responded: Speak for yourself, buster. Who needs an “October Surprise” when the business headlines are broadcasting the imminent layoff bomb in neon lights?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Tuesday that employers issued 1,316 “mass layoff actions” (affecting 50 workers or more) in September; more than 122,000 workers were affected. USA Today financial reporter Matt Krantz wrote that “much of the recent layoff activity is connected to what’s been the slowest period of earnings growth since the third quarter of 2009.” Some necessary restructuring is underway in response to the stagnant European economy. But more and more U.S. businesses are putting the blame — bravely and squarely — right where it belongs: on the obstructionist policies and regulatory schemes of the blame-shifter-in-chief.
Last week, Ohio-based auto-parts manufacturer Dana Holding Corporation warned employees of potential layoffs amid “looming concern” about the economy. President and CEO Roger Wood specifically mentioned the walloping burden of “increasing taxes on small businesses” and the need to “offset increased costs that are placed on us through new laws and regulations.”
.............[snip detailing upcoming layoffs].............
Truth suppression is a time-honored Obama tactic, of course. Remember: The administration and its Democratic allies on Capitol Hill attempted to punish Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon, and ATT in 2010 for disclosing how the costs of Obamacare taxes were hitting their bottom lines — even though they were simply following SEC disclosure requirements. The White House also tried to silence insurers who dared to inform their customers about how Obamacare was driving up premiums.
Not this time. The administration’s bullyboys don’t have enough whitewash and duct tape to cover up the past, present, and future devastation of the president and his economic demolition team.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...

Benghazi: Obama Emerges from the Fog of War

National Review Online ^ | October 29, 2012 | Bing West

Our ambassador to Libya was killed in our own consulate in Benghazi on the night of September 11. For the next six weeks, President Obama repeated the same talking point: The morning after the attack, he ordered increased security in our embassies in the region.
Suddenly, on the campaign trail in Denver on October 26, he changed his story. “The minute I found out what was happening . . . I gave the directive,” he said, “to make sure we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do. I guarantee you everybody in the CIA and military knew the number-one priority was making sure our people are safe.”
Notice the repeated use of the present tense, implying that he gave the order during the attack. Mr. Obama met with his national-security team, including the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at 5:00 p.m. Washington time. For over an hour, the consulate staff had been constantly reporting that they were under assault by terrorists and Ambassador Chris Stevens was missing in action. In the White House, group-think leads to the mistaken assumption that the attackers are a spontaneous mob.
An hour after the attack has begun, the president orders the CIA and the military to do “whatever we need to do.” Yet the CIA and the military do nothing, except send drones overhead to watch the seven-hour battle. A CIA employee and former Navy SEAL, Tyrone Woods, twice calls for military help. He has a laser rangefinder and is pinpointing enemy targets, radioing the coordinates. The military send no aircraft to attack the designated targets. Special Operations forces standing by, 480 miles away — less than a two-hour plane ride — are not deployed.
Advertisement Secretary of Defense Panetta later explained that this passivity was in keeping with a rule of warfare. “A basic principle,” he said on October 25, “is you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on — without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.”
Rarely has a spontaneous mob so thoroughly intimidated our nation. And so much for sending our squads out every day in Afghanistan on patrol, when they don’t know what’s going on. The next time a platoon is told to take an objective, some corporal will say, “SecDef says we don’t have to go into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.”
Apart from the questionable philosophy of turning battle into a poker game where all cards are face up before anyone places a bet, Mr. Panetta ignored the fact that the former SEAL on the ground was giving real-time information to everyone listening in at least eight operations centers (the embassy in Tripoli, State, White House, Pentagon, CIA, Special Operations Command, Africa Command, and the National Ops Center).
The SecDef and the president have issued contradictory explanations. Either Mr. Obama ordered the Secretary of Defense to “do whatever we need to do,” or he didn’t. And either the secretary obeyed that order, or he didn’t. And he didn’t.
It is also not clear whether the SecDef countermanded the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who is the direct military adviser to the president. Did the president as commander-in-chief issue an unequivocal order that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs received but chose not to execute? Or did the chairman reply that he would do nothing?
Yet the general in charge of the Africa region has allegedly said he received no directive from Washington to dispatch military aid. Members of the mutual protective society of generals are offering the bizarre defense that our Africa Command could do nothing because it has no military assets; it’s some sort of ghost command. Even if that is true, the most powerful nation in the world has sufficient forces and flexibility to send fighter aircraft over a consulate in flames, or to land some troops at the secure airport east of Benghazi. After all, our embassy in Tripoli, 400 miles away, sent an aircraft with six Americans to fight in Benghazi. But our base in Sigonella, 480 miles away, sent no help.
If General Dempsey had concluded that the U.S. military should do nothing, he would have reported his decision not to act back to his commander-in-chief before the latter went to bed to rest up for his campaign trip to Las Vegas the next day. After all, the ambassador was still missing. And brave Tyrone Woods was to die in a mortar attack five hours later. President Obama would naturally be more than a bit interested in why the military and the CIA did nothing after he explicitly ordered them “to make sure we are securing our personnel.”
Surely it is in the president’s best interests to release a copy of his order, which the military would have sent to hundreds in the chain of command. And if the president did not direct the NSC “to do whatever we need to do,” then who was in charge? When the American ambassador is attacked and remains out of American hands for over seven hours as a battle rages — and our military sends no aid — either the crisis-response system inside the White House is incompetent, or top officials are covering up.

Why Catholics Will Choose President Romney

The American Thinker ^ | October 31, 2012 | Kate Wright

Why Catholics Will Choose President Romney
Because they can.
Sixty million Americans are Catholic. One in every four American voters is Catholic. This election is about jobs, jobs, jobs -- and about that ubiquitous Catholic "swing" vote in 10 key states where electoral votes will be determined by the Catholic margin: Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, the new toss-up states of Pennsylvania and Michigan, and the key states of Florida and Ohio.
With 134 Catholic "swing state" electoral votes on the line, Catholics are about to head to polls and choose the next president of the United States:
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...

Benghazi scandal shows ‘groupthink’ media bias!

Boston Herald ^ | October 31, 2012 | Jonah Goldberg

This isn’t an “October surprise” foisted on the media by opposition research; it’s news.

If you want to understand why conservatives have lost faith in the so-called mainstream media, you need to ponder the question: Where is the Benghazi feeding frenzy?
Unlike some of my colleagues on the right, I don’t think there’s a conspiracy at work. Rather, I think journalists tend to act on their instincts (some even brag about this; you could look it up). And, collectively, the mainstream media’s instincts run liberal, making groupthink inevitable.
In 2000, a Democratic operative orchestrated an “October surprise” attack on George W. Bush, revealing that 24 years earlier, he’d been arrested for drunk driving. The media went into a feeding frenzy. “Is all the 24-hour coverage of Bush’s 24-year-old DUI arrest the product of a liberal media almost drunk on the idea of sinking him, or is it a legitimate, indeed unavoidable news story?” asked Howard Kurtz in a segment for his CNN show “Reliable Sources.” The consensus among the guests: It wasn’t a legitimate news story. But the media kept going with it.
One could go on and on. In September 2004, former CBS titan Dan Rather gambled his entire career on a story about Bush’s service in the National Guard. His instincts were so powerful, he didn’t thoroughly check the documents he relied on, which were forgeries. In 2008, the media feeding frenzy over John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, was so ludicrous it belonged in a Tom Wolfe novel. Over the last couple of years, the mainstream media has generally treated Occupy Wall Street as idealistic, the “tea parties” as racist and terrifying.
To be sure, there have been conservative feeding frenzies: about Barack Obama’s pastor, John Kerry’s war record, etc. But the mainstream media usually has tasked itself with the duty of debunking and dispelling such “hysteria.”
Last week, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources on the ground in Libya say they pleaded for support during the attack on the Benghazi consulate that led to the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. They were allegedly told twice to “stand down.” Worse, there are suggestions that there were significant military resources available to counterattack, but requests for help were denied.
If true, the White House’s concerted effort to blame the attack on a video crumbles, as do several other fraudulent claims. Yet, last Friday, the president boasted that “the minute I found out what was happening” in Benghazi, he ordered that everything possible be done to protect our personnel. That is either untrue, or he’s being disobeyed on grave matters.
This isn’t an “October surprise” foisted on the media by opposition research; it’s news.
This story raises precisely the sort of “big issues” the media routinely claim elections should be about. For instance, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that the “basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on, without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.” If real-time video of the attack and communications with Americans on the ground begging for assistance doesn’t constitute “real-time information,” what does?
This is not to say that Fox News is alone in covering the story. But it is alone in treating it like it’s a big deal. During the comparatively less significant Valerie Plame scandal, reporters camped out on the front lawns of Karl Rove and other Bush White House staff. Did Obama confiscate those journalists’ sleeping bags?
On Oct. 28, of the five Sunday news shows, only “Fox News Sunday” treated this as a major story. On the other four, the issue came up only when Republicans mentioned it. Tellingly, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host David Gregory shushed a guest when she tried to bring up the subject, saying, “Let’s get to Libya a little bit later.”
Gregory never did get back to Benghazi. But he saved plenty of time to dive deep into the question of what Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s comments on abortion and rape mean for the Romney campaign. Typically, Gregory’s instincts about the news routinely line up with Democratic talking points, in this case Obama’s ridiculous “war on women” rhetoric.
I am willing to believe that journalists like Gregory are sincere in their desire to play it straight. But among those who don’t share his instincts, it’s hard to distinguish between conspiracy and groupthink. Indeed, it’s hard to think why one should even bother trying to make that distinction at all.

Is human longevity due to grandmothers or older fathers?

UNSW ^ | 10/30/12 | Rob Brooks

Why do humans tend to live such a long time? Our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, can last into their mid forties in the wild. Yet somewhere in the last six million years, human lifespans have lengthened dramatically, so that living into our seventies is no big surprise.
The last few weeks have seen some exciting new developments in this area. First, a recent paper featured in The Conversation showed that at all ages, humans are less likely to die than chimps.
Excitingly, however, modern health care, diets and the steady decline in violent deaths have slashed mortality rates of young adults. People in societies like Japan are now almost 200 times less likely to die in at a given age than people of the same age in hunter-gatherer societies.
The dramatic declines in modern mortality rates are almost entirely due to technological developments, but the lengthening of the maximum potential human lifespan since we diverged from the other great apes poses an intriguing evolutionary problem.
Our bodies only function as well as they do because we have a quiver-full of cellular repair and maintenance mechanisms. For example, we have systems that correct mistakes in DNA replication, and others that detect and kill off pre-cancerous clusters of cells.
But natural selection optimises those mechanisms to operate during our expected lifespan. Modern people who live beyond seventy are much more likely to suffer from cancers, dementia and other diseases of old age. Few of our ancestors – even the most recent ones – lived that long, and these late-onset diseases didn’t interfere with their successful reproduction. By the time they got the diseases, our ancestors had already passed their genes on – and that’s why we carry those same genes.
Six million years ago, the diseases of old age probably kicked in before our great-ape ancestors hit forty. The evolution of a longer lifespan involved a steady postponement of ageing. But only if older individuals contribute to the success of their own genes can this actually happen.
Older and fitter
Grandmothers are enjoying a renaissance in the evolutionary sciences, and it seems that delayed ageing might have evolved via grandmothering.
A few months ago, in this column, I discussed the evolution of menopause. In most animals, females reproduce throughout their adult lives. But women, and females of some whale species, stop having offspring of their own and live on for some time.
Exactly how this evolves remains controversial, but the help grandmothers provide to their adult offspring is crucial to all the competing theories. Male killer whales whose mothers are still alive tend, themselves, to live longer and sire more calves.
Human grandmothers help their daughters or sons to raise families of their own. As I discussed in my previous column, however, the reason grandmothers stop having their own babies might be due to less than healthy dynamics between them and their daughters-in-law.. The exact pathway by which menopause evolved will probably take decades to resolve entirely. But menopause and grandmothering also appear to have important evolutionary consequences.
Anthroplogist Kristen Hawkes has, for some time, argued that the evolution of menopause led to the lengthening of the human lifespan. When a mother retires from having more children of her own and starts investing in grandchildren, she continues to ensure the success of her own genes.
So, any genes that hasten the onset of ageing and disease in older women also rob grandchildren of the food and protection of their grannies. Which is why, according to Hawkes' “Grandmother Hypothesis”, the evolution of longer human lifespans was driven by the important contributions grandmothers made to their grandchildren’s fitness.
The grandmother hypothesis is far from universally accepted. Some papers argue that the benefits to grandchildren are far too weak to drive an evolutionary extension of grandmother’s lives.
And what about men? Could longer male lives simply be a by-product of lengthening female lives? The short answer is “possibly”. Many of the same diseases of ageing afflict women and men, so any suppression of these diseases would result in longer lifespans for both sexes.
But a 2007 paper entitled Why Men Matter: Mating Patterns Drive Evolution of Human Lifespan suggests that men might have been the primary drivers of human lifespan extension. Shripad D. Tuljapurkar, Cedric O. Puleston and Michael D. Gurven produced a model showing that men’s ability to sire children well into old age – an ability practiced with some relish by many older, wealthier men throughout history – could be just as important as grandmothering. Perhaps Viagra will stimulate a new evolutionary rise in human lifespan.
Of course there is no reason that virile old men and helpful grandmothers could not have both pushed back the onset of ageing and extended our lifespans. But the latest volley from Hawkes and her collaborators gives new support to the importance of grandmothers.
Using a simple simulation model, they showed that a relatively modest amount of grandmothering can lead to the evolution of extended grand-maternal longevity. From a simple chimp-like state in which few women lived beyond their child-bearing years, the contributions grandmothers made to their grandchildren’s survival and future reproduction eventually led to the evolution of extra decades worth of lifespan.

No Men in The White House!

American Thinker ^ | 10/31/12 | Richard F. Miniter

Between e-mail revelations and whistle-blower testimony, the Band-Aid is very painfully being pulled off the Obama administration's Benghazi disaster. And as in any management failure, we have two ways to look at the issue -- long-term and short. In the short-term view, we learn something about the quality of our actions -- i.e., was the right or most proper decision or sequence of decisions made based on the facts known at the time? But the benefit of the long-term view is that it may reveal failings in the way we organize ourselves for these occasions and, by extension, the likelihood of such a thing happening again.
It's this long-term view of Benghazi which is so disheartening because it so obviously illustrates how we're set up to produce ever more situations similar to this one, wherein our people not only die expecting help, but die several hours after they had fixed a targeting laser on the mortar position which would eventually kill them. More tragedies wherein we have to listen to a political operative like Leon Panetta reference some completely fictitious military maxim that you never send a force in without knowing exactly what's happening on the ground. More calamities where what we don't hear is that someone like General Petraeus, who is supposed to be a soldier, ended his career by refusing to abandon his men -- indeed, wherein not even one man in the White House Situation Room, in uniform or not -- not one diplomat in the loop at State, not one senior CIA official, not one Naval officer offshore, not one serving general in the multitude of American commands in Europe would sacrifice his career in order to save them.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

If Obama is re-elected can you imagine the mess he is going to inherit?

Tea Party Tribune ^ | 2012-10-30 13:58:39 | Gil Guignat



Romney helping Hurricane Sandy victims in Kettering, Ohio source: unskewedpolls.com

On July 21,2012 we said that by 8:00 PM West Coast time the election would be called for Governor Romney. We still think this will be so. Worse than Hurricane Sandy is Hurricane Romney and it just does not look like it will stop until it gets what it wants. It can smell victory and will get it as long as it destroys any remnant of defeat!
Can you imagine the excuses President would make for the mess he has created in his first term, if he were re-elected? He would have to stay up night after night to make lists of excuses why the country is in such shambles and he could have the hubris to say that this was not his fault because he inherited this big economic mess from himself. He has had every other excuse for his failures. Don't laugh. His administration is dripping one absurd assertion after the other. Nothing makes sense anymore when it comes to President Obama and his traveling circus.
The good news for President Obama is that he will not have to work hard at excuse making because he won't need to make any. It sure looks like he is going to lose and lose really big.
**Gallup Shock** Romney Up 52-45% Among Early Voters
"Very early on, before this campaign started in earnest, live or die, I publicly cast my lot with Gallup and Rasmussen. As a poll addict going back to 2000, these are the outlets that have always played it straight.(snip)So when an outlet like Gallup tells me Romney is up seven-points, 52-45%, among those who have already voted, that's very big news." More...
Latest Rasmussen polls protect Romney to win 279+ electoral votes

"According to the latest Rasmussen state polls, Mitt Romney is in position to win the presidency; he should win at least 279 electoral votes." More...

Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media have painted such a rosy picture that President Obama is going to win easily that most may not even show up to vote. After all, with hurricane Sandy pummeling the Eastern Seaboard most democrats in the Northeast (blue country) will probably prefer to stay inside and recover from the devastation of the hurricane assuming that there are more than enough democrats to bring President Obama to victory. Republicans on the other hand will crawl through broken glass to get to the polls rather than sit this one out. Perhaps that is why the polls are painting a much different picture for Governor Romney's prospects.
What everyone is now realizing is that there really is a difference between the parties. "R" stands for recovery and "D" stands for depression which is why all of the sudden out of nowhere (yah! Right) Governor Romney is surging really big. People want recovery and prosperity and are fed up with President Obama's managed depression. Americans know what our economic engine is capable of and President Obama is simply not suited for this American expectation of economic and personal American exceptionalism.
Yesterday, President Obama flew to Florida and then touched down on Air Force One and took off again and went back home to Washington, DC. The reason was that this would show Americans that the president was in charge and managing the hurricane devastation. Governor Romney on the other hand took time off from his campaign and went to Kettering, Ohio to work distributing food for hurricane victims. What's wrong with this picture? The polls know what is wrong and are reflecting it abundantly. Remember! At 8:00 PM west coast time November 6th, conservative America will be back with the adults in charge once again. See you all at the top.

Right to Work States



Shock to Obama Camp: Gallup finds early voters favor Romney 52-47%

American Thinker ^ | 10/30/2012 | Thomas Lifson

The Gallup Organization has some very bad news for the Obama camp, but is being discreet about it, entombing it at the bottom of an article innocuously titled "In U.S., 15% of Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots."
Given the apparent intimidation of Gallup by the Department of Justice, it is only prudent to once again bury the lede. But that does not make the news any less painful for Obamaites, who have been counting on a supposed ground game and early voting advantage.
John Nolte of Breitbart has no such compunctions about delivering the bad news from Gallup:
Romney currently leads Obama 52% to 45% among voters who say they have already cast their ballots. However, that is comparable to Romney's 51% to 46% lead among all likely voters in Gallup's Oct. 22-28 tracking polling. At the same time, the race is tied at 49% among those who have not yet voted but still intend to vote early, suggesting these voters could cause the race to tighten. However, Romney leads 51% to 45% among the much larger group of voters who plan to vote on Election Day, Nov. 6. When Gallup says early voters don't seem to be swaying the election, presumably what they means is that because Romney is ahead by five points nationally, an early voting advantage of seven-points isn't going to "sway the election."
Romney's early voting lead in Gallup may not jive with the CorruptMedia narrative, but it does with actual early vote totals that have been released and show Romney's early vote totals either beating Obama in swing states such as Colorado and Florida or chipping away at the President's advantage in the others.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...

FAMILIES PAY $3000 MORE FOR INSURANCE; OBAMA PROMISED $2500 DECREASE!

breitbart ^ | 9/25/2012 | by JOEL B. POLLAK

President Barack Obama promised that Obamacare would cut family health insurance premiums by $2,500 by the end of the first term--but instead they have risen by $3,000, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study cited by Investor’s Business Daily. The cost of health insurance today is more than 50% higher than Obama promised it would be--and the costs are expected to continue to rise as Obamacare is impemented. John Merline of Investor's Business Daily notes the rising costs specifically contradict a campaign promise Obama reiterated several times, including in debates with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and at events along the 2008 campaign trail. Furthermore, the data show that the rise in family premium costs, largely attributable to the costs of complying with Obamacare, has outpaced the rise in costs under eight years in the previous four years of George W. Bush. Health insurance companies have already been required to provide additional coverage for so-called “children” up to age 26, among other changes. That coverage is described by Obama as “free,” but in fact the costs are borne by other patients.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

T'was the night before elections, And all thru' the town, Tempers were flaring Emotions ran up and down.
I, in my bathrobe With a cat in my lap, Had shut off the TV, tired of political crap.
When all of a sudden, There arose such a noise, I peered out my window, Saw Obama and his boys
They had come for my wallet, They wanted my pay To hand out to others Who had not worked a day!
He snatched up my money, And quick as a wink, Jumped back on his bandwagon As I gagged from the stink.
He then rallied his henchmen Who were pulling his cart. I could tell they were out To tear my country apart!
'On Fannie, on Freddie, On Biden and Ayers! On Acorn, on Pelosi' He screamed at the pairs!
They took off for his cause, And as they flew out of sight, I heard him laugh at a nation Who wouldn't stand up and fight!
So I leave you to think on this one final note... IF YOU DON'T WANT SOCIALISM, GET OUT AND VOTE !!!!
(Author unknown)

Cindy Sheehan Was Cheered, Charles Woods Is Ignored!

IBD EDITORIALS ^ | October 30, 2012

Libya: As the father of a former Navy SEAL slain at Benghazi wonders why our secretary of state lied to him, we wonder why our CIA director abetted a lie that contradicted counterterrorism officials and the FBI.
During the 2004 presidential campaign, a media eager to deny George W. Bush a second term made Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq, a national heroine and reported virtually her every word and move.
"Cindy Sheehan," gushed NBC News, "is single-handedly bringing the Iraq debate to Mr. Bush's doorstep."
But nobody in a mainstream media eager to see President Obama get a second term is bringing the Benghazi debate to the White House doorstep. On all the Sunday talk shows, when Benghazi was brought up, the moderator quickly changed subjects.
On CNN's "State of the Union," Candy Crowley, who came to the aid of President Obama on Benghazi during the second presidential debate, sloughed off attempts by two GOP officials to broach Benghazi.
When Newt Gingrich raised Benghazi on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos quickly changed topics. NBC's David Gregory cut off GOP panelist Carly Fiorina when she brought up Benghazi, promising to "get to that a little later." Of course, he never did.
Nor is Gregory or the others likely to pursue an interview with Charles Woods, father of Ty Woods, one of the SEALs killed in Benghazi.
A few conservative outlets have talked to him, notably Fox News, and he's had much to say about how and why his son was abandoned by the government he served.
Woods is especially angry "that apparently the White House situation room was watching our people die in real time, as this was happening."
If Cindy Sheehan had made such a comment, it would have led every evening newscast.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...

Yard Sign

Obama Gives Up, Goes Back to DC to Work On His Exit Package!

My Fertile Brain by Steely Tom

Let me tell you something boys and girls:
Obama has given up. He knows it's over.

He made this decision in Florida when he decided to "come back to Washington to direct the Sandy relief effort."

Poppycock.

He knows he's going down, and he came back to DC to (a) spare himself the anguish of having his narcissistic supply on the campaign trail, and (b) to plot the course of his final 83 das in office.
Part of the latter is this: what kind of deal is he going to be able to make to get himself and his cronies off the hook for any number of bombs he's now got ticking under himself. These include all the ones we know about - Benghazi, F&F, the "green" companies - plus (I'm sure) many others.
How does he get the best deal for himself on these? Who among his inner circle does he include in the deal?
The "deal" includes many elements. Obama still has many cards to play between election night and 20-Jan-2013.
Obviously, he has the pardon pen. A biggie.
He also has all kinds of nasty things he can do with Presidential power. He can, for instance, bargain over what he does with the vast amount of classified information he has direct control over. He can reclassify much of this at his whim, on the basis of an Executive Order.
He can make things Top Secret that are currently Secret. And he can convert anything he wants to Unclassified as well.
He can - and, I'm betting, will - play hardball with this against the Republicans in the House and Senate who are coming after him on all kinds of issues.
Nasty, but one must expect nasty from this guy, who cares not a whit for the United States and never has.
Another thing to consider: Do we really want to "go after him" for everything, even after he's out of office?
Making kidnappers or rapists eligable for the death penalty simply increases the chance that they'll see no upside to letting their victims live once the criminal knows he has no chance for escape.
Same here. Do we benefit more - as a country - by letting Obama and his claque swim away, or do we continue to press for justice after they're gone?

Libya

Why Accept Contraception as a Women's Issue?

American Thinker ^ | October 30, 2012 | Selwyn Duke

While many points have been made about this campaign's contraception controversy, there's one that I haven't yet heard anyone mention.

Why do we accept contraception as a women's issue?

After all, there is a prophylactic designed for use by men, and insurance policies would have covered it no more than they would female birth control. Even more significantly, contraception is unnecessary unless there's the possibility of conception, something impossible without the participation of a man. In other words, contraception is always used by both sexes.

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

None Like This

(IBD) At Least Carter Tried A Rescue - Benghazi Stand Down Order A Mystery - General Relieved

True Conservatives on Twitter ^ | October 30, 2012

Benghazi: The president says the election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed, but, as in 1980 at another embassy, it should — just as it matters who gave the order to stand down.
We have speculated that a reason the cries for military help during the seven-hour assault on our consulate in Benghazi were ignored was due to fears of another "Blackhawk down" incident as in Somalia under President Clinton or a repeat of the Desert One mission that crashed and burned in the Iranian desert in a failed attempt to rescue our hostages in Tehran in 1980.
After all, according to Richard Miniter's book "Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him," it was at the urging of White House adviser Valerie Jarrett that President Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden three times before finally approving the May 2, 2011, Navy SEAL mission. Her concern: the political harm to Obama if the mission failed.
As we've written, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has falsely said we didn't have real-time intelligence of the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi. The administration has also suggested it was the CIA that put the brakes on any attempt at relief or rescue.
ABC's Jake Tapper reports that a CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA Director David Petraeus, has put out a statement saying, "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate."
(Excerpt) Read more at tcotblog.ning.com ...

Report: Enough Spent on Welfare Programs in 2011 to Write Every Poor Household a $59,523 Check

CNS News ^ | October 30, 2012 | Matt Cover

The federal government spent enough money on federal means-tested welfare programs to have sent each impoverished household a check for nearly $60,000, according to figures from the Census Bureau and the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
According to a report from the CRS produced for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), $1 trillion was spent on federal welfare programs during fiscal year 2011 – with $746 billion in federal funds and $254 in state matching funds.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that there were approximately 16.8 million households living below the federal poverty level of $23,000 per year for a family of four in 2011. ( See: 2011 Households Below Poverty 2011.pdf )
If each of the estimated 16.8 million households with income below the poverty level were to have received an equal share of the total welfare spending for fiscal year 2011, they each would have received $59,523.
If only the 2011 federal share of welfare spending (no state matching funds) were spent as direct cash payments, each household would have received $44,404, which is nearly double the federal poverty level for a family of four.
This federal welfare spending does not include programs such as Medicare and Social Security, because they are not means-tested programs. Means-tested programs are those that only pay out benefits to people whose incomes fall below a certain threshold, such as food stamps, traditional cash welfare, and Medicaid.
In other words, if the government were to discontinue its myriad federal welfare programs, such as housing vouchers, food stamps, and Medicaid, and instead just wrote every poor household a check, it would nearly quadruple their income: increasing it from at most $23,000 per year to nearly $83,000 per year.


The IRS Tax Form for Obamacare Individual Mandate

ATR ^ | 2012-10-29 | [Staff]

As a service to the public, Americans for Tax Reform has released a projected tax form to help families and tax specialists prepare for the additional filing requirement required by the Affordable Healthcare Act's individual mandate.

Starting in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. The new form requires disclosure of a taxpayer’s personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, “taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment”.

You may download a PDF file of form here or view it [back in ATR.]

Highlights from the Obamacare Individual Mandate Tax Compliance Form:

1. Determination of “qualifying” health insurance. Under the Affordable Care Act, most Americans must purchase health insurance deemed “qualified” by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) starting in 2014. Failure to comply with this mandate results in a tax penalty which must be paid to the IRS. The tax penalty ranges from $695 to $2085, or more, depending on the size of a family. The dollar amount grows over time and is tabulated on the form. Taxpayers must demonstrate that they obtained qualifying health insurance for each month of the year in order to avoid payment of this tax penalty. [See lines 12-13]
2. Disclosure of personal identifying health information. Every family that files a tax return (140 million households) will have to disclose whether or not they were covered by a qualifying plan, in which months they were covered, and what type of coverage they received. Tax filers must also divulge and disclose their personal health ID number, the nature of their health insurance, and other information from their health insurance card as further IRS regulations warrant. [See lines 3-4]
3. Exemptions from Individual Mandate: Prisoners, Undocumented Immigrants, Welfare Recipients. The form also determines which individuals are exempt from the Individual Mandate and non-compliance taxes. Classes of individuals who are exempt from the mandate include but are not limited to: those serving sentences in the federal penitentiary system; those persons not legally able to work in the U.S.; welfare recipients; and those qualifying for an HHS-granted religious exemption. [See lines 8-11]
4. IRS penalties and interest on unpaid mandate taxes. Because the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate penalty is a tax, the IRS will be able to assess interest and non-criminal penalties on those families who will not or cannot pay the tax. The IRS will issue regular, periodic correspondence audits to these families to help them comply with their filing responsibilities.
Read more: http://atr.org/irs-tax-form-obamacare-individual-mandate-a7274#ixzz2AoagMD9V

Higher Taxes on the Rich Mean Higher Taxes on the Rest of Us!

Townhall.com ^ | October 30, 2012 | Daniel J. Mitchell

President Obama repeatedly assures us that he only wants higher taxes on the rich as part of his class-warfare agenda.
But I don’t trust him. In part because he’s a politician, but also because there aren’t enough rich people to finance big government (not to mention that the rich easily can alter their financial affairs to avoid higher tax rates).
Honest leftists are beginning to admit that their real target is the middle class. Here are a few examples.
In other words, politicians often say they want to tax the rich, but the real target is the middle class. Indeed, this is the history of tax policy. In a post earlier this year, warning the folks in the Cayman Islands not to impose an income tax, I noted how the U.S. income tax began small and then swallowed up more and more people.
…the U.S. income tax began in 1913 with a top rate of only 7 percent and it affected less than 1 percent of the population. But that supposedly benign tax has since become a monstrous internal revenue code that plagues the nation today.
The same thing is true elsewhere in the world.
Allister Heath explains for London’s City A.M. newspaper.
The introduction of income taxes around the world have tended to follow a very similar pattern over the past couple of centuries. First, we get generally low income tax rates, with most people exempt and with the highest rate only affecting a few people relatively lightly. Eventually, tax rates shoot up for everybody – including to crippling levels for top earners – and millions more are caught by income tax. The next stage is that the ultra-high tax rates for top earners are reduced to manageable levels – but ever more people are brought into the tax system, with the higher brackets also catching vastly more folk.
By the way, you can see that Allister makes a reference to tax rates being reduced for top earners. That’s largely because many politicians learned an important lesson about the Laffer Curve. Sometimes, the best way to “soak the rich” is by lowering their tax rates. Unfortunately, President Obama still needs some remedial education on this topic.
Allister then looks at some specific U.K. data revealing how more and more middle class people are now subject to higher tax rates.
The biggest change in the UK has been the number of people paying what is now the 40p tax rate: up six-fold in thirty years, from 674,000 in 1979-80, 2.5m in 1999-2000 to 4.048m in 2011-12. This number will jump again to around 5m in 2014, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. When Margaret Thatcher came to power, just 2.6 per cent of taxpayers paid the top rate; by the time of the next election, 16.7 per cent will.
If Obama and other statists get their way, we’ll see similar statistic in the United States. Higher income tax rates for the rich will mean higher income tax rates for the rest of us. Though I’m even more worried about a value-added tax, which would be a huge burden on ordinary people and a revenue machine for greedy politicians.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that the American tax code actually is more “progressive” than the tax codes of Europe’s welfare states. This is largely because we don’t screw over poor and middle-class taxpayers with a VAT.
P.S. Since I mentioned the Laffer Curve above, I should emphasize that the goal of good tax policy should be to maximize growth, not to maximize tax revenue.
P.P.S. And don’t forget that poor and middle-income taxpayers also will be hurt because slower growth is an inevitable consequence when tax rates climb and the burden of government spending increases.

Ahmadinejad calling



By Tom Purcell






http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad phones President Obama's private line. Obama answers.

"Why are you calling me, Ahmadinejad? You know we're not ready for one-on-one talks."

"But Mahmoud and the mullahs worried about American election! We worry Obama will lose!"
"I'm not going to lose, you nut job. People love me here. I give them other people's money."
"But Mahmoud think Romney use Iran to score big points in debate. He scare people into thinking Iran developing nuclear weapons and that you not do enough to stop us!"
"That's not true. My sanctions are killing your economy and if anyone knows how to slow an economy, I'm your guy."
"But Romney threaten to make Iran sanctions worse. Mahmoud and the mullahs fear he will block American cable TV just as 'Dancing with Stars' getting good."
"Romney isn't as tough as I am. I killed Osama bin Laden."
"Here's what really worries Mahmoud: Romney threaten to indict me under United Nations genocide convention for my threats to eliminate Israel. Mahmoud like Obama much better."
"You like me! If you don't stop the development of nuclear weaponry, I'm going to be your worst nightmare."
"But Romney is Republican like those crazy Bush presidents. The Bushes say they will attack Middle East and then do — three times!"
"Yeah, well, when I'm in a second term and don't have to run again, you better give up nuke production or I'll really let you have it. I have Israel's back, buddy."
"But Obama not visit Israel. You visit other countries in region. While in other countries, you say America has been arrogant and dismissive. You say America has made its share of mistakes. Mahmoud like such words!"
"You're quoting me out of context, you zealot. I was merely trying to distance myself from the reckless policies of my predecessor."
"Mahmoud really like how Obama sit on sidelines when uprising break out in Iran. Obama let Mahmoud and mullahs squash protesters before they succeed. Mahmoud like that!"
"You better watch your step or I will squash you."
"Mahmoud more worried that Romney squash Iran. Mahmoud fear that Obama's policies in Middle East make him look weak — that Obama olive branch is backfiring and that Middle East hate America just as much as ever."
"Not true. My charm is working on the people there. It takes time, but they'll come around."
"But radicals kill your ambassador in Libya. Violence breaking out all over. Al-Qaida is far from dead. Obama appeasement policies no seem to be working. No wonder American voters think Obama lack respect, which allows Mahmoud and the mullahs to keep building nuclear weapon. That's why Mahmoud want to help Obama!"
"Help me? How can a crazed half-dictator help me?"
"First, Mahmoud cut deal with tough dictators and shady leaders from around world. They all endorse Obama in public now — not good for Obama image. So Mahmoud persuade them to NOT endorse you."
"What are you talking about, you madman?"
"Mahmoud get Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to complain about Obama being hard on him, then he break down crying on TV!"
"Go on."
"Then Russian President Vladimir Putin go on TV and say you negotiate too tough and get the better of him."
"Keep going."
"Then Mahmoud complain that Iran can't take tough Obama sanctions anymore and Iran finally give up nuclear bomb ambitions!"
"Nice try, Ahmadinejad, but you have a long history of mistruths and exaggerations. How can I trust that you will do what you say you will do?"
"Funny, but Mahmoud wonder very same thing about Obama."

NYT: Big storm requires big government!

Michelle Malkin ^ | 10/30/12 | Doug Powers

Just a couple of days ago, the New York Times endorsed Barack Obama for re-election. Hurricane Sandy has given the Times a rare opportunity for a follow-up endorsement while pointing out how dangerous Romney/Ryan could be at times like these. Here’s the title of yesterday’s NYT editorial:
“A Big Storm Requires Big Government”
Forget that we don’t even know the extent of the loss and damage from this storm yet, or what the federal government’s role will end up being or even how effective (or not) it will prove to be — bring on more big government.
But big government can also be a huge hindrance to local efforts. Don’t take my word for it though, ask President Obama, who, during hurricane prep, offered to briefly loan local officials the key to temporarily unlock the rules & regs handcuffs that inherently accompany big-government and bloated federal bureaucracy:
“My message to the governors as well as to the mayors is anything they need, we will be there, and we will cut through red tape,” Mr. Obama said. “We are not going to get bogged down with a lot of rules.”
There will be plenty of time to get back to being bogged down by a lot of rules and red tape later. More rules and red tape if the New York Times gets its way — and those usually aren’t assets when it comes to emergency response.
One of the many problems with the “big government” that the Times has endorsed is that it doesn’t just sit in the bullpen waiting to be called in when a “big storm” hits. It needs things to do in the meantime — lots of things. Big government likes to stay occupied.

Cardinal Dolan Implies That Obama Lied to Him!

Courageous Priest ^ | October 29, 2012 | Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Over the last six months or so, the Catholic Church in the United States has found itself in some tension with the executive branch of the federal government over a very grave issue: religious freedom. Can a government bureau, in this case the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), define for us or any faith community what is ministry and how it can be exercised? Can government also coerce the church to violate its conscience?
Obama had personally assured me that he would do nothing to impede the good work of the Church in health care, education, and charity, and that he considered the protection of conscience a sacred duty This has not been a fight of our choosing. We’d rather not be in it. We’d prefer to concentrate on the noble tasks of healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor, all now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church. And we were doing all of those noble works rather well, I dare say, without these radical new mandates from the government. The Catholic Church in America has a long tradition of partnership with government and the wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and abroad. We’d sure rather be partnering than punching.
(Excerpt) Read more at courageouspriest.com ...

Poll: Military Supports Romney 3-1!

Breitbart's Big Government ^ | October 28, 2012 | William Bigelow

The battle-hardened veterans of the military favor Mitt Romney over Barack Obama by a huge margin, 66% to 22%, according to an October poll conducted by the Military Times -- and the two issues most important to the voters were the economy and the character of the candidate. 66% of respondents said that either the economy or the character of the candidate was the deciding issue.
The group surveyed was comprised of 3,100 respondents who were roughly two-thirds active-duty and one-third reserve component members. Almost 29% have spent more than two cumulative years deployed since 9/11, and another group that size has spent one to two cumulative years deployed.
One 28-year-old Army captain said:
“When I talk to my soldiers, it’s not social issues. It’s almost not even military issues. What it comes down to is pocketbook issues. They currently see Mitt Romney as being stronger for their pocketbook. It comes down to taxes — how much are they going to have to pay — and are they going to be able to find jobs if they leave the military.”
Romney’s business acumen resonated with the veterans. Capt. John Bowe, a Marine military policeman, said he’s voting for Romney because Obama has failed with the economy. “You cannot add $6 trillion to the [national] debt in 3½ years and not expect massive repercussions,” he said...
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

Conservatives push back against thin-skinned POTUS: #ThingsThatOffendObama


Twitchy ^ | 10/30/12


In a pre-taped interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, the touchy-touchy commander-in-chief took “offense” at criticism of his administration’s ever-evolving statements on the Benghazi terror attack. Via Red Alert Politics:
President Barack Obama said this morning that he’s ‘offended’ by “suggestions” that the White House purposely kept Americans in the dark about the true nature of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and the events leading up to it.
The President made the comment as part of a pre-taped interview for hit MSNBC show “Morning Joe” with the show’s namesake former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) and co-host Mika Brzezinski.
The President declined to name names with regards to who he was specifically upset with. However, he presumably meant Republicans and the Republican presidential ticket based on his campaign’s continued efforts to portray the GOP as unnecessarily politicizing the issue and his reference to the second presidential debate, in which he and Romney got a memorably heated discussion about the attack.
“But I do take offense, as I’ve said during one of the debates, that there’s some suggestion, you know, that we, in any way haven’t tried to make sure that the American people knew as information was coming in what we believed happened.”
Conservatives on Twitter took offense at Obama’s offense at being called out for the teetering Jenga tower of lies and deceptions regarding the bloody Benghazi siege. The hashtag #ThingsThatOffendObama caught fire Monday night — causing more White House offense, no doubt.
Obama offended that #ThingsThatOffendObama is trending—
Jonathan Ellis (@JHartEllis) October 30, 2012
#ThingsThatOffendObama: Our Founding Fathers and that thing that they wrote that he always forgets about… uhh… uhh… the Constitution.—
#RepublicanGirlProbs (@RepubGrlProbs) October 30, 2012
#ThingsThatOffendObama Young people who dare to think for themselves and not drink the liberal kool aid.—
Bethany Bowra (@BethanyBowra) October 30, 2012
#ThingsThatOffendObama Big Boy Pants—
The Right Planet (@therightplanet) October 30, 2012
#ThingsThatOffendObama Replays of the first debate.—
Brandon Noel (@bnoel_60) October 30, 2012
#ThingsThatOffendObama
The American flag—
Irina Moises (@irinamoises) October 30, 2012
#ThingsThatOffendObama Busts of Winston Churchill—
?Herbert Brown, III? (@MusicmanHerb) October 30, 2012
#ThingsThatOffendObama women being "punished" with babies—
Fuzzy Slippers (@fuzislippers) October 30, 2012

Romney, Not Obama, Shows Concern For Nation's Poor!

Townhall.com ^ | October 29, 2012 | Byron York

CINCINNATI - There's an odd imbalance that few have noticed in this presidential campaign. In the midst of a continuing economic downturn, one candidate talks regularly about poverty, and the other doesn't. The one who does is the Republican, Mitt Romney.
He's done it for a long time. Go back to Romney's March 30 speech in Appleton, Wis., in which he introduced the charge that President Obama is creating a "government-centered society." "Over 46 million Americans are now living in poverty, more than ever before in our nation's history," Romney said. "In households with single moms, over 39 percent are living in poverty."
In speech after speech since then, Romney has included the nation's poverty rate in his case against Obama. "Today, more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before," he said in his address to the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., on Aug. 30. "Look around you. These are not strangers. These are our brothers and sisters, our fellow Americans." Romney also brought up poverty at both presidential debates that covered domestic policy.
In contrast, President Obama rarely utters the word, and usually not in a campaign context. For example, he mentioned poverty at the dedication of the Cesar Chavez National Monument in Keene, Calif., on Oct. 8, but mostly to discuss the conditions Chavez addressed in the 1960s and '70s. Obama spoke the word again in his Sept. 25 address to the United Nations -- also not a campaign speech -- but only in the context of discussing religious tolerance around the world.
In his speech to the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., Obama said "poverty" twice, once when discussing a hypothetical "little girl who's offered an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college," and later when declaring, "We know that churches and charities can often make more of a difference than a poverty program alone." Neither reference suggested there is a particularly acute poverty problem right now.
In short, even though the fight against poverty has long been associated with Democrats, and even though he is in a tight re-election race, and even though poverty is a particularly compelling problem at the moment, Barack Obama ignores the issue when it comes time to campaign. A sky-high poverty rate doesn't fit his theme that things are getting better. So he doesn't talk about it.
But the problem is still there. According to the Census Bureau, the poverty rate has gone from 12.5 percent in 2007 to 13.2 percent in 2008 to 14.3 percent in 2009 to 15.1 percent in 2010 to 15.0 percent in 2011. The last time it was higher than 15.1 percent was in 1965, when the nation's anti-poverty programs were just taking effect.
According to aides, Romney has thought about, and been concerned about, poverty his entire life. They point to a biographical video the Romney campaign produced for the Republican convention and now plays before campaign events around the country. The video features old film of George Romney, Mitt's father, saying, "I've been poor. I've worked from the time I was 12. I know what poverty is, I've been up through it."
Indeed, on the stump, Mitt Romney often talks about his father's modest beginnings. "There were times in my dad's life when he lived in poverty," Romney said in a speech to a Hispanic group in June. "My dad didn't finish college ... He held odd jobs -- lath and plaster and selling paint. He was lucky enough to live in America, where hard work can turn aspirations into realities." The elder Romney went on to become CEO of American Motors and, later, governor of Michigan.
Of course, Mitt Romney never lived in poverty and is today fabulously wealthy. But he heard his father every day growing up, and it's probably fair to say that he hears him still today. And so Romney thinks about poverty and what to do about it. He believes his proposals to spur economic growth will lift large numbers of Americans out of poverty. And he's willing to talk about it.
The irony is that, after the leak of the "47 percent" video on Sept. 17, Romney has fought the charge that he doesn't care about the poor. But the fact is, if you listen to both Romney and Obama on the stump, you will hear concern about the nation's poor from one candidate and virtually nothing from the other.

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