Michael Savage says he’s set to return Promising “the most powerful announcement in modern radio history,” talk-host Michael Savage says he hopes to be back behind his microphone within two weeks.
Hat Tip: BC At 7:06 PM @ Buzz Links
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Michael Savage says he’s set to return
CBC News Page:
Michael Savage says he’s set to return Promising “the most powerful announcement in modern radio history,” talk-host Michael Savage says he hopes to be back behind his microphone within two weeks.
Hat Tip: BC At 7:06 PM @ Buzz Links
Michael Savage says he’s set to return Promising “the most powerful announcement in modern radio history,” talk-host Michael Savage says he hopes to be back behind his microphone within two weeks.
Hat Tip: BC At 7:06 PM @ Buzz Links
ER-At-Up-At-At-DUH!! – Obama finally gets in his witty replies to Romney – 48 hours late. Did the TWO teleprompters help a bit?
October 6, 2012
(im41.com) - Mail Online – Speaking at an event in Fairfax, Virginia, a relaxed and confident President Barack Obama had plenty of witty retorts and quotable sound bites to aim at his challenger Mitt Romney.
The problem was that they came a day and a half after he had been demolished by Romney during the first presidential debate in Denver and were scripted and delivered with the aid of a pair of teleprompters flanking the stage.
‘Now, my opponent, you know, has been trying to do a two-step and reposition and got an extreme makeover,’ Obama, speaking against a backdrop of 150 women of shapes sizes and ethnicities gathered on a stage at George Mason University, said to chuckles.
Videos Here
(im41.com) - Mail Online – Speaking at an event in Fairfax, Virginia, a relaxed and confident President Barack Obama had plenty of witty retorts and quotable sound bites to aim at his challenger Mitt Romney.
The problem was that they came a day and a half after he had been demolished by Romney during the first presidential debate in Denver and were scripted and delivered with the aid of a pair of teleprompters flanking the stage.
‘Now, my opponent, you know, has been trying to do a two-step and reposition and got an extreme makeover,’ Obama, speaking against a backdrop of 150 women of shapes sizes and ethnicities gathered on a stage at George Mason University, said to chuckles.
Videos Here
Millions of British households face blackout, warns Ofgem
October 6th, 2012
Millions of households are at risk of power black-outs within three years because coal stations are being replaced with wind farms, the energy watchdog has said.
Millions of households are at risk of power black-outs within three years because coal stations are being replaced with wind farms, the energy watchdog has said.
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| Britain faced potential power shortages in the next four years, Ofgem warned. In its strongest ever warning, Ofgem said there may have to be “controlled disconnections” of homes and businesses in the middle of this decade because Britain has not done enough to make sure it has enough electricity. The regulator's new analysis reveals the risk of power-cuts is almost 50 per cent in 2015 if a very cold winter causes high demand for electricity. It predicts Britain will face power shortages because old coal and oil plants are being forced to shut down under the European Union’s environmental regulations. This will partly be replaced by wind farms, but they are less reliable and can only generate electricity in the right weather conditions. Ofgem believes the lack of spare power generation “could lead to higher bills”, which are already at record high of £1,300 per year. The report will be a blow to Ed Davey, the new Energy Secretary as sweeping reforms in the new Energy Bill will come too late to avoid the squeeze in 2015 – the year of the next election. Whitehall sources said there is very little the Government can now do to avoid the risk of black-outs in the middle of the decade. It will take around three or four years to build any new gas plants and it would be very difficult to build more coal plants under European rules. “It may be that we will sail through the danger period without any problems,” the source said. “But if things do start to go wrong, we may be in trouble.” Alistair Buchanan, chief executive of Ofgem, said Britain's energy system is struggling under the pressure of the “unprecedented challenges” of a global financial crisis, tough environmental targets and the closure of ageing power stations. Currently, Britain has 14 per cent more power plant capacity than is strictly necessary to keep the lights on. However, this crucial buffer will fall to just four per cent by the middle of the decade. Its report shows the risk of power-cuts begins to increase sharply from next year onwards. There is a near-zero threat of black-outs this year. However, this rises to a one-in-12 chance by 2015 if demand stays at normal levels. The threat goes up to a one-in-four chance if too much power is exported to Europe and one-in-two if there is very high demand. Ofgem said that in case of shortages "industrial demand will be disconnected first, then household demand if the former is not sufficient". John Robertson, an MP on the energy committee, called on the Government to make contingency plans and make sure there is extra gas in storage. “We have been warning of this problem since 2002 and now it is too late,” he said. “All the coal stations will have gone by 2015 and because we’ve dragged our feet for so long on nuclear, there won’t be anything to replace them. “It will only be a problem if there’s a really bad winter across Europe but we have to plan for that.” Last night, Mr Davey said the Government will “consider carefully the implications” of Ofgem’s warnings. “Security of electricity supply is of critical importance to the health of the economy and the smooth functioning of our daily lives. “That is why the Government is reforming the electricity market to deliver secure, clean and affordable electricity.” A spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change admitted there is a chance of power cuts but said it is “only a very low risk to householders”. “We would like to see slightly larger margins and this is why we’re acting to bring more investment forward,” “Investment is already coming forward. New gas fired power stations at Pembroke and West Burton are just coming online. Angela Knight, chief executive of Energy UK, the lobby group that represents big power companies, said the regulator is “right to highlight some of the challenges” in the electricity market. source: uk telegraph |
Saint Obama Performs another Miracle by Making Unemployment Recede
October 6, 2012
Townhall.com
Magically and providentially, Obama has enjoyed the largest one-month drop in unemployment since he got elected thanks to the greatest single month of job creation since 1983- all just weeks before ballots hit for his reelection bid.
“The U.S. unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent for the first time since the month President Barack Obama took office,” reports the Associated Press “a surprising lift for both the economy and his re-election hopes in the final weeks of the campaign.”
Yeah; we’re all REAL surprised by this.
According to the AP, Jack Welch, the retired former CEO of General Electric, said on Twitter: "Unbelievable jobs numbers ... these Chicago guys will do anything ... can't debate so change numbers."
For those of you who doubted Obama’s godly credentials, shame on you.
“To be made a saint in-a the Catholic church,” said Father Guido Sarducci, “you have to have-a four miracles. That's-a the rules, you know. It's-a always been that-a. Four miracles.”
Obama is continuously making miracles happen, like the time he killed Osama bin Laden just by staring at him; or that other time he produced 7 whole, new states while on the campaign trail.
This latest miracle of miracles has Obama creating a precipitous rise in part-time workers suddenly finding employment. Talk about loaves and fishes!
Almost 600,000 more people found part-time work than one month ago, a stunning 7.25 percent increase in part-time work month-over-month.
And how do government economists provide this miracle data for Saint Obama?
By polling.
Yes, the same methodology that told us that Scott Walker would lose his recall bid; the same methodology that has Democrats showing up at the polls by 7-11 point advantages in turnout and have Obama up 7 points on Romney. Yes, this same methodology has produced stunning job creation results, just in the nick of time.
Math? No. A miracle.
You can almost feel Pharaoh’s Army closing in on him, and all Obama has to do his raise the staff from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the red sea of unemployment recedes.
Hey, maybe those 600,000 part-timers were just all extras for Obama’s movie Wag the Dog Part II- Out of Egypt.
It’s kind of getting embarrassing, though isn’t it?
The Fed throws the Hail Mary pass with QE4Ever! just a week ago because they are worried about the employment situation, and all the while we have been producing wonderfully robust, phantom jobs- in record numbers.
You’d have to go back to February of 2009 to see the number of part-time workers increase at higher rate than suddenly has been produced by our backwards economy in the last month. And the 2009 numbers were produced by hiring for the U.S. Census and the U.S. government.
Beyond February 2009, part-time jobs once posted a gain of 6.5 percent and once a gain of 5.5 percent under Obama. And U-6 -- total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force- is still unchanged at 14.7 percent.
This robust hiring activity seems to be leading to high gas prices too.
As Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge says, On This Day In History, Gas Prices Have Never Been Higher (Again)
While we are told to assume it is entirely transitory and speculation-driven, the price to drive your brand new GM Truck (leased for 30 years, interest-only via your EBT card) has never been higher. Do not worry though since this is only temporarily going to mean 'little Timmy' needs to go without food.
But the unemployment data sure makes for a good headline in any event.
A miracle of a headline.
So, Democrats can resume praying…now.
Townhall.com
Magically and providentially, Obama has enjoyed the largest one-month drop in unemployment since he got elected thanks to the greatest single month of job creation since 1983- all just weeks before ballots hit for his reelection bid.
“The U.S. unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent for the first time since the month President Barack Obama took office,” reports the Associated Press “a surprising lift for both the economy and his re-election hopes in the final weeks of the campaign.”
Yeah; we’re all REAL surprised by this.
According to the AP, Jack Welch, the retired former CEO of General Electric, said on Twitter: "Unbelievable jobs numbers ... these Chicago guys will do anything ... can't debate so change numbers."
For those of you who doubted Obama’s godly credentials, shame on you.
“To be made a saint in-a the Catholic church,” said Father Guido Sarducci, “you have to have-a four miracles. That's-a the rules, you know. It's-a always been that-a. Four miracles.”
Obama is continuously making miracles happen, like the time he killed Osama bin Laden just by staring at him; or that other time he produced 7 whole, new states while on the campaign trail.
This latest miracle of miracles has Obama creating a precipitous rise in part-time workers suddenly finding employment. Talk about loaves and fishes!
Almost 600,000 more people found part-time work than one month ago, a stunning 7.25 percent increase in part-time work month-over-month.
And how do government economists provide this miracle data for Saint Obama?
By polling.
Yes, the same methodology that told us that Scott Walker would lose his recall bid; the same methodology that has Democrats showing up at the polls by 7-11 point advantages in turnout and have Obama up 7 points on Romney. Yes, this same methodology has produced stunning job creation results, just in the nick of time.
Math? No. A miracle.
You can almost feel Pharaoh’s Army closing in on him, and all Obama has to do his raise the staff from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the red sea of unemployment recedes.
Hey, maybe those 600,000 part-timers were just all extras for Obama’s movie Wag the Dog Part II- Out of Egypt.
It’s kind of getting embarrassing, though isn’t it?
The Fed throws the Hail Mary pass with QE4Ever! just a week ago because they are worried about the employment situation, and all the while we have been producing wonderfully robust, phantom jobs- in record numbers.
You’d have to go back to February of 2009 to see the number of part-time workers increase at higher rate than suddenly has been produced by our backwards economy in the last month. And the 2009 numbers were produced by hiring for the U.S. Census and the U.S. government.
Beyond February 2009, part-time jobs once posted a gain of 6.5 percent and once a gain of 5.5 percent under Obama. And U-6 -- total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force- is still unchanged at 14.7 percent.
This robust hiring activity seems to be leading to high gas prices too.
As Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge says, On This Day In History, Gas Prices Have Never Been Higher (Again)
While we are told to assume it is entirely transitory and speculation-driven, the price to drive your brand new GM Truck (leased for 30 years, interest-only via your EBT card) has never been higher. Do not worry though since this is only temporarily going to mean 'little Timmy' needs to go without food.
But the unemployment data sure makes for a good headline in any event.
A miracle of a headline.
So, Democrats can resume praying…now.
Will Egypt seize Libya for its oil?
Financial Post
Oct 5, 2012 11:45 PM
Will Egypt seize Libya for its oil? Given Egypt’s political ideology, its history with its neighbours, and its material needs, this must be a live issue.
First, Egypt’s needs. Since the Arab Spring began almost two years ago, the Egyptian economy has been collapsing. Egypt’s foreign currency reserves have more than halved and many expect the Egyptian pound, already at its lowest point in eight years, to be devalued. Discontent is widespread. According to Gulf News, “In the past three months, Egypt has experienced increased power cuts that sometimes last for hours, while a fuel and diesel crisis has at times paralyzed the country, with mile-long queues forming outside petrol stations.” The black market price for gas canisters is 10 times higher than the official selling price; for bread it’s five times higher.
The Muslim Brotherhood government desperately needs a $4.8-billion IMF bailout to stop the bleeding but it refuses to curtail its subsidies, as the IMF demands, for fear of triggering a popular revolt. It is instead hoping for aid from oil states and the U.S. government, but even if this materializes, it will be at best a stopgap. With tourists, the country’s chief source of foreign exchange, steering clear of Egypt because of its anti-Western riots, and with foreign investors equally fearful of venturing into the country, Egypt’s options are daily becoming more limited. The temptation to look next door to Libya could be irresistible, particularly since Egypt views union with Libya as inevitable.
Unlike most of the world, where nationalist sentiments run deep, pride of country is a largely alien notion in the clan-oriented Arab Middle East. Since the 1950s, Arab rulers have made at least 10 attempts to merge their countries together, all but one of them (the United Arab Emirates) short-lived failures that collapsed in five years or less. Among others, Egypt attempted a union with Libya in 1972 and two with Syria in 1958 and 1976; it attempted federations with Libya and Sudan in 1969 and with Libya and Syria in 1971. If plebiscites taken at the time to ratify the new countries are to be believed, these pan-Arabic arrangements tended to be wildly popular at the outset, the peoples of the region quick to embrace new flags and to unsentimentally discard old ones in the name of Arab solidarity.
The lack of national allegiance is all the more striking because Arab governments in the decades following the Second World War were predominantly secular, often military dictatorships that overthrew monarchies and kept the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious zealots at bay. Today the religious zealots are ascendant. And their ideology eschews national borders in favour of a caliphate across the Arab world and beyond.
“We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi,” cleric Safwat Higazy enthused earlier this year at a Morsi political rally.
Following the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood not only rules Egypt, through its affiliates it controls neighbouring Gaza and part of Syria to the north and may be close to seizing power in Jordan. Across the north coast of Africa to the west, with one exception, Muslim Brotherhood groups control Tunisia and Morocco while its Algerian wing, not yet in power, warns of revolution. The one exception is Libya, an immediate neighbour, where the Muslim Brotherhood lost the electoral contest but not the war. An anatomy of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi points to troubling Egyptian involvement.
The Libyan organization believed to have masterminded the attack, the Jamal Network, was set up by Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad, an Egyptian released by the Egyptian government following the Arab Spring. Ahmad, in turn, is affiliated with al-Qaeda and its Egyptian leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who prior to the Sept. 11 attack had called for revenge for the death of a Libyan member of al-Qaeda. Egypt’s president Morsi himself, on the eve of his inauguration as president of Egypt, announced, “I will do everything in my power to secure freedom for … detainees, including Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman,” the “blind sheik” responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Egypt’s government, it is clear, does not eschew associations with terrorists and it cannot be pleased that Libya, its nearest Arab Spring neighbour, has escaped Muslim Brotherhood control. In 1977, Egypt and Libya engaged in war motivated, claimed Libya, by Egyptian designs on Libya’s oil. If a new Arab union ever emerges in the form of an Islamic Caliphate, as Morsi wants, Libya’s oil would be at its disposal. Morsi and others may be wondering, though, why wait?
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe. You can reach him at: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com
Oct 5, 2012 11:45 PM
Will Egypt seize Libya for its oil? Given Egypt’s political ideology, its history with its neighbours, and its material needs, this must be a live issue.
First, Egypt’s needs. Since the Arab Spring began almost two years ago, the Egyptian economy has been collapsing. Egypt’s foreign currency reserves have more than halved and many expect the Egyptian pound, already at its lowest point in eight years, to be devalued. Discontent is widespread. According to Gulf News, “In the past three months, Egypt has experienced increased power cuts that sometimes last for hours, while a fuel and diesel crisis has at times paralyzed the country, with mile-long queues forming outside petrol stations.” The black market price for gas canisters is 10 times higher than the official selling price; for bread it’s five times higher.
The Muslim Brotherhood government desperately needs a $4.8-billion IMF bailout to stop the bleeding but it refuses to curtail its subsidies, as the IMF demands, for fear of triggering a popular revolt. It is instead hoping for aid from oil states and the U.S. government, but even if this materializes, it will be at best a stopgap. With tourists, the country’s chief source of foreign exchange, steering clear of Egypt because of its anti-Western riots, and with foreign investors equally fearful of venturing into the country, Egypt’s options are daily becoming more limited. The temptation to look next door to Libya could be irresistible, particularly since Egypt views union with Libya as inevitable.
Unlike most of the world, where nationalist sentiments run deep, pride of country is a largely alien notion in the clan-oriented Arab Middle East. Since the 1950s, Arab rulers have made at least 10 attempts to merge their countries together, all but one of them (the United Arab Emirates) short-lived failures that collapsed in five years or less. Among others, Egypt attempted a union with Libya in 1972 and two with Syria in 1958 and 1976; it attempted federations with Libya and Sudan in 1969 and with Libya and Syria in 1971. If plebiscites taken at the time to ratify the new countries are to be believed, these pan-Arabic arrangements tended to be wildly popular at the outset, the peoples of the region quick to embrace new flags and to unsentimentally discard old ones in the name of Arab solidarity.
The lack of national allegiance is all the more striking because Arab governments in the decades following the Second World War were predominantly secular, often military dictatorships that overthrew monarchies and kept the Muslim Brotherhood and other religious zealots at bay. Today the religious zealots are ascendant. And their ideology eschews national borders in favour of a caliphate across the Arab world and beyond.
“We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi,” cleric Safwat Higazy enthused earlier this year at a Morsi political rally.
Following the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood not only rules Egypt, through its affiliates it controls neighbouring Gaza and part of Syria to the north and may be close to seizing power in Jordan. Across the north coast of Africa to the west, with one exception, Muslim Brotherhood groups control Tunisia and Morocco while its Algerian wing, not yet in power, warns of revolution. The one exception is Libya, an immediate neighbour, where the Muslim Brotherhood lost the electoral contest but not the war. An anatomy of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi points to troubling Egyptian involvement.
The Libyan organization believed to have masterminded the attack, the Jamal Network, was set up by Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad, an Egyptian released by the Egyptian government following the Arab Spring. Ahmad, in turn, is affiliated with al-Qaeda and its Egyptian leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who prior to the Sept. 11 attack had called for revenge for the death of a Libyan member of al-Qaeda. Egypt’s president Morsi himself, on the eve of his inauguration as president of Egypt, announced, “I will do everything in my power to secure freedom for … detainees, including Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman,” the “blind sheik” responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Egypt’s government, it is clear, does not eschew associations with terrorists and it cannot be pleased that Libya, its nearest Arab Spring neighbour, has escaped Muslim Brotherhood control. In 1977, Egypt and Libya engaged in war motivated, claimed Libya, by Egyptian designs on Libya’s oil. If a new Arab union ever emerges in the form of an Islamic Caliphate, as Morsi wants, Libya’s oil would be at its disposal. Morsi and others may be wondering, though, why wait?
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe. You can reach him at: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com
Obama on Free-Birth-Control Mandate: 'That's Why We Passed This Law...We Are Going to Keep It'
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| President Barack Obama speaking at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on Oct. 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) |
(CNSNews.com) – Touting the Obamacare "preventive services" regulation that requires virtually all health-care plans to provide women with cost-free sterilizations and contraceptives, President Barack Obama said Friday that providing women with free contraception saves money.
Then, in an apparent jab at Catholic institutions and others who have asked him to rescind the regulation and who have sued arguing that it violates their First Amendment right to free-exercise of religion, Obama specifically pointed to the fact that the preventive services regulation mandates free contraception for female college students as one of the reasons "why we passed this law."
"And we are going to keep it," he said defiantly.
“This law has secured access to preventive care like mammograms and cancer screenings with no co-pay, no deductible, no out of pocket cost for more than 20 million women, and now most health plans are beginning to cover the cost of contraceptive care, which is vital for women’s health,” Obama said.
“Doctors prescribe contraception, not only for family planning but as a way to reduce the risk of ovarian and other cancers, and it’s good for our health care system in general because we know the overall cost of care is lower when women have access to contraceptive services,” Obama said at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
'I Am Proud of It'
"Now before this new law, many health-care plans charged high deductible or co-pays for these preventible [sic] services, or they just didn't cover them at all," said Obama.
“I don't think a working mom in Arlington should have to wait to get a mammogram just because money is tight," Obama said. "I don’t think a college student in Fairfax or Charlottesville should have to choose between text books or the preventive care that she needs. That's why we passed this law. And I am proud of it. It was the right thing to do. And we are going to keep it."
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| Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore--who was then the bishop of Bridgeport, Conn.--testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Feb. 16, 2012, explained why Obamacare's free sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate forces Catholics to act against their faith. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) |
Obama said that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney "joined the far-right of his party to support a bill that would have allow any employer to deny contraceptive coverage to their employees.
"I mean think about that, your boss tellling you what is best for your health or safety," said Obama.
"Let me tell you something, Virginia," Obama said, "I don't think your boss should control the care you get. I don't think insurance companies should control the care you get. I definitely don't think politicians on Capitol Hill should control the care you get. We've seen some of their attitudes, we've read about those.
"I think there is one person who gets to make decisions about your health care, that's you," said Obama.
However, the Catholic Church has argued that the mandate is wrong precisely because it forces individual Catholics, whether they own a business or are employed by one, to act against their consciences on the command of the federal goverment.
Earlier this year, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously adopted a statement calling this Obamacare sterilization-contraception-abortifacient reguirement an "unjust and illegal mandate" and declaring their "vigorous opposition" to it. The bishops unanimously said Obama's mandate not only violated the rights of Catholic institutions, but also of lay Catholic business owners and individual Catholic workers who, under this regulation, would be forced by the federal government to buy health-care plans that covered things Catholics understand to be intrinsically immoral.
"The HHS mandate creates still a third class, those with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values," the unanimous Catholic bishops said. "They, too, face a government mandate to aid in providing "services" contrary to those values—whether in their sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurance premiums as employees; or as insurers themselves—without even the semblance of an exemption."
In August, the National Catholic Bioethics Center published an ethical analysis of the mandate, which concluded that it would immoral for Catholic business owners to obey it.
“Dropping all coverage appears to be the most morally sound approach,” the Catholic ethicists said. After Jan. 1, 2014, when Obamacare comes into full force, they said, Cathoic business owners may not morally purchase health insurance for their employees.
The Obamacare "preventive services" regulation was issued earlier this year by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. It requires virtually all health-care plans in the United States to provide "all women of reproductive capacity" with cost-free sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.
In March, HHS Secretary Sebelius told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health that Obamacare's sterilization-contraception mandate would save money because it would cause fewer people to come into existence.
Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) asked Sebelius at that hearing who was going to pay for the free sterilizations and contraceptives. “Who pays for it? There’s no such thing as a free service,” he said.
“The reduction in the number of pregnancies is--compensates for the cost of contraception,” she answered. "The overall plan, according to the national [inaudible] goes down not up."
Murphy countered: “So you are saying, by not having babies born, we are going to save money on health care?”
“Providing contraception as a critical preventive health benefit for women and for their children, reduces health-care costs,” Sebelius responded.
Murphy followed up: “Not having babies born is a critical benefit. This is absolutely amazing to me. I yield back."
Sebelius said: “Family planning is a critical health benefit in this country, according to the Institute of Medicine.”
More than 40 Catholic institutions around the country--including the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. and the University of Notre Dame--have sued the Obama adminisration arguing that forcing them to buy coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients, all of which the Catholic church teaches are wrong, requires the church itself to act against its own teachings and thus violates the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.
Additionally, members of the Newland family, who own Colorado-based Hercules Industries (a heating and air-conditioning manufacturer), have sued the administration arguing that their right to the free exercise of religion is also violated by the regulation because it forces them to act against their faith. Also, the Green family, Evangelical Christians who own Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby, have similarly sued, saying the regulation violates their right to the free-exercise of religion.
Feinstein, Pelosi among richest in Congress
Michelle Murphy, California News Service
Updated 10:25 p.m., Friday, October 5, 2012
SFGate.com:
$42 million Sen. Dianne Feinstein Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle / SF
$26 million Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press / SF
Washington --
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are among the 15 wealthiest members of Congress, according to a new survey.
The annual rankings by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, showed the two San Francisco Democrats have a combined worth of at least $68 million, and potentially much more.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, tops the list with a minimum net worth of $306 million, roughly 4,000 times greater than the average American household. His wife, Linda, is the daughter of Lowry Mays, founder and CEO of Clear Channel Communications.
No. 3 on the list, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (SanDiego County), is the richest California member. His wealth, which stems from his car-alarm business, is estimated to be at least $141 million.
"I don't necessarily think people begrudge their member of Congress for having money, but ... it reinforces the message that in order to play in our political system that you need to have money," said Mary Boyle of Common Cause, a nonprofit that promotes good government.
Feinstein, the ninth-richest member, has a net worth of at least $42 million, according to the survey. Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, is president and CEO of the private equity firm Blum Capital Partners LP. Together they have a number of valuable assets, including a share of San Francisco's Carlton Hotel properties, which is worth up to $25 million.
She also continues to draw a $53,068 pension from the city and county of San Francisco, where she served 18 years as mayor and as a member of the Board of Supervisors.
Pelosi, the 13th wealthiest member, reported a minimum net worth of $26 million. Among her assets is a $5 million to $25 million investment in the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football League, owned by her husband Paul.
Of the 50 members who made Roll Call's list, 31 are Republicans. Three of the top five are Democrats including Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Mark Warner, D-Va., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
"Congress over the past 10-plus years has moved to becoming more of a club for millionaires," Boyle said. "It changes the dynamic of a Congress when you have people who are not in touch with the day-to-day realities of the vast majority of Americans."
Roll Call's rankings are based on annual financial disclosure forms. The mandatory reports list assets, including stock-market holdings, rental properties, and checking accounts, as well as liabilities such as mortgages, credit card balances and in some cases, student loans.
The analysis provides an incomplete assessment of each lawmaker's wealth because all assets and liabilities are listed in broad ranges sometimes spanning millions of dollars.
For example, Pelosi and her husband have several investments in real estate property, including a vineyard in St. Helena, which her disclosure form estimates is worth between $5 million to $25 million.
The disclosure suggests Pelosi could be worth as much as $174 million. However the Roll Call rankings only use the lowest possible number.
A 2010 analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that studies money and politics, estimated that 328 members of Congress are millionaires. The analysis found the average wealth of a senator is over $13 million and nearly $6 million for a House member.
The California News Service is a journalism project of the University California Washington Center and the UC Berkeley School of Journalism.
Updated 10:25 p.m., Friday, October 5, 2012
SFGate.com:
Washington --
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are among the 15 wealthiest members of Congress, according to a new survey.
The annual rankings by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, showed the two San Francisco Democrats have a combined worth of at least $68 million, and potentially much more.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, tops the list with a minimum net worth of $306 million, roughly 4,000 times greater than the average American household. His wife, Linda, is the daughter of Lowry Mays, founder and CEO of Clear Channel Communications.
No. 3 on the list, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (SanDiego County), is the richest California member. His wealth, which stems from his car-alarm business, is estimated to be at least $141 million.
"I don't necessarily think people begrudge their member of Congress for having money, but ... it reinforces the message that in order to play in our political system that you need to have money," said Mary Boyle of Common Cause, a nonprofit that promotes good government.
Feinstein, the ninth-richest member, has a net worth of at least $42 million, according to the survey. Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, is president and CEO of the private equity firm Blum Capital Partners LP. Together they have a number of valuable assets, including a share of San Francisco's Carlton Hotel properties, which is worth up to $25 million.
She also continues to draw a $53,068 pension from the city and county of San Francisco, where she served 18 years as mayor and as a member of the Board of Supervisors.
Pelosi, the 13th wealthiest member, reported a minimum net worth of $26 million. Among her assets is a $5 million to $25 million investment in the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football League, owned by her husband Paul.
Of the 50 members who made Roll Call's list, 31 are Republicans. Three of the top five are Democrats including Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Mark Warner, D-Va., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
"Congress over the past 10-plus years has moved to becoming more of a club for millionaires," Boyle said. "It changes the dynamic of a Congress when you have people who are not in touch with the day-to-day realities of the vast majority of Americans."
Roll Call's rankings are based on annual financial disclosure forms. The mandatory reports list assets, including stock-market holdings, rental properties, and checking accounts, as well as liabilities such as mortgages, credit card balances and in some cases, student loans.
The analysis provides an incomplete assessment of each lawmaker's wealth because all assets and liabilities are listed in broad ranges sometimes spanning millions of dollars.
For example, Pelosi and her husband have several investments in real estate property, including a vineyard in St. Helena, which her disclosure form estimates is worth between $5 million to $25 million.
The disclosure suggests Pelosi could be worth as much as $174 million. However the Roll Call rankings only use the lowest possible number.
A 2010 analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that studies money and politics, estimated that 328 members of Congress are millionaires. The analysis found the average wealth of a senator is over $13 million and nearly $6 million for a House member.
The California News Service is a journalism project of the University California Washington Center and the UC Berkeley School of Journalism.
RARE LIGHT SHED ON US DRONE PROGRAM IN PAKISTAN
afpc.org
The Wall Street Journal has shed light on the obscure operations of the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan; operations generally condemned by Pakistani leaders but thought to be conducted with tacit assistance from the Pakistani military. According to the report, “About once a month, the [CIA] sends a fax to a general at Pakistan’s intelligence service outlining broad areas where the U.S. intends to conduct strikes...The Pakistanis, who in public oppose the program, don’t respond. On this basis, plus the fact that Pakistan continues to clear airspace in the targeted areas, the U.S. government concludes it has tacit consent to conduct strikes.” The legality of this “tacit acceptance” rationale has been questioned by some lawyers inside the administration. Top State Department legal advisor Harold Koh believes “this rationale veers near the edge of what can be considered,” say U.S. officials, but Koh still believe the program is legal. A group of lawyers known as the “council of counsels” is apparently trying to develop a new framework for the legal legitimization of drone strikes. Complicating matters, there is a lack of international legal precedents on drone strikes to draw from.
U.S. drone attacks have decreased in frequency over the past year, down to an average of four a month as compared to ten a month at the program’s peak in 2010. The drop can be attributed to tensions in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship -- Pakistan closed a CIA drone base operating from inside Pakistan in December 2011 – and the “thinner ranks of al Qaeda after years of strikes.”(Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2012)
The Wall Street Journal has shed light on the obscure operations of the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan; operations generally condemned by Pakistani leaders but thought to be conducted with tacit assistance from the Pakistani military. According to the report, “About once a month, the [CIA] sends a fax to a general at Pakistan’s intelligence service outlining broad areas where the U.S. intends to conduct strikes...The Pakistanis, who in public oppose the program, don’t respond. On this basis, plus the fact that Pakistan continues to clear airspace in the targeted areas, the U.S. government concludes it has tacit consent to conduct strikes.” The legality of this “tacit acceptance” rationale has been questioned by some lawyers inside the administration. Top State Department legal advisor Harold Koh believes “this rationale veers near the edge of what can be considered,” say U.S. officials, but Koh still believe the program is legal. A group of lawyers known as the “council of counsels” is apparently trying to develop a new framework for the legal legitimization of drone strikes. Complicating matters, there is a lack of international legal precedents on drone strikes to draw from.
U.S. drone attacks have decreased in frequency over the past year, down to an average of four a month as compared to ten a month at the program’s peak in 2010. The drop can be attributed to tensions in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship -- Pakistan closed a CIA drone base operating from inside Pakistan in December 2011 – and the “thinner ranks of al Qaeda after years of strikes.”(Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2012)
An Eco-Fascist Gassing Experiment with Diesel Fumes at the EPA
Oct 6, 2012
American Thinker
It has been recently revealed that the EPA has far surpassed the dark humor of blowing up kids and people on film that global warming scare-mongers promoted a few years back. In real life, the EPA has been conducting human experiments on people by piping diesel fumes from a running truck mixed with air into their lungs at a North Carolina university. The agency has ginned up yet another green crusade -- the lethal dangers of diesel fumes. They even had a gas chamber set up to accommodate the environmental research project that shockingly recalls the death camps in Poland.
Not surprisingly, the EPA is now in the process of being sued for conducting dangerous experiments on human guinea pigs. The courts will decide whether or not serious laws and practices were violated, including the international Nuremberg Code that was set up after sixteen Nazi doctors were executed for medical terrorism. After the barbaric fallout of Nazi Germany, where many people were treated like experimental animals, the Nuremberg Code was designed to be an international governing set of principles to regulate the practice of human experimentation. The whiff of the Jewish holocaust is therefore unmistakable.
When the Nazis found out how difficult it was in practice to shoot so many Jews on the Eastern Front at the outset of the war, they switched to gassing them en masse at death camps with engine fumes. Such gassing methods became notorious at Treblinka, where almost one million Jews were killed.
In the early part of the war, the infamous commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, visited Treblinka. Hoess testified at Nuremberg that the Treblinka motor room used tank and truck engines to pipe diesel fumes into the gas chambers. According to Hoess, it usually took about half an hour before the gas chambers fell silent. Another half-hour passed before the doors were opened.
Hoess commented that the engine fumes at Treblinka were not always entirely effective in killing the Jews. While all the victims fell unconscious, many of them were still alive and had to be shot afterwards. Adolf Eichmann told Hoess that they were experiencing the same problems in other death camps at the time. Auschwitz used Zyklon B, which was far more effective.
The Nazis killed so many people that they were forced to industrialize the process by making crematoriums that turned countless cadavers into ashes. All of the ghastly work connected to this assembly line of death was performed by Jewish victims, called Special Detachment Jews, whom the Nazis specifically kept alive for this very purpose. When the war effort started to go badly for Germany, the Special Detachment Jews were required to unearth old bodies that had been buried and burn them up, too.
When Hoess was forced to oversee such a grisly operation at Auschwitz, he would recover from such horrifying scenes by finding solace in nature: "If I was deeply affected by some incident, I found it impossible to go back to my home and my family. I would mount my horse and ride, until I had chased the terrible picture away. Often at night, I would walk through the stables and seek relief among my beloved animals."
Hoess's nature-loving tendencies are far more revealing than most scholars would care to admit. While Jews were treated like experimental animals and were burned up in sacrificial smoke, Hoess said his family lived a free and untrammeled life: "My wife's garden was a paradise of flowers." Hoess was far more concerned about untreated stormwater discharging directly from the camp into the nearby Sola River than he was about the incredible slaughterhouse plans that the Nazi leaders were foisting upon him. The cunning of nature was indeed an escape route from moral responsibility.
When Rudolf Hoess stood trial at Nuremberg, he concluded his testimony by saying he was not a sadistic man and that he had never sanctioned the extermination of the Jews. He was even proud of how much more humane the gassing process was at Auschwitz compared to Treblinka.
Rudolf Hoess was SS. The SS was the greenest faction of the Nazi Party. It was run by Heinrich Himmler, who was an animal lover, vegetarian, and organic farming enthusiast. Himmler detested hunting. In an instructional letter sent to Dachau Concentration Camp and Ester-wegen, Himmler stated, "I wish the SS and the police also will be exemplary in the love of nature. Within the course of a few years the property of the SS and the police must become paradises for animals and Nature." In many ways, the SS was Hitler's "green" praetorian guard.
Both Hoess and Himmler belonged to a proto-Nazi wandervogel youth group called the Artamanens. The wandervogels of the early 20th century in Germany were nature-loving youth groups that promoted many green ideas and practices. Artaman basically means "country man," with certain racial-indigenous connotations.
The SS promoted an ideology called "blood and soil," where evolutionary biological racism, peasant agrarianism, and environmentalism were all fused together into a fascist whole. Many leading SS men actually believed that German racial biology was being destroyed by the cosmopolitan life of the cities, that Germans were being uprooted from their homeland and enslaved to the artificial materialistic values of what they considered to be international Jewish capitalism and communism. The Jews were vilified for their city ways. They were also considered unnatural and outside the evolutionary laws of biological racism. Many Nazis believed that such a violation of the "scientific" laws of Nature had to be remedied.
This flammable cocktail between German biology and environmentalism was at the heart of the holocaust at death camps like Treblinka. When Jews were crammed into cattle cars on the way to Treblinka, the SS broke strict animal transport laws the Nazis themselves established. While the SS side of Treblinka was a virtual garden camp, the Jewish side was a hell on earth. While the SS were all involved in rehabilitating fox populations on their side of the camp, Jews were being exterminated on such a massive scale that the gravestones that still stand today at the Treblinka monument do not have individual names on them, only entire cities. While the SS had beautiful picnic grounds that showcased a little zoo, the last sight that the Jews were given before they entered the gas chambers was the most exquisite flower garden in the entire camp. After Treblinka was closed down, the Nazis planted lupine on top of what was left of the Jewish graves. Lupines are wolf flowers. Hitler used to call the SS his pack of wolves.
While no one died in the EPA's gas chambers, the agency is increasingly acting like proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. Under the guise of acting on behalf of everyone's health, the EPA has crossed a pathological line where people have been potentially treated like experimental animals under questionable methods that conjure up the horrors of the holocaust. More telling is the EPA subjected human beings to a concoction of diesel fumes that it already said was lethal. If the EPA were truly concerned about human health, they would not have performed such experiments on more than forty people in the first place.
Mark Musser is a contributing writer for the Cornwall Alliance, which is a coalition of clergy, theologians, religious leaders, scientists, academics, and policy experts committed to bringing a balanced biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development. Mark is also the author of Nazi Oaks and Wrath or Rest.
American Thinker
It has been recently revealed that the EPA has far surpassed the dark humor of blowing up kids and people on film that global warming scare-mongers promoted a few years back. In real life, the EPA has been conducting human experiments on people by piping diesel fumes from a running truck mixed with air into their lungs at a North Carolina university. The agency has ginned up yet another green crusade -- the lethal dangers of diesel fumes. They even had a gas chamber set up to accommodate the environmental research project that shockingly recalls the death camps in Poland.
Not surprisingly, the EPA is now in the process of being sued for conducting dangerous experiments on human guinea pigs. The courts will decide whether or not serious laws and practices were violated, including the international Nuremberg Code that was set up after sixteen Nazi doctors were executed for medical terrorism. After the barbaric fallout of Nazi Germany, where many people were treated like experimental animals, the Nuremberg Code was designed to be an international governing set of principles to regulate the practice of human experimentation. The whiff of the Jewish holocaust is therefore unmistakable.
When the Nazis found out how difficult it was in practice to shoot so many Jews on the Eastern Front at the outset of the war, they switched to gassing them en masse at death camps with engine fumes. Such gassing methods became notorious at Treblinka, where almost one million Jews were killed.
In the early part of the war, the infamous commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, visited Treblinka. Hoess testified at Nuremberg that the Treblinka motor room used tank and truck engines to pipe diesel fumes into the gas chambers. According to Hoess, it usually took about half an hour before the gas chambers fell silent. Another half-hour passed before the doors were opened.
Hoess commented that the engine fumes at Treblinka were not always entirely effective in killing the Jews. While all the victims fell unconscious, many of them were still alive and had to be shot afterwards. Adolf Eichmann told Hoess that they were experiencing the same problems in other death camps at the time. Auschwitz used Zyklon B, which was far more effective.
The Nazis killed so many people that they were forced to industrialize the process by making crematoriums that turned countless cadavers into ashes. All of the ghastly work connected to this assembly line of death was performed by Jewish victims, called Special Detachment Jews, whom the Nazis specifically kept alive for this very purpose. When the war effort started to go badly for Germany, the Special Detachment Jews were required to unearth old bodies that had been buried and burn them up, too.
When Hoess was forced to oversee such a grisly operation at Auschwitz, he would recover from such horrifying scenes by finding solace in nature: "If I was deeply affected by some incident, I found it impossible to go back to my home and my family. I would mount my horse and ride, until I had chased the terrible picture away. Often at night, I would walk through the stables and seek relief among my beloved animals."
Hoess's nature-loving tendencies are far more revealing than most scholars would care to admit. While Jews were treated like experimental animals and were burned up in sacrificial smoke, Hoess said his family lived a free and untrammeled life: "My wife's garden was a paradise of flowers." Hoess was far more concerned about untreated stormwater discharging directly from the camp into the nearby Sola River than he was about the incredible slaughterhouse plans that the Nazi leaders were foisting upon him. The cunning of nature was indeed an escape route from moral responsibility.
When Rudolf Hoess stood trial at Nuremberg, he concluded his testimony by saying he was not a sadistic man and that he had never sanctioned the extermination of the Jews. He was even proud of how much more humane the gassing process was at Auschwitz compared to Treblinka.
Rudolf Hoess was SS. The SS was the greenest faction of the Nazi Party. It was run by Heinrich Himmler, who was an animal lover, vegetarian, and organic farming enthusiast. Himmler detested hunting. In an instructional letter sent to Dachau Concentration Camp and Ester-wegen, Himmler stated, "I wish the SS and the police also will be exemplary in the love of nature. Within the course of a few years the property of the SS and the police must become paradises for animals and Nature." In many ways, the SS was Hitler's "green" praetorian guard.
Both Hoess and Himmler belonged to a proto-Nazi wandervogel youth group called the Artamanens. The wandervogels of the early 20th century in Germany were nature-loving youth groups that promoted many green ideas and practices. Artaman basically means "country man," with certain racial-indigenous connotations.
The SS promoted an ideology called "blood and soil," where evolutionary biological racism, peasant agrarianism, and environmentalism were all fused together into a fascist whole. Many leading SS men actually believed that German racial biology was being destroyed by the cosmopolitan life of the cities, that Germans were being uprooted from their homeland and enslaved to the artificial materialistic values of what they considered to be international Jewish capitalism and communism. The Jews were vilified for their city ways. They were also considered unnatural and outside the evolutionary laws of biological racism. Many Nazis believed that such a violation of the "scientific" laws of Nature had to be remedied.
This flammable cocktail between German biology and environmentalism was at the heart of the holocaust at death camps like Treblinka. When Jews were crammed into cattle cars on the way to Treblinka, the SS broke strict animal transport laws the Nazis themselves established. While the SS side of Treblinka was a virtual garden camp, the Jewish side was a hell on earth. While the SS were all involved in rehabilitating fox populations on their side of the camp, Jews were being exterminated on such a massive scale that the gravestones that still stand today at the Treblinka monument do not have individual names on them, only entire cities. While the SS had beautiful picnic grounds that showcased a little zoo, the last sight that the Jews were given before they entered the gas chambers was the most exquisite flower garden in the entire camp. After Treblinka was closed down, the Nazis planted lupine on top of what was left of the Jewish graves. Lupines are wolf flowers. Hitler used to call the SS his pack of wolves.
While no one died in the EPA's gas chambers, the agency is increasingly acting like proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. Under the guise of acting on behalf of everyone's health, the EPA has crossed a pathological line where people have been potentially treated like experimental animals under questionable methods that conjure up the horrors of the holocaust. More telling is the EPA subjected human beings to a concoction of diesel fumes that it already said was lethal. If the EPA were truly concerned about human health, they would not have performed such experiments on more than forty people in the first place.
Mark Musser is a contributing writer for the Cornwall Alliance, which is a coalition of clergy, theologians, religious leaders, scientists, academics, and policy experts committed to bringing a balanced biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development. Mark is also the author of Nazi Oaks and Wrath or Rest.
An Unspinnable Debate
How Romney won a clear victory in Denver.
Oct 15, 2012, Vol. 18, No. 05 • By JAMES W. CEASER
(The Weekly Standard) - The highly anticipated debate in Denver was the rarest of all things in American politics: an unspinnable event. Almost all who watched the contest concluded that there was one president on the stage, and it was Mitt Romney. Obama sympathizers took the measure of the situation and decided that the best thing to do was to hoist the white flag and get out of Dodge. Chris Matthews asked, “Where was Obama tonight?” James Carville observed that it “looked like . . . President Obama didn’t want to be there.” A few half-hearted attempts to deflect the result by arguing that Mitt Romney had bullied Jim Lehrer collapsed under the revelation that Barack Obama had held onto the microphone for four minutes longer than his opponent.
More at TWS>>
Oct 15, 2012, Vol. 18, No. 05 • By JAMES W. CEASER
(The Weekly Standard) - The highly anticipated debate in Denver was the rarest of all things in American politics: an unspinnable event. Almost all who watched the contest concluded that there was one president on the stage, and it was Mitt Romney. Obama sympathizers took the measure of the situation and decided that the best thing to do was to hoist the white flag and get out of Dodge. Chris Matthews asked, “Where was Obama tonight?” James Carville observed that it “looked like . . . President Obama didn’t want to be there.” A few half-hearted attempts to deflect the result by arguing that Mitt Romney had bullied Jim Lehrer collapsed under the revelation that Barack Obama had held onto the microphone for four minutes longer than his opponent.
More at TWS>>
"Obamatown"
(Set to Billy Joel's Allentown)
Well we are living here in Obamatown
And they're closing all the companies down
In the USA they're killing time Filling out forms, standing in line
Well our fathers fought the First Gulf War
and they warned us all against Al Gore
And we can't afford the gas anymore
So we drive slow or not all
And we're living here in Obamatown
But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to stay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay. Ayyyyyyyy-ayyyyy-ay
Oh-oh-oh
*machine noises*
And we're waiting here in Obamatown
For the America we never found
For the promises our President gave
If we worked hard, if we behaved
So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No the Jobs were never really real
Food stamps for the poor, not a New Deal
And we're waiting here in Obamatown
But they wont take any oil from the ground
And the greenies all hold sway-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay Ayyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyy-ay
In the 90's every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
But something happened on the way to Obama's place
They threw an unemployment flag in our face Ayyyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyyyyyy-ace
Oh-oh-oh
*machine noises*
Well, I'm living here in Obamatown And it's hard to keep a good man down But I won't be getting employed today-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay Ayyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyyy-ay
*instrumental break* Ayyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyy-ay Oh-oh-oh *machine noises* And it's getting very hard to stay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay And we're living here in Obamatown *machine noises*
Originally Posted on Saturday October 06, 01:54:39 GMT-0400 2012 by tricky_k_1972 @ Free Republic
Well we are living here in Obamatown
And they're closing all the companies down
In the USA they're killing time Filling out forms, standing in line
Well our fathers fought the First Gulf War
and they warned us all against Al Gore
And we can't afford the gas anymore
So we drive slow or not all
And we're living here in Obamatown
But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to stay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay. Ayyyyyyyy-ayyyyy-ay
Oh-oh-oh
*machine noises*
And we're waiting here in Obamatown
For the America we never found
For the promises our President gave
If we worked hard, if we behaved
So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No the Jobs were never really real
Food stamps for the poor, not a New Deal
And we're waiting here in Obamatown
But they wont take any oil from the ground
And the greenies all hold sway-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay Ayyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyy-ay
In the 90's every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
But something happened on the way to Obama's place
They threw an unemployment flag in our face Ayyyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyyyyyy-ace
Oh-oh-oh
*machine noises*
Well, I'm living here in Obamatown And it's hard to keep a good man down But I won't be getting employed today-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay Ayyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyyy-ay
*instrumental break* Ayyyyyyyyy-ayyyyyy-ay Oh-oh-oh *machine noises* And it's getting very hard to stay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay And we're living here in Obamatown *machine noises*
Originally Posted on Saturday October 06, 01:54:39 GMT-0400 2012 by tricky_k_1972 @ Free Republic
Dept. of Labor and Bureau of Labor Statistics or: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
We at Free Republic have known for a long time that the Bureau of Labor staistics is notorious for using accounting gimmicks like the birth death adjustment to "massage" their economic statistics in a way that benefits President Obama and the Democratic party. Anyone who doesn't think this is the case should take a look at the July, 2012 Birth Death adjustment and compare that to the July 2011 Birth Death adjustment. In July, 2012, the BLS "estimated" that 52,000 jobs were created based on their "understanding" of where we were in the "business cycle". That's right, they just added 52,000 jobs to their statistical data based on nothing more than a guesstimation.
OK, so what about the July, 2011 Birth Death adjustment? They only added 5,000 jobs in July of 2011. So, based on their "best guess", they felt it was appropriate to increase that number by 1,000% a year later because the economy is obviously growing 1,000% faster this year I guess (that's sarcasm btw). The fact that we are only a few months away from the Presidential election is completely coincidental I'm sure.
It gets even better, they added some 377,000 "seasonal jobs" to the non-seasonal jobs numbers which were less than stellar. This was the largest July seasonal adjustment in BLS history.
What you should take way from this is that the BLS derives its data from highly subjective estimations and then uses its subjective analysis to portray a rosy economic picture for America, a picture that doesn't make sense to most Americans who live in the real world, not the world imagined by government statisticians.
There's another very important aspect of this to consider: the head of the Department of Labor, the Secretary of Labor, is a Presidential appointee and a life long Democrat. Her name is Hilda Solis and she was the US representative representing East LA, California for 8 years. She's a life long liberal California Democrat that answers directly to Barack Obama and she will lose her job if Mitt Romney beats Barack Obama. Obama has her on speed dial, I guarantee it.
Do you really think she's interested in painting an accurate economic picture here or is she probably more interested in making her boss, Barack Obama, look good so she can keep her awesome job and maybe even move up in the ranks during a second term? What happens to you when you make your boss look bad by the way?
The bottom line is this: the Department of Labor is a political organization, not an economic organization. If you think this political organization isn't working overtime to benefit Barack Obama and the Democratic party in any and every way possible, you probably believe that Barack Obama personally flew into Pakistan and rappelled out of a helicopter and then shot Osama bin Laden.
as Mark Twain once famously stated: there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Think about it.
Originally posted on Saturday October 06, 03:38:13 GMT-0400 2012 by RC one @ Free Republic
OK, so what about the July, 2011 Birth Death adjustment? They only added 5,000 jobs in July of 2011. So, based on their "best guess", they felt it was appropriate to increase that number by 1,000% a year later because the economy is obviously growing 1,000% faster this year I guess (that's sarcasm btw). The fact that we are only a few months away from the Presidential election is completely coincidental I'm sure.
It gets even better, they added some 377,000 "seasonal jobs" to the non-seasonal jobs numbers which were less than stellar. This was the largest July seasonal adjustment in BLS history.
What you should take way from this is that the BLS derives its data from highly subjective estimations and then uses its subjective analysis to portray a rosy economic picture for America, a picture that doesn't make sense to most Americans who live in the real world, not the world imagined by government statisticians.
There's another very important aspect of this to consider: the head of the Department of Labor, the Secretary of Labor, is a Presidential appointee and a life long Democrat. Her name is Hilda Solis and she was the US representative representing East LA, California for 8 years. She's a life long liberal California Democrat that answers directly to Barack Obama and she will lose her job if Mitt Romney beats Barack Obama. Obama has her on speed dial, I guarantee it.
Do you really think she's interested in painting an accurate economic picture here or is she probably more interested in making her boss, Barack Obama, look good so she can keep her awesome job and maybe even move up in the ranks during a second term? What happens to you when you make your boss look bad by the way?
The bottom line is this: the Department of Labor is a political organization, not an economic organization. If you think this political organization isn't working overtime to benefit Barack Obama and the Democratic party in any and every way possible, you probably believe that Barack Obama personally flew into Pakistan and rappelled out of a helicopter and then shot Osama bin Laden.
as Mark Twain once famously stated: there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Think about it.
Originally posted on Saturday October 06, 03:38:13 GMT-0400 2012 by RC one @ Free Republic
Friday, October 5, 2012
Dems Impose Marshall Law in E. St. Louis
Any idea why this wasn't a bigger story, even in the new media?
Virtual House Arrest Ordered for Minors in East St. Louis
EAST ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – Angered by the recent murders of four young people, the mayor announced today that police are going to impose drastic new measurers to keep teens off the streets.
“There is something going on in the community at this point that we’ve got to safeguard them and keep them off the streets,” Mayor Alvin Parks said. “There are people shooting at each other for no reason whatsoever.”
Among the new rules:
**Minors are to be off the streets at ten o’clock on both weeknights and weekend nights.
**Minors on the street during school hours will be arrested on sight.
**Police will also perform I.D. checks on street corners and conduct gun searches, and Parks says he won’t hesitate to call in the National Guard if the spike in violence continues.
“The loiterers will be arrested, not warned, but arrested. Those who are hanging out at 11th and Bond, 15th and Lynch, 38th and Waverly, wherever you happen to be, if you are loitering, you will be arrested.”
Surrounded by police, Parks announced they also plan to arrest adult males and young men wearing gang colors, amounting to a city-wide dress code.
“No royal blue, no bright red to be worn by our men or our boys in this community,” Parks said. “Why is that? Those colors have long been affiliated with gang kinds of affiliations”
Asked about Constitutional concerns, and the need for probable cause, Parks says the recent wave of crime is the probable cause and justifies the extreme new measures.
“Vehicles that are moving will be stopped and searched for guns, weapons, drugs, and open alcohol and any other violations that are taking place,” Parks later told KMOX’s Mark Reardon. “People who are walking, people who are bicycling, can be stopped and searched for the same and, when it comes to state IDs, we’re going to be confirming that state IDs are in place for everyone involved.”
Parks noted the legal questions surrounding his new policies but said “most importantly, we have to do something.”
“We have desperate times, they call for desperate measures and they call for extreme measures, things that we may not have done before, to get the desired results. You cannot grow as a city if your children are being wiped out and never given an opportunity to live.”
Copyright KMOX
Virtual House Arrest Ordered for Minors in East St. Louis
“There is something going on in the community at this point that we’ve got to safeguard them and keep them off the streets,” Mayor Alvin Parks said. “There are people shooting at each other for no reason whatsoever.”
Among the new rules:
**Minors are to be off the streets at ten o’clock on both weeknights and weekend nights.
**Minors on the street during school hours will be arrested on sight.
**Police will also perform I.D. checks on street corners and conduct gun searches, and Parks says he won’t hesitate to call in the National Guard if the spike in violence continues.
“The loiterers will be arrested, not warned, but arrested. Those who are hanging out at 11th and Bond, 15th and Lynch, 38th and Waverly, wherever you happen to be, if you are loitering, you will be arrested.”
 |
| East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announcing crackdown on youth violence |
“No royal blue, no bright red to be worn by our men or our boys in this community,” Parks said. “Why is that? Those colors have long been affiliated with gang kinds of affiliations”
Asked about Constitutional concerns, and the need for probable cause, Parks says the recent wave of crime is the probable cause and justifies the extreme new measures.
“Vehicles that are moving will be stopped and searched for guns, weapons, drugs, and open alcohol and any other violations that are taking place,” Parks later told KMOX’s Mark Reardon. “People who are walking, people who are bicycling, can be stopped and searched for the same and, when it comes to state IDs, we’re going to be confirming that state IDs are in place for everyone involved.”
Parks noted the legal questions surrounding his new policies but said “most importantly, we have to do something.”
“We have desperate times, they call for desperate measures and they call for extreme measures, things that we may not have done before, to get the desired results. You cannot grow as a city if your children are being wiped out and never given an opportunity to live.”
Copyright KMOX
Testor's glue tube baby Al Gore blames Denver altitude for Obama's debate performance
Published October 04, 2012
FoxNews.com
It was the altitude. Yeah, that's it.
As liberal pundits cringed Wednesday night over President Obama's debate performance, Al Gore leapt to his defense with a curious explanation.
If Obama seemed like he had his head in the clouds, the former VP reasoned, perhaps it was because he was having trouble adjusting to the Mile-High City.
"I'm going to say something controversial here," Gore said on Current TV, the channel he helped found. "Obama arrived in Denver at 2 p.m. today, just a few hours before the debate started. Romney did his debate prep in Denver. When you go to 5,000 feet, and you only have a few hours to adjust, I don't know ..."
Gore trailed off with a chuckle, but his fellow co-hosts chimed in with agreement.
"Exactly," one of them said off-screen.
Co-host Cenk Uygur noted how when he came from Los Angeles, "You know what I did? I drank two cups of coffee before coming out here."
Another guest added: "It's really different. The first time I ever did stand up in Denver I had the same exact effect. I flew in that day and when your lungs aren't acclimated to that kind of air, yeah it makes you drawn. It makes you off. The president had an off-night."
Other Obama supporters weren't quite so willing to give the president a pass.
"I can't believe i'm saying this, but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter," comedian and Obama supporter Bill Maher tweeted.
Hat tip: PoliticallyTrending.com
FoxNews.com
As liberal pundits cringed Wednesday night over President Obama's debate performance, Al Gore leapt to his defense with a curious explanation.
If Obama seemed like he had his head in the clouds, the former VP reasoned, perhaps it was because he was having trouble adjusting to the Mile-High City.
"I'm going to say something controversial here," Gore said on Current TV, the channel he helped found. "Obama arrived in Denver at 2 p.m. today, just a few hours before the debate started. Romney did his debate prep in Denver. When you go to 5,000 feet, and you only have a few hours to adjust, I don't know ..."
Gore trailed off with a chuckle, but his fellow co-hosts chimed in with agreement.
"Exactly," one of them said off-screen.
Co-host Cenk Uygur noted how when he came from Los Angeles, "You know what I did? I drank two cups of coffee before coming out here."
Another guest added: "It's really different. The first time I ever did stand up in Denver I had the same exact effect. I flew in that day and when your lungs aren't acclimated to that kind of air, yeah it makes you drawn. It makes you off. The president had an off-night."
Other Obama supporters weren't quite so willing to give the president a pass.
"I can't believe i'm saying this, but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter," comedian and Obama supporter Bill Maher tweeted.
Hat tip: PoliticallyTrending.com
Your tax dollars at work: Obama USDA spent $200,000 on training session chants that said ‘our forefathers were illegal immigrants’
Thursday, October 4
FireAndreaMitchell.com
Maybe while Obama was daydreaming last night, looking at his notes, shaking his head and smirking, he was thinking how he screwed the American people out of $200,000 to have the USDA teach people to chant ‘our forefathers were illegal immigrants.’ Yep, another fine example of Chicago thug, ObamaVille government has been exposed. The revelation was apparently a way for the Obama regime to pander to Latinos. I personally think Latinos are smarter than this. Unlike radical Muslims, they don’t appreciate being pandered to, especially in pitiful ways like calling out forefathers ‘illegal immigrants.’ According to Judicial Watch, the Obama regime hired a Chicago based firm in order to have the USDA fulfill its commitment to “a new era of civil rights.” One of the things that was in the ‘new era of civil rights’ was chanting ‘our forefathers are illegal immigrants!”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has paid a Chicago-based firm hundreds of thousands of dollars to culturally transform the agency through diversity training that includes chants about America’s founding fathers being illegal immigrants.
Records uncovered in the course of an ongoing Judicial Watch investigation show how the USDA is wasting taxpayer dollars as it works to fulfill its commitment to “a new era of civil rights” at the agency. A big part of it is making the agency more Latino friendly through a variety of costly programs that we’ll outline later.
A USDA employee tipped Judicial Watch off about the agency’s nationwide compulsory diversity sessions months ago. JW immediately launched a probe, quickly filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking records related to the training. The agency continues withholding crucial parts of the information and has heavily redacted large portions of the files that have been rendered to JW.
A BIG H/T: Conservative Blog Central
FireAndreaMitchell.com
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has paid a Chicago-based firm hundreds of thousands of dollars to culturally transform the agency through diversity training that includes chants about America’s founding fathers being illegal immigrants.
Records uncovered in the course of an ongoing Judicial Watch investigation show how the USDA is wasting taxpayer dollars as it works to fulfill its commitment to “a new era of civil rights” at the agency. A big part of it is making the agency more Latino friendly through a variety of costly programs that we’ll outline later.
A USDA employee tipped Judicial Watch off about the agency’s nationwide compulsory diversity sessions months ago. JW immediately launched a probe, quickly filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking records related to the training. The agency continues withholding crucial parts of the information and has heavily redacted large portions of the files that have been rendered to JW.
A BIG H/T: Conservative Blog Central
Mark Levin: Developing Obama scandal
CBC News Page:
Thursday, October 4
Was Obama rattled by developing donor scandal story?
October 4, 2012 9:51 pm
President Obama's reelection campaign, rattled by his Wednesday night debate performance, could be in for even worse news. According to knowledgeable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story.
Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.
According to the sources, a taxpayer watchdog group conducted a nine-month investigation into presidential and congressional fundraising and has uncovered thousands of cases of credit card solicitations and donations to Obama and Capitol Hill, allegedly from unsecure accounts, and many from overseas. That might be a violation of federal election laws.
The Obama campaign has received hundreds of millions in small dollar donations, many via credit card donations through their website. On Thursday, the campaign announced a record September donor haul of $150 million.
At the end of the 2008 presidential campaign, the Obama-Biden effort was hit with a similar scandal. At the time, the Washington Post reported that the Obama campaign let donors use "largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity."
Source: Washington Examiner
Thursday, October 4
Was Obama rattled by developing donor scandal story?
October 4, 2012 9:51 pm
Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.
According to the sources, a taxpayer watchdog group conducted a nine-month investigation into presidential and congressional fundraising and has uncovered thousands of cases of credit card solicitations and donations to Obama and Capitol Hill, allegedly from unsecure accounts, and many from overseas. That might be a violation of federal election laws.
The Obama campaign has received hundreds of millions in small dollar donations, many via credit card donations through their website. On Thursday, the campaign announced a record September donor haul of $150 million.
At the end of the 2008 presidential campaign, the Obama-Biden effort was hit with a similar scandal. At the time, the Washington Post reported that the Obama campaign let donors use "largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity."
Source: Washington Examiner
Stewart: ‘Deeply Divided Nation’ Has Agreed On Something – Obama’s Debate Performance Sucked
Posted on October 4, 2012
by BC @ im41.com:
Wait a minute ! Why is he calling Romney a liar when all of the fact checkers are saying that it was Obama who was telling the whoppers?
He is doing what SNL does so well. Hitting Obama on the obvious to seem above the fray, and then driving home his real message — Romney is a liar.
This is what Saturday Night Live did to Sarah Palin. They hit Obama just enough to try to appear neutral, suckering in the more gullible, but their overall theme was that she is a dumbass.
Don’t be fooled by these people. They are liberal, and they have an agenda. If you find yourself tickled about what they are saying about a lib, realize that is just them giving you a reach-around so you won’t notice the business going on behind.
Entire article plus video link HERE>>
by BC @ im41.com:
Wait a minute ! Why is he calling Romney a liar when all of the fact checkers are saying that it was Obama who was telling the whoppers?
He is doing what SNL does so well. Hitting Obama on the obvious to seem above the fray, and then driving home his real message — Romney is a liar.
This is what Saturday Night Live did to Sarah Palin. They hit Obama just enough to try to appear neutral, suckering in the more gullible, but their overall theme was that she is a dumbass.
Don’t be fooled by these people. They are liberal, and they have an agenda. If you find yourself tickled about what they are saying about a lib, realize that is just them giving you a reach-around so you won’t notice the business going on behind.
Entire article plus video link HERE>>
Romney uses Savage's 'trickle down government' line
There were no knock-out punches at the forum in Denver, but Romney framed Obama as incapable of turning around the economy, accusing the president of ushering in an era of "trickle-down government" that left Americans in need of a fresh path to the future.
"Middle income families are being crushed," Romney told the president. "The question is how to get them going again. Going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it with the American people who are struggling today."
Obama countered that Romney was promising an economic fairy tale in which he would cut taxes for all Americans, increase defense spending and stanch the flow of red ink overwhelming the national budget. Obama repeatedly hammered Romney for what he said would amount to a $5 trillion tax cut, including a break for the wealthiest Americans.
"Math, common sense and our history show us that is not a recipe for growth," Obama said.
The presidential candidates exchanged blows over domestic policy during the 90-minute forum, with Romney proving the more aggressive of the pair in the opening passage of the debate.
Romney said the president was distorting the GOP tax plan, while pushing through a blueprint that would cripple small business and halt already stagnant job growth.
"I've got five boys," Romney said, seeking to add a personal flair to his economic appeal. "I'm used to people saying something that's not always true, but just keep repeating it."
The most heated exchange of the night came when Romney and Obama clashed over their respective energy plans. Obama accused Romney of protecting the interests of big oil, but the Republican challenger said the president was wasting taxpayer dollars on government investments in green energy programs.
"You don't just pick the winners and losers -- you pick the losers," Romney said pointing to the Obama administration's $535 million investment in Solyndra, a solar-panel manufacturer that ultimately went bankrupt.
The candidates exhibited strikingly different body language through the early part of the debate. Obama avoided eye contact with Romney, and appeared exasperated, and even angry as his opponent unleashed critiques on his policies. Romney, who has fought the stereotype of himself as aloof and patrician, maintained eye contact and smiled while the president spoke. The Republican seemed much more engaged.
Some Democrats were baffled that Obama appeared to leave home much of the arsenal with which the party has attacked Romney for months. There was no mention of Romney's work at Bain Capital, or his comments about the 47 percent of Americans being dependent on government.
Obama's strategy appeared to be that of a frontrunner determined to avoid confrontation or controversy. According to a slew of recent polls, Romney is trailing Obama in a handful of swing states, and entered the night with far more to prove.
After the debate, political analysts said Romney had risen to the challenge, apparently benefiting from nearly two dozen debates during a contentious Republican primary. But Democrats said nothing that happened Wednesday would change the basic dynamic of a race that has so far favored the president.
Source: bhughes@washingtonexaminer.com
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Biden spins debate" “Folks, I hope you saw what I saw tonight:"
CBC News Page
Thursday, October 4
We saw Obama get his butt handed to him. Score a big one for Romney.
Via Politico:
Vice President Joe Biden, in post-debate comments streamed to campaign watch parties across the nation, reiterated some of President Obama’s points and urged supporters to “press even harder” in the weeks ahead.
“Folks, I hope you saw what I saw tonight: two candidates with fundamentally different visions and a fundamentally different set of values,” he said. “And I hope and appreciate that, that you know just how, how, how high the stakes are, that you all appreciate it.”
The vice president said he thought the president “made it absolutely clear that he believes hard work should be rewarded, that accountability should be demanded and that everyone, everyone who works at it, should have a fair shot at a better deal.
“I also thought the president did an excellent job in laying out his specific concrete, plans for restoring the middle class, from ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas to giving tax credits to companies who bring jobs home, to preparing 100,000 new math and science teachers and training two million workers at our community colleges so we can continue to have the best, most productive work force in the world.”
Source: Bluegrass Pundit
Thursday, October 4
We saw Obama get his butt handed to him. Score a big one for Romney.
Via Politico:
Vice President Joe Biden, in post-debate comments streamed to campaign watch parties across the nation, reiterated some of President Obama’s points and urged supporters to “press even harder” in the weeks ahead.
“Folks, I hope you saw what I saw tonight: two candidates with fundamentally different visions and a fundamentally different set of values,” he said. “And I hope and appreciate that, that you know just how, how, how high the stakes are, that you all appreciate it.”
The vice president said he thought the president “made it absolutely clear that he believes hard work should be rewarded, that accountability should be demanded and that everyone, everyone who works at it, should have a fair shot at a better deal.
“I also thought the president did an excellent job in laying out his specific concrete, plans for restoring the middle class, from ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas to giving tax credits to companies who bring jobs home, to preparing 100,000 new math and science teachers and training two million workers at our community colleges so we can continue to have the best, most productive work force in the world.”
Source: Bluegrass Pundit
3 Time Emmy Award Winning CNN Journalist: Mainstream Media Takes Money from FOREIGN Dictators to Run Flattering Propaganda
If you still have a shred of hope that the media is truthful, this closes the casket at least on CNN, when one of their own reporters discusses the lies, cover-ups and propaganda from the media giant that caused her to quit.
American “News” Networks Run Infomericals for Foreign Dictators … Pretend It’s Actual Reporting
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the American media act as presstitutes for rich and powerful Americans.
But it turns out that the American media will turn “tricks” for foreign johns as well …
Specifically, three time Emmy award winning reporter Amber Lyon was until very recently a respected CNN reporter:
Lyon was fired from CNN after she refused to stop reporting on her first-hand experience of the systematic torture and murder of peaceful protesters by the government of Bahrain.
Lyon’s special report on Bahrain was scheduled to run on both CNN’s U.S. and international networks, but was pulled after only a limited showing due to pressure from the Bahrainis and their lobbyists.
At the same time that Lyon was risking her life to do on-the-ground reporting in Bahrain, another CNN journalist was filming a paid propaganda piece on how the Bahraini leaders are a bunch of friendly pro-democracy reformers.
That’s right … the Bahraini government paid CNN to do what was literally an infomercial for that brutal regime and pretend it was real journalism.
Lyon says that China and many other foreign, authoritarian regimes also pay CNN and other mainstream networks to run flattering propaganda pieces.
We are grateful for Ms. Lyon’s exposé of this revolting practice … especially because real reporting is treated as terrorism by the American government.
WATCH THE VIDEO>>
Source: WashingtonsBlog.com
American “News” Networks Run Infomericals for Foreign Dictators … Pretend It’s Actual Reporting
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the American media act as presstitutes for rich and powerful Americans.
But it turns out that the American media will turn “tricks” for foreign johns as well …
Specifically, three time Emmy award winning reporter Amber Lyon was until very recently a respected CNN reporter:
Lyon was fired from CNN after she refused to stop reporting on her first-hand experience of the systematic torture and murder of peaceful protesters by the government of Bahrain.
Lyon’s special report on Bahrain was scheduled to run on both CNN’s U.S. and international networks, but was pulled after only a limited showing due to pressure from the Bahrainis and their lobbyists.
At the same time that Lyon was risking her life to do on-the-ground reporting in Bahrain, another CNN journalist was filming a paid propaganda piece on how the Bahraini leaders are a bunch of friendly pro-democracy reformers.
That’s right … the Bahraini government paid CNN to do what was literally an infomercial for that brutal regime and pretend it was real journalism.
Lyon says that China and many other foreign, authoritarian regimes also pay CNN and other mainstream networks to run flattering propaganda pieces.
We are grateful for Ms. Lyon’s exposé of this revolting practice … especially because real reporting is treated as terrorism by the American government.
WATCH THE VIDEO>>
Source: WashingtonsBlog.com
Dear Monsanto: Thank You for Making the World Better
Dear Monsanto,
I wanted to write you this letter thanking you for all of your hard work leading the food industry towards the future. I have seen some incredible things as of late and I believe that your efforts have been the main reason I and others have been so fortunate.
I have always cared about healthy food just as many of my friends and associates do. Your recent push as the number one financial backer of the anti-prop 37 movement has produced such amazing results that I barely have words to express my gratitude.
Below I have outlined some of those incredible things. I thought you deserved to hear from a consumer, an American, a Californian just what you have done for us.
1- My friends and family now pay much more attention to what is in their food and what they feed themselves and their children.
2- I have seen people who would otherwise not be aware of each other working toward the common goal of food safety and health. I have personally interacted with people from Russia and South Africa regarding the food on their dinner tables and my own. I love new friends.
3- Organic food sales have gone through the roof! The farmers markets in my home town have been growing at a magnificent rate. An entire new culture of caring about what our food really is has come into existence in places where people never really cared before.
4- As a consumer I merely have to look at the list of donors looking to kill prop 37 to know who gives a shit about human beings and who only cares about money.
5- The two larger community gardens in my town went from having a few volunteers each day to having anywhere from 25 – 100 volunteers EACH DAY!!
6- Local independent grocery stores are proudly starting to educate their customers as to which foods do not contain GMO’s.
7- Some GMO foods were sneaking in “under the radar” but now this is on “everyone’s radar.”
8- Farmers are realizing that they do not have to back down to big companies trying to bully them into submission so that they do not have choices.
9- People from all different races, political affiliations, religions, cultures, and places in the world have banded together ala “The enemy o my enemy is my friend.”
10- Girls LOVE guys who make an effort to avoid fake food such as what you supply the world with. If I go out to any gathering and start talking about how terrible GMO’s are I inevitably meet lots of pretty girls.
There are many more benefits I am realizing now thanks to you spending so many millions of dollars to defeat prop 37. So in summary thank you.
It must be so frustrating to see your efforts backfiring on you and your friends Nestle, Bayer, Hershey’s, Abbott, Pepsi, Coke, and all the others.
Thank you for your arrogance and lack of regard of the entire human species. It has served to bring us together and make us stronger.
Sincerely,
Your Friend
Benjamin Lantz
Source: theintelhub.com
I wanted to write you this letter thanking you for all of your hard work leading the food industry towards the future. I have seen some incredible things as of late and I believe that your efforts have been the main reason I and others have been so fortunate.
I have always cared about healthy food just as many of my friends and associates do. Your recent push as the number one financial backer of the anti-prop 37 movement has produced such amazing results that I barely have words to express my gratitude.
Below I have outlined some of those incredible things. I thought you deserved to hear from a consumer, an American, a Californian just what you have done for us.
1- My friends and family now pay much more attention to what is in their food and what they feed themselves and their children.
2- I have seen people who would otherwise not be aware of each other working toward the common goal of food safety and health. I have personally interacted with people from Russia and South Africa regarding the food on their dinner tables and my own. I love new friends.
3- Organic food sales have gone through the roof! The farmers markets in my home town have been growing at a magnificent rate. An entire new culture of caring about what our food really is has come into existence in places where people never really cared before.
4- As a consumer I merely have to look at the list of donors looking to kill prop 37 to know who gives a shit about human beings and who only cares about money.
5- The two larger community gardens in my town went from having a few volunteers each day to having anywhere from 25 – 100 volunteers EACH DAY!!
6- Local independent grocery stores are proudly starting to educate their customers as to which foods do not contain GMO’s.
7- Some GMO foods were sneaking in “under the radar” but now this is on “everyone’s radar.”
8- Farmers are realizing that they do not have to back down to big companies trying to bully them into submission so that they do not have choices.
9- People from all different races, political affiliations, religions, cultures, and places in the world have banded together ala “The enemy o my enemy is my friend.”
10- Girls LOVE guys who make an effort to avoid fake food such as what you supply the world with. If I go out to any gathering and start talking about how terrible GMO’s are I inevitably meet lots of pretty girls.
There are many more benefits I am realizing now thanks to you spending so many millions of dollars to defeat prop 37. So in summary thank you.
It must be so frustrating to see your efforts backfiring on you and your friends Nestle, Bayer, Hershey’s, Abbott, Pepsi, Coke, and all the others.
Thank you for your arrogance and lack of regard of the entire human species. It has served to bring us together and make us stronger.
Sincerely,
Your Friend
Benjamin Lantz
Source: theintelhub.com
Philly student's Romney T-shirt likened to KKK sheet
October 03, 2012
By Jonathan Lai and Kristen A. Graham, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Philly.com:
A uniform-free “dress-down” day at Charles Carroll High School in Port Richmond turned into a public dressing down for a student who chose to wear a pink T-shirt supporting Mitt Romney for president.
Samantha Pawlucy, a sophomore at Carroll High, said her geometry teacher publicly humiliated her by asking why she was wearing a Romney/Ryan T-shirt and going into the hallway to urge other teachers and students to mock her.
“I was really embarassed and shocked. I didn’t think she’d go in the hallway and scream to everyone,” Pawlucy said. “It wasn’t scary, but it felt weird.”
Pawlucy said she decided to wear the shirt after researching the candidate and President Obama and concluding that she’s a Romney supporter. Her father, Richard Pawlucy, said she was especially interested in Romney’s opposition to partial-birth abortion.
He said he recently registered to vote as an independent but was not involved in the Romney campaign.
Samantha Pawlucy The teacher then allegedly called a non-teaching assistant into the room who tried to write on the t-shirt with a marker. She allegedly told to remove her shirt and she would be given another one.
During the incident, Samantha Pawlucy said the teacher told her that Carroll High is a “Democratic school” and wearing a Republican shirt is akin to the teacher, who is black, wearing a KKK shirt.
The teacher could not be teached to comment. Fernando Gallard, district spokesman said an investigation is ongoing. He said the student had the right to wear the t-shirt.
Samantha Pawlucy said she felt publicly humiliated by her teacher and was initially unsure how to respond.
“I just laughed because I was nervous,” she said.
Her father said she was visibly upset when she returned home, but at first did not want to tell her story, for fear of retaliation from the school — suspension, being moved out of the class, or expulsion.
The student said she also felt shunned by classmates because she reported the incident to the principal.
“I have some friends that won’t talk to me anymore beause of it,” she said. “Because I told the principal what happened…they’re mad at me.”
By Jonathan Lai and Kristen A. Graham, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Philly.com:
 |
| A Philadelphia teacher allegedly likened a student's Romney T-shirt to a KKK… |
Samantha Pawlucy, a sophomore at Carroll High, said her geometry teacher publicly humiliated her by asking why she was wearing a Romney/Ryan T-shirt and going into the hallway to urge other teachers and students to mock her.
“I was really embarassed and shocked. I didn’t think she’d go in the hallway and scream to everyone,” Pawlucy said. “It wasn’t scary, but it felt weird.”
Pawlucy said she decided to wear the shirt after researching the candidate and President Obama and concluding that she’s a Romney supporter. Her father, Richard Pawlucy, said she was especially interested in Romney’s opposition to partial-birth abortion.
He said he recently registered to vote as an independent but was not involved in the Romney campaign.
Samantha Pawlucy The teacher then allegedly called a non-teaching assistant into the room who tried to write on the t-shirt with a marker. She allegedly told to remove her shirt and she would be given another one.
During the incident, Samantha Pawlucy said the teacher told her that Carroll High is a “Democratic school” and wearing a Republican shirt is akin to the teacher, who is black, wearing a KKK shirt.
The teacher could not be teached to comment. Fernando Gallard, district spokesman said an investigation is ongoing. He said the student had the right to wear the t-shirt.
Samantha Pawlucy said she felt publicly humiliated by her teacher and was initially unsure how to respond.
“I just laughed because I was nervous,” she said.
Her father said she was visibly upset when she returned home, but at first did not want to tell her story, for fear of retaliation from the school — suspension, being moved out of the class, or expulsion.
The student said she also felt shunned by classmates because she reported the incident to the principal.
“I have some friends that won’t talk to me anymore beause of it,” she said. “Because I told the principal what happened…they’re mad at me.”
LEFT TURNS ON O
First presidential debate: Obama hit with left hook on TV, online
Source: Politico
 |
| 'Where was Obama tonight?' Tingle-deprived Chris Matthews asked. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Left-leaning commentators hit President Barack Obama hard on TV and the Internet after the first presidential debate in Denver on Wednesday night, saying GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney handily defeated his more experienced opponent. MSNBC hosts were “stunned” by Obama’s performance, suggesting the president was rusty for not having debated in four years. “I don’t think he explained himself very well on the economy. I think he was off his game. I was absolutely stunned tonight,” Ed Schultz said. “Where was Obama tonight?” Chris Matthews asked. Matthews said Romney addressed Obama “like the prey. He did it just right. I’m coming at an incumbent. I’ve got to beat him. You gotta beat the champ, and I’m gonna beat him tonight. And I don’t care what this guy moderator, whatever he thinks he is, because I’m going to ignore him. What was Romney doing? He was winning.” “It does remind you that the last debate Mitt Romney had was seven months ago and the last debate that Barack Obama had was four years ago,” said Maddow. The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan called Obama “tired,” “bored” and wrote that he might have even lost the election. “He choked. He lost. He may even have lost the election tonight,” Sullivan wrote, later adding, “Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn’t there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment.” Sullivan, an Obama supporter, was even more vicious on Twitter, calling Obama’s performance “terrible” and “political malpractice.” “This is a rolling calamity for Obama. He’s boring, abstract, and less human-seeming than Romney!” he wrote. “He’s throwing the debate away.” Another Obama supporter, liberal comedian Bill Maher, went on a similar Twitter rant, firing off such comments as, “Obama made a lot of great points tonight. Unfortunately, most of them were for Romney.” Howard Fineman, editorial director of the Huffington Post Media Group, said on MSNBC that Romney delivered “a big wake-up call” to the Obama campaign on Wednesday night. “It’s a classic case of a president kind of showing up and figuring that because he’s president he going to get extra points. It didn’t work that way tonight. And it’s a big wake-up call to the Obama campaign with 34 days in the race,” Fineman said. |
George Zimmerman Sues NBC Over Edited 911 Tape
By Noel Sheppard
October 04, 2012
Newsbusters.org:
In March, NewsBusters broke the story about NBC's Today show airing an edited audiotape of George Zimmerman's 911 call the day he shot Trayvon Martin in Florida.
On Thursday, the New York Post reported Zimmerman is suing the Peacock Network.
According to the Post, the complaint will be filed against NBC News President Steve Capus and correspondent Ron Allen who was the Today reporter involved in the March 27 broadcast.
A source told the Post, “The suit will be filed imminently against NBC and its news executives. The network’s legal department has put everybody in the news department involved with this incident on notice, telling them not to comment.”
As NewsBusters noted at the time, Today played an audiotape with Zimmerman saying on a 911 call, "This guy looks like he’s up to no good...he looks black."
But this was the fuller text of the call:
ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just walking around, looking about.
911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?
ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.
NBC deceptively removed the question from the 911 dispatcher to make it appear Zimmerman was racist, a mistake the network ended up apologizing for.
October 04, 2012
Newsbusters.org:
In March, NewsBusters broke the story about NBC's Today show airing an edited audiotape of George Zimmerman's 911 call the day he shot Trayvon Martin in Florida.
On Thursday, the New York Post reported Zimmerman is suing the Peacock Network.
According to the Post, the complaint will be filed against NBC News President Steve Capus and correspondent Ron Allen who was the Today reporter involved in the March 27 broadcast.
A source told the Post, “The suit will be filed imminently against NBC and its news executives. The network’s legal department has put everybody in the news department involved with this incident on notice, telling them not to comment.”
As NewsBusters noted at the time, Today played an audiotape with Zimmerman saying on a 911 call, "This guy looks like he’s up to no good...he looks black."
But this was the fuller text of the call:
ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just walking around, looking about.
911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?
ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.
NBC deceptively removed the question from the 911 dispatcher to make it appear Zimmerman was racist, a mistake the network ended up apologizing for.
Obamanism: Schools consider 'trash-cams' to monitor vegetables thrown away by students
Lake County considers 'trash-cams' at school cafeterias
Officials say federal law requires veggies on menu, but students toss them
Author: Kristin Giannas, Reporter, kgiannas
@ clickorlando.com
TAVARES, Fla. - Lake County School Board officials are considering attaching cameras to school cafeteria trash cans to study what students are tossing after officials found that most of the vegetables on the school menu end up in the trash can.
New federal laws require students to take a healthy produce at lunchtime, but last year in Lake County, students tossed $75,000 worth of produce in the garbage.
"It's a big issue, and it's very hard to get our hands around it," said School Board member Todd Howard, who suggested "trash-cams." "They have to take (the vegetable), and then it ends up in the trash can, and that's a waste of taxpayer money. It's also not giving students the nutrition that they need."
Laurel Walsh, whose daughter attends Tavares Elementary School, says getting kids to eat their fruits and vegetables is not the job of the respective schools.
?
"I think it starts at home with the parents. If the kids just don't like it because they've never been given it at home, they're not going to try something new here," she said.
No decisions have been made on the cameras, but school leaders say they wouldn't capture students faces, just what they're throwing away.
Officials say federal law requires veggies on menu, but students toss them
Author: Kristin Giannas, Reporter, kgiannas
@ clickorlando.com
TAVARES, Fla. - Lake County School Board officials are considering attaching cameras to school cafeteria trash cans to study what students are tossing after officials found that most of the vegetables on the school menu end up in the trash can.
New federal laws require students to take a healthy produce at lunchtime, but last year in Lake County, students tossed $75,000 worth of produce in the garbage.
"It's a big issue, and it's very hard to get our hands around it," said School Board member Todd Howard, who suggested "trash-cams." "They have to take (the vegetable), and then it ends up in the trash can, and that's a waste of taxpayer money. It's also not giving students the nutrition that they need."
Laurel Walsh, whose daughter attends Tavares Elementary School, says getting kids to eat their fruits and vegetables is not the job of the respective schools.
?
"I think it starts at home with the parents. If the kids just don't like it because they've never been given it at home, they're not going to try something new here," she said.
No decisions have been made on the cameras, but school leaders say they wouldn't capture students faces, just what they're throwing away.
Undecided voters in focus group swing sharply toward Romney; Frank Luntz: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this’; CBS post-debate poll shows big win for Romney
Posted at 11:33 pm on October 3, 2012 by Twitchy Staff
Tonight, pollster Frank Luntz assembled a focus group consisting of undecided Colorado voters. By the end of tonight’s debate, the group had moved dramatically toward GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
At least half a dozen focus group members who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 now say they will vote for Romney. Virtually everyone in the group said that Romney won the debate and exceeded their expectations.
Luntz, who has been in the polling business for at least two decades, says he has never seen such a dramatic shift in opinion as a result of a debate.
Read the Full Story (Complete with actual Tweets) at Twitchy>>
Tonight, pollster Frank Luntz assembled a focus group consisting of undecided Colorado voters. By the end of tonight’s debate, the group had moved dramatically toward GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
At least half a dozen focus group members who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 now say they will vote for Romney. Virtually everyone in the group said that Romney won the debate and exceeded their expectations.
Luntz, who has been in the polling business for at least two decades, says he has never seen such a dramatic shift in opinion as a result of a debate.
Read the Full Story (Complete with actual Tweets) at Twitchy>>
Voter ID and the Bigotry of Low Expectations
October 4, 2012
By Christopher Paslay
(American Thinker) - With the presidential election right around the corner, the liberal propaganda machine is churning on all cylinders.
A particularly disturbing article was recently published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by columnist Annette John-Hall titled "A retired CEO can't top voter ID hurdles." It is a deceptive and misleading piece that rails against Pennsylvania's new voter ID law. Below is an analysis of John-Hall's piece, as well as several arguments as to why voter ID laws are needed.
Voter ID and the Integrity of Our Electoral System
In September of 2005, the Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former president Jimmy Carter, issued a report titled "Building Confidence in U.S. Elections." In order to prevent voter fraud and rebuild American confidence in our electoral system, the commission made five recommendations, one of which was to require voters to show ID to vote:
To make sure that a person arriving at a polling site is the same one who is named on the list, we propose a uniform system of voter identification based on the "REAL ID card" or an equivalent for people without a drivers license. To prevent the ID from being a barrier to voting, we recommend that states use the registration and ID process to enfranchise more voters than ever.
The Supreme Court of the United States agreed. In 2008, the court upheld Indiana's photo ID requirement, ruling that it was a non-discriminatory means of protecting the integrity of elections.
Despite the opinions of Jimmy Carter and the U.S. Supreme Court, Annette John-Hall insists that calling for voter ID "is really just a political dirty trick [by Republicans] to enact one of the harshest laws in the nation, intended to suppress votes under the guise of combating fraud that doesn't exist."
According to a story in USA Today by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, however, voter fraud does exist:
In Texas, evidence of voter fraud abounds. In recent years, my office has secured more than 50 voter fraud convictions. Those include a woman who voted in place of her dead mother, a political operative who cast ballots for two people, and a city council member who registered foreign nationals to vote in an election decided by 19 votes. Voter fraud is hard to detect, so cases like these are just the tip of the iceberg.
Still, supporters of voter ID laws insist that one case of voter fraud is all it takes to spoil the integrity of our electoral system and justify voter ID laws.
The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
"Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less -- the soft bigotry of low expectations."
These were the words of George W. Bush in a 1999 speech on improving education. The same can be said of voter ID laws and the need to educate Americans on the importance of voting and acquiring the proper ID to do so. Helping the poor and disenfranchised get an ID is much broader than simply voting; it is giving them the documentation necessary to both navigate and participate in 21st-century society.
Currently, a valid ID is needed to cash a check, apply for working papers, apply for a marriage license, apply for a mortgage, fly on a plane, get a credit card, buy a car, rent a car, rent an apartment, rent a post office box, buy alcohol, cigarettes, a gun, take out student loans, take out home equity loans, leave the country, get back into the country, get car insurance, get life insurance, get home-owner's insurance, etc. One would think those interested in empowering the poor and disenfranchised -- those interested in helping struggling people better their lives -- would do everything they could to help those in need secure a valid ID.
Yet, interestingly, people like Annette John-Hall rail against voter ID and all its transformative benefits. Instead of pouring their energy into getting the needy up to speed, they spend their time trumpeting why the poor (and the young, and the old, and students, and minorities) can't comply. It's just too hard. These people engage in laborious studies on why a minute group of Americans can't overcome basic challenges, like the Brennan Center for Justice's report "The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification." How much money was spent on this report, and more importantly, how many thousands of IDs could have been acquired and given to indigent Americans in its place?
The Brennan Center claims that the ID laws are "restrictive." John-Hall calls the ID laws "suppressive." Others, like the Inquirer, compare the laws to Jim Crow and insist that they amount to the equivalent of a "poll tax."
Why? Here are the three best arguments against voter ID laws to date, as concluded by the Brennan Center: state ID-issuing offices have limited hours, long lines, and in some cases, require the use of public transportation. This is what people like John-Hall call "Jim Crow." The minority of Americans (less than 11 percent of the population) who want to vote and don't have an ID have to take a bus, wait in a line, and coordinate both of these activities to fit into a time when the ID-issuing office is actually open for business.
Most Americans (75 percent) support voter ID laws and believe that it is by no means unrealistic (or discriminatory) to expect Americans to be able to perform these aforementioned tasks. Many will argue that assuming that citizens are unable or unfit to do so is a condescending hindrance to their well-being and growth; some will argue that such low expectations are the true source of voter suppression.
Dishonest Journalism and the Use of Propaganda
In her article "A retired CEO can't top voter ID hurdles," Annette John-Hall uses a propaganda technique known as a "red herring" to convince the public that voter ID laws are harsh and suppressive. Her article tells the story of Anthony DeCarlo, a 72-year-old lifelong voter and recently retired CEO of a billion-dollar company. DeCarlo was recently (and mistakenly) alerted by the Commonwealth of PA that the name on his driver's license (Anthony DeCarlo) didn't match the name on the voter rolls (Anthony J. DeCarlo) and that "he might have a problem."
Well, as it turns out (as it is revealed near the end of John-Hall's article), DeCarlo didn't have a problem; his ID is fine, his voter registration card is fine, and he will be able to vote in November, just like he's done for the last fifty years. So why is John-Hall's article headlined "A retired CEO can't top voter ID hurdles"? Doesn't not being able to "top voter ID hurdles" mean not being able to vote?
This is the convoluted and misleading game played by John-Hall and her editors. The voter ID hurdles DeCarlo wasn't able to clear involved going down to a DMV office and dealing with a "bureaucratic shuffle," and then receiving a bit of frustrating misinformation from a clerk who was later rectified. If people like John-Hall simply cooperated with voter ID laws and voter education instead of railing against both, it might be clearer that, according to votespa.com, "photo IDs do not need to exactly match their voter registration, but the names must substantially conform." Furthermore, as a senior citizen, DeCarlo could simply have cast an absentee ballot. But he would not have learned that from media sources like John-Hall.
But to those busy readers who only skimmed John-Hall's headline (or read only the intro to the piece), DeCarlo clearly had his right to vote "suppressed." Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
In PA, the state has spent millions on voter education and has set up a website to assist anyone interested in voting in acquiring an ID (in many cases free of charge), registering, and getting to his or her polling place. Even if a person doesn't have a photo ID, or he is indigent and unable to obtain one without a fee, he can cast a provisional ballot and will have six days to provide his photo ID and/or an affirmation to his county elections office to have his ballot count. Senior citizens, the disabled, and others unable to get to their polling places can cast an absentee ballot.
Despite the dishonest claims from the liberal media, voter ID laws are both reasonable and fair. Moreover, they are necessary to preserve the integrity of America's electoral system.
By Christopher Paslay
(American Thinker) - With the presidential election right around the corner, the liberal propaganda machine is churning on all cylinders.
A particularly disturbing article was recently published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by columnist Annette John-Hall titled "A retired CEO can't top voter ID hurdles." It is a deceptive and misleading piece that rails against Pennsylvania's new voter ID law. Below is an analysis of John-Hall's piece, as well as several arguments as to why voter ID laws are needed.
Voter ID and the Integrity of Our Electoral System
In September of 2005, the Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former president Jimmy Carter, issued a report titled "Building Confidence in U.S. Elections." In order to prevent voter fraud and rebuild American confidence in our electoral system, the commission made five recommendations, one of which was to require voters to show ID to vote:
To make sure that a person arriving at a polling site is the same one who is named on the list, we propose a uniform system of voter identification based on the "REAL ID card" or an equivalent for people without a drivers license. To prevent the ID from being a barrier to voting, we recommend that states use the registration and ID process to enfranchise more voters than ever.
The Supreme Court of the United States agreed. In 2008, the court upheld Indiana's photo ID requirement, ruling that it was a non-discriminatory means of protecting the integrity of elections.
Despite the opinions of Jimmy Carter and the U.S. Supreme Court, Annette John-Hall insists that calling for voter ID "is really just a political dirty trick [by Republicans] to enact one of the harshest laws in the nation, intended to suppress votes under the guise of combating fraud that doesn't exist."
According to a story in USA Today by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, however, voter fraud does exist:
In Texas, evidence of voter fraud abounds. In recent years, my office has secured more than 50 voter fraud convictions. Those include a woman who voted in place of her dead mother, a political operative who cast ballots for two people, and a city council member who registered foreign nationals to vote in an election decided by 19 votes. Voter fraud is hard to detect, so cases like these are just the tip of the iceberg.
Still, supporters of voter ID laws insist that one case of voter fraud is all it takes to spoil the integrity of our electoral system and justify voter ID laws.
The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
"Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less -- the soft bigotry of low expectations."
These were the words of George W. Bush in a 1999 speech on improving education. The same can be said of voter ID laws and the need to educate Americans on the importance of voting and acquiring the proper ID to do so. Helping the poor and disenfranchised get an ID is much broader than simply voting; it is giving them the documentation necessary to both navigate and participate in 21st-century society.
Currently, a valid ID is needed to cash a check, apply for working papers, apply for a marriage license, apply for a mortgage, fly on a plane, get a credit card, buy a car, rent a car, rent an apartment, rent a post office box, buy alcohol, cigarettes, a gun, take out student loans, take out home equity loans, leave the country, get back into the country, get car insurance, get life insurance, get home-owner's insurance, etc. One would think those interested in empowering the poor and disenfranchised -- those interested in helping struggling people better their lives -- would do everything they could to help those in need secure a valid ID.
Yet, interestingly, people like Annette John-Hall rail against voter ID and all its transformative benefits. Instead of pouring their energy into getting the needy up to speed, they spend their time trumpeting why the poor (and the young, and the old, and students, and minorities) can't comply. It's just too hard. These people engage in laborious studies on why a minute group of Americans can't overcome basic challenges, like the Brennan Center for Justice's report "The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification." How much money was spent on this report, and more importantly, how many thousands of IDs could have been acquired and given to indigent Americans in its place?
The Brennan Center claims that the ID laws are "restrictive." John-Hall calls the ID laws "suppressive." Others, like the Inquirer, compare the laws to Jim Crow and insist that they amount to the equivalent of a "poll tax."
Why? Here are the three best arguments against voter ID laws to date, as concluded by the Brennan Center: state ID-issuing offices have limited hours, long lines, and in some cases, require the use of public transportation. This is what people like John-Hall call "Jim Crow." The minority of Americans (less than 11 percent of the population) who want to vote and don't have an ID have to take a bus, wait in a line, and coordinate both of these activities to fit into a time when the ID-issuing office is actually open for business.
Most Americans (75 percent) support voter ID laws and believe that it is by no means unrealistic (or discriminatory) to expect Americans to be able to perform these aforementioned tasks. Many will argue that assuming that citizens are unable or unfit to do so is a condescending hindrance to their well-being and growth; some will argue that such low expectations are the true source of voter suppression.
Dishonest Journalism and the Use of Propaganda
In her article "A retired CEO can't top voter ID hurdles," Annette John-Hall uses a propaganda technique known as a "red herring" to convince the public that voter ID laws are harsh and suppressive. Her article tells the story of Anthony DeCarlo, a 72-year-old lifelong voter and recently retired CEO of a billion-dollar company. DeCarlo was recently (and mistakenly) alerted by the Commonwealth of PA that the name on his driver's license (Anthony DeCarlo) didn't match the name on the voter rolls (Anthony J. DeCarlo) and that "he might have a problem."
Well, as it turns out (as it is revealed near the end of John-Hall's article), DeCarlo didn't have a problem; his ID is fine, his voter registration card is fine, and he will be able to vote in November, just like he's done for the last fifty years. So why is John-Hall's article headlined "A retired CEO can't top voter ID hurdles"? Doesn't not being able to "top voter ID hurdles" mean not being able to vote?
This is the convoluted and misleading game played by John-Hall and her editors. The voter ID hurdles DeCarlo wasn't able to clear involved going down to a DMV office and dealing with a "bureaucratic shuffle," and then receiving a bit of frustrating misinformation from a clerk who was later rectified. If people like John-Hall simply cooperated with voter ID laws and voter education instead of railing against both, it might be clearer that, according to votespa.com, "photo IDs do not need to exactly match their voter registration, but the names must substantially conform." Furthermore, as a senior citizen, DeCarlo could simply have cast an absentee ballot. But he would not have learned that from media sources like John-Hall.
But to those busy readers who only skimmed John-Hall's headline (or read only the intro to the piece), DeCarlo clearly had his right to vote "suppressed." Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
In PA, the state has spent millions on voter education and has set up a website to assist anyone interested in voting in acquiring an ID (in many cases free of charge), registering, and getting to his or her polling place. Even if a person doesn't have a photo ID, or he is indigent and unable to obtain one without a fee, he can cast a provisional ballot and will have six days to provide his photo ID and/or an affirmation to his county elections office to have his ballot count. Senior citizens, the disabled, and others unable to get to their polling places can cast an absentee ballot.
Despite the dishonest claims from the liberal media, voter ID laws are both reasonable and fair. Moreover, they are necessary to preserve the integrity of America's electoral system.
Bam! Slam! Pow! Crash! BOOM!
By: Erick Erickson
October 4th, 2012 at 12:40 AM
RedState.com:
There was a surreal moment after the debate last night. On CNN, the polling went overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney among debate watchers. Basically two-thirds of the American public who watched the debate claimed Romney won. A majority claimed Romney was with them on taxes, the economy, healthcare, their views of government, etc. He dominated.
A CBS poll of undecided voters who watched the debate mirrored the CNN poll.
Suddenly the Democrats took to the airwaves and twitter to rail against the polls oversampling Republicans and being too heavily skewed, too instant to be meaningful, and clearly not an accurate statistical sample of anything.
About the same time Barack Obama’s campaign team was melting down on television, the campaign sent out an email that did not even mention the Presidential debate. It just wanted more money.
The debate was so bad for Barack Obama I expect Eric Holder to send Jim Lehrer to GTMO. Barack Obama suddenly agrees with Republicans on defunding PBS. Without his precious TelePrompTer to feed his Gollumesque addiction to its illuminated, precious words, the President fell flat. Instead of John Kerry for a debate partner, the President should have just gone through airport security a few times or embraced BOHICA as a debate preparation strategy.
Put it to you this way, within ten minutes of the debate ending, Jessica Yellin of CNN spoke with Stephanie Cutter of the Obama campaign. Ms. Cutter conceded up front that Mitt Romney won on both debate preparation and debate style. It went downhill from there. She began parroting talking points about the debate she herself released to Obama surrogate at sun up yesterday morning. She had nothing new to add.
Mitt Romney had substance, counterarguments for Barack Obama’s points, rebuttals, and a friendly manner. Barack Obama kept his head down at the podium and refused to make eye contact with Mitt Romney. This too is what Barack Obama did with the economy and Libya.
Barack Obama, at one point, interrupted Jim Lehrer and asked Lehrer to move on to a new topic. It was a brilliant metaphor for what Barack Obama did coming into office. He looked at the economy and decided to move on to Obamacare. His whole career has been one of passing the buck, shifting blame, and failing to take responsibility for tough challenges. He did the same last night.
For four years, Barack Obama has rarely been challenged and he handled it poorly last night. He was ill prepared, flustered easily, and came off as petulant. At some point we should expect the empty chair to ask Barack Obama to take a vacation day and let it debate instead.
I think the explanation for Obama’s performance is pretty simple. Gods in the cult of personality do not like to come off Olympus to be challenged by mere mortals.
There is an important point, however, for Republicans. This was one debate. This was not the election. Mitt Romney showed he can do it. But the campaign needs your help now more than ever. Every penny helps. I guarantee you we are about to see the media resurrect the “Obama is the underdog” theme and, in the meantime, look for most media polls to suddenly have a D+20 sample.
Mitt Romney did fantastic last night.
October 4th, 2012 at 12:40 AM
RedState.com:
There was a surreal moment after the debate last night. On CNN, the polling went overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney among debate watchers. Basically two-thirds of the American public who watched the debate claimed Romney won. A majority claimed Romney was with them on taxes, the economy, healthcare, their views of government, etc. He dominated.
A CBS poll of undecided voters who watched the debate mirrored the CNN poll.
Suddenly the Democrats took to the airwaves and twitter to rail against the polls oversampling Republicans and being too heavily skewed, too instant to be meaningful, and clearly not an accurate statistical sample of anything.
About the same time Barack Obama’s campaign team was melting down on television, the campaign sent out an email that did not even mention the Presidential debate. It just wanted more money.
The debate was so bad for Barack Obama I expect Eric Holder to send Jim Lehrer to GTMO. Barack Obama suddenly agrees with Republicans on defunding PBS. Without his precious TelePrompTer to feed his Gollumesque addiction to its illuminated, precious words, the President fell flat. Instead of John Kerry for a debate partner, the President should have just gone through airport security a few times or embraced BOHICA as a debate preparation strategy.
Put it to you this way, within ten minutes of the debate ending, Jessica Yellin of CNN spoke with Stephanie Cutter of the Obama campaign. Ms. Cutter conceded up front that Mitt Romney won on both debate preparation and debate style. It went downhill from there. She began parroting talking points about the debate she herself released to Obama surrogate at sun up yesterday morning. She had nothing new to add.
Mitt Romney had substance, counterarguments for Barack Obama’s points, rebuttals, and a friendly manner. Barack Obama kept his head down at the podium and refused to make eye contact with Mitt Romney. This too is what Barack Obama did with the economy and Libya.
Barack Obama, at one point, interrupted Jim Lehrer and asked Lehrer to move on to a new topic. It was a brilliant metaphor for what Barack Obama did coming into office. He looked at the economy and decided to move on to Obamacare. His whole career has been one of passing the buck, shifting blame, and failing to take responsibility for tough challenges. He did the same last night.
For four years, Barack Obama has rarely been challenged and he handled it poorly last night. He was ill prepared, flustered easily, and came off as petulant. At some point we should expect the empty chair to ask Barack Obama to take a vacation day and let it debate instead.
I think the explanation for Obama’s performance is pretty simple. Gods in the cult of personality do not like to come off Olympus to be challenged by mere mortals.
There is an important point, however, for Republicans. This was one debate. This was not the election. Mitt Romney showed he can do it. But the campaign needs your help now more than ever. Every penny helps. I guarantee you we are about to see the media resurrect the “Obama is the underdog” theme and, in the meantime, look for most media polls to suddenly have a D+20 sample.
Mitt Romney did fantastic last night.
Since No President Has Ever Done This Badly In A Debate, We Have No Idea What It Will Do To Race
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt
at 10:44 PM on 10.3.12
A historic defeat for a sitting president. Never has a POTUS been this badly whupped in a debate. It is that simple.
It wasn't just that Obama was so bad, but that Romney was so good. Conservatives see a candidate they did not know they had, and independents see a candidate who could turn the country around. No way to predict what this will do to campaign over a week.
Take aways: trickle down government, "you pick losers," and Solyndra and other green energy expenditures of 90 billion could have been 2 million teachers.
Throwing in the towel: Michael Moore, Andrew Sullivan, David Gregory, Ed Schultz.
Sports analogy: POTUS was the '54 Cleveland Indians --winningest team ever, and lost the Series in four games.
Caution to Team Romney and salve to the left: Mondale beat Reagan in the first debate in '04 (though not nearly as badly as Romney beat Obama tonight.)
Analogy? Agincourt?
On asking Lileks for an analogy, he noted that "Romney-Obama" will now serve as shorthand for a debate pummeling.
UPDATE: Don't believe me. Believe Andrew Sullivan:
10.31 pm. Look: you know how much I love the guy, and you know how much of a high information viewer I am, and I can see the logic of some of Obama's meandering, weak, professorial arguments. But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look.
Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn't there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment.
The person with authority on that stage was Romney - offered it by one of the lamest moderators ever, and seized with relish. This was Romney the salesman. And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It's beyond depressing. But it's true.
at 10:44 PM on 10.3.12
 |
| The Battle of Agincourt |
A historic defeat for a sitting president. Never has a POTUS been this badly whupped in a debate. It is that simple.
It wasn't just that Obama was so bad, but that Romney was so good. Conservatives see a candidate they did not know they had, and independents see a candidate who could turn the country around. No way to predict what this will do to campaign over a week.
Take aways: trickle down government, "you pick losers," and Solyndra and other green energy expenditures of 90 billion could have been 2 million teachers.
Throwing in the towel: Michael Moore, Andrew Sullivan, David Gregory, Ed Schultz.
Sports analogy: POTUS was the '54 Cleveland Indians --winningest team ever, and lost the Series in four games.
Caution to Team Romney and salve to the left: Mondale beat Reagan in the first debate in '04 (though not nearly as badly as Romney beat Obama tonight.)
Analogy? Agincourt?
On asking Lileks for an analogy, he noted that "Romney-Obama" will now serve as shorthand for a debate pummeling.
UPDATE: Don't believe me. Believe Andrew Sullivan:
10.31 pm. Look: you know how much I love the guy, and you know how much of a high information viewer I am, and I can see the logic of some of Obama's meandering, weak, professorial arguments. But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look.
Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn't there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment.
The person with authority on that stage was Romney - offered it by one of the lamest moderators ever, and seized with relish. This was Romney the salesman. And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It's beyond depressing. But it's true.