Mitt Romney Speech to NAACP 2012. This is worth watching. A gutsy speech and he did not back down at all.
And by the way he got a warm reception and a good standing ovation at the end.
Daily Archives: July 11, 2012
Devastating new ad: Obama’s “war on women” (video)
When there is a war on wealth and growth and on small business as this administration has engaged in, only the “most employable” keep their jobs. Women who take time off for babies and such become expendable in such an economy. By the way, the statistics in the ad are directly from the Obama Administration.
Our pals Michelle Fields and Sandra Smith respond:
Spain raises national sales tax to 21%
Spain now has a 21% national sales tax. This is what happens when socialist governments spend like crazy.
It is worse, in Spain their sales tax is in the form of a value added tax. This means that the tax is applied at every stage of production – The sugar, the flour, the water, the making of the dough, the baking, the packaging and finally the selling. That adds up to one expensive loaf of bread. This is who elite Democrats and academics say we should emulate.
CNBC:
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced a swathe of new taxes and spending cuts on Wednesday designed to slash 65 billion euros from the budget deficit by 2014 as recession-plagued Spain struggles to meet tough targets agreed with Europe.
Rajoy, of the center-right People’s Party, proposed a 3-point hike in the main rate of Value Added Tax on goods and services to 21 percent, and outlined cuts in unemployment benefit and civil service pay and perks in a parliamentary speech interrupted by jeers and boos from the opposition.
“These measures are not pleasant, but they are necessary. Our public spending exceeds our income by tens of billions of euros,” Rajoy told parliament.
He also announced new indirect taxes on energy, plans to privatize ports, airports and rail assets, and a reversal of property tax breaks that his party had restored last December.
Gov. Sununu destroys Andrea Mitchell while she struggles to defend Obama’s stimulus outsourcing (video)
We all knew that NBC was in the tank, but wow this is a sight to see. This interview was so factually lopsided he just ends laughing at her.
At the end, what Sununu says about small business is true. Most small businesses exist as labors of love that don’t make profits and/or just exist on paper. The small percentage of small businesses that actually have employees do 70% of the hiring in this country.
As far as outsourcing, Bain was able to help almost 80% of the companies it invested in and only a small number of them engaged in heavy outsourcing. NBC and the Democrat media complex thinks that the American people will be more interested in what Mitt Romney does with his own money, than what Barack Obama does with yours. Some estimates show that $29 BILLION of your “Obama” stimulus dollars went overseas almost directly. That dwarfs anything that Mitt Romney did with his money or Bain’s.
The RNC has a website called Obamanamics Outsourced that lists how many jobs Obama outsourced to other countries using your tax dollars.
President Obama said that stimulus jobs could not be outsourced but…
Teens Make Video: “No more debt!” “No more social engineering!” “More freedom!”
This is incredible.
CNN: Obama’s tax plan today will cut GDP growth in half (video)
CNN has been at the bottom of the ratings heap for some time. Maybe their new angle is to actually do good journalism and that would be a welcome change. Will it last? I wouldn’t bet on it, but I hope I am wrong.
Of course the majority of the $250K+ who pay the top marginal tax rate are not “people” at all, they are small to medium sized S-Corps (small businesses).
New CNN host blasts Obama for hypocrisy on transparency (video)
Funny, he looks a lot like Glenn Beck.
Obama threatened to Veto the Defense Authorization Act because it would require that soldiers shot by home grown terrorists be given the purple heart
Now why would Obama be so opposed to soldiers getting a purple heart who were shot by home grown jihadists such as those at Fort Hood by Major Hassan? This speaks volumes about the radicalized mindset of this president. Remember how Obama wanted to define the Hassan shootings as “workplace violence” instead of what it really was?
This spring, the Obama administration threatened to veto the 2013 Defense Authorization Act. Of all the reasons given for the threat, the objection to granting the Purple Heart to Pvt. Andy Long stands out as strange. That is, unless you know the story.
On June 1, 2009, Pvt. Long was killed outside an Army recruiting office in Little Rock by Carlos Bledsoe, who had become Abdul Hakim Mohammed after converting to Islam. Since then, we, the fathers of Carlos and Andy, have been trying to tell our story so that other parents do not experience our tragedy.
Carlos grew up in a loving, church-going family. There’s a picture of Carlos at his high school graduation with a huge smile on his face, ready to go off to Tennessee State University for college. He looked forward to becoming a businessman and joining the family owned tour company in Memphis.
Switch to Islamism
But he did not get the education everyone expected. Instead, he became interested in Islamic extremism. At TSU, preachers from a radical Nashville mosque led courses in Islam. Eventually, Carlos began frequenting this mosque, converted, and took the name of the mosque’s imam. This imam taught worshipers that America “is the worst country on earth,” that the Christian faith is “the greatest lie ever told,” that this worldly life “is trash,” and that Muslims must seek death and the afterlife.
Carlos began to change his behavior: He abandoned his dog in the woods because he was told Muslims shouldn’t have dogs. He took Martin Luther King‘s picture off his bedroom wall. He was sent by another Nashville imam to a school in Yemen, which turned out to be an al-Qaeda front. Carlos then returned to America and planned his own jihad.
Andy grew up in a military family and decided to follow in his parents’ footsteps. He found out he was good at it; he enjoyed it. Before being deployed to South Korea, he volunteered to work as a recruiter in Little Rock near our home. His mother, Janet, went to visit him there on June 1, 2009.
Fateful day
That was the day Carlos decided to kill a soldier. He had already firebombed a rabbi’s house in Nashville and shot up another rabbi’s house in Little Rock. That morning, he fired three bullets at Andy. Quinton Ezeagwula, another soldier, was also shot but survived. Carlos eventually pleaded guilty to killing Andy, and was sentenced to life in prison without chance for parole.
Since that tragic day, we have been speaking out about the dangers of homegrown terrorists. We testified to Congress, with mixed results. Some congressmen dismissed us for not being experts. Nevertheless, following our testimony, Congress passed a provision, as part of the defense bill, to give the Purple Heart to Andy and the victims of a similar 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas. Now the administration is threatening to deny it.
The president, we believe, doesn’t want to admit the first successful al-Qaeda murder on U.S. soil since 9/11 happened on his watch or to acknowledge the problem of homegrown Islamic radicalization. This indirectly provides cover to extremists at the expense of moderate Muslims. To withhold the Purple Heart from U.S. soldiers for political reasons is to dishonor those who risk everything to protect us all.
We have pledged to our families and to ourselves that we will not be silent until America knows what happened to our sons. On June 1, 2009, it happened to Andy and Carlos. Tomorrow, it could be your children.
Melvin Bledsoe is the father of Carlos, who fatally shot Pvt. Andy Long, son of Daris Long. They have cooperated in producing a documentary that can be viewed at losingoursons.com.
Allen West on the Balkanization of America & Government Dependency (video)
He is SO right about this.
Rihanna Sues Accountants for ‘Tens of Millions’ in Losses
I am sure that some of you are wondering; why are we reporting on Rihanna’s problems when our do not come to Political Arena to get “pop culture” news. There is a very important lesson about the law that is demonstrated in this finely written article by Andrew Lu at Findlaw.com courtesy via Reuters.
Some people may believe that “a contract is a contract is a contract”, you signed on the dotted line so now you must take your medicine. In many cases this is NOT the case. Insurance contracts are an exception in most states as the Department of Insurance can step in to protect the consumer because most insurance contracts are deliberately written so that they are very difficult to understand. Another exception is when you hire people who are experts in certain fields to act on your behalf.
There is something that the laws in most state laws recognize called GAPP – Generally Accepted Practices and Procedures. When people who are ethically bound to act in your best interests don’t they are in violation of GAPP and legal action can result.
Rihanna is suing something called Berdon LLP.
Berdon served as Rihanna’s accountants for several years as the young star rose. In her lawsuit, Rihanna says that Berdon abused their position of trust and fleeced her for tens of millions of dollars, reports Entertainment Weekly.
Rihanna says she signed with Berdon when she was16 and had just come to this country from Barbados. Being young, foreign and rich, Rihanna claims that she was easily taken advantage of by the accounting firm. The singer is seeking unspecified damages, but says she lost “tens of millions of dollars” to the firm.
In one example, Rihanna says that Berdon negotiated a deal with her where the accounting firm would get paid a percentage of the total gross proceeds from a concert tour. Stunningly, the firm made off with 22% of the total revenues from the tour. Rihanna’s cut was only 6%, reports Entertainment Weekly. In her lawsuit, Rihanna makes note that this billing method by her accountants is far from standard practice.
Generally, when you hire an accountant, you are hiring someone to act in your best interest. The accountant is considered your fiduciary, and should not have a payment method or other incentive that conflicts with your best interests. In Rihanna’s case, she claims that her accountants had such a conflict. They wanted to profit as much as possible off of her, to the obvious detriment of their client.
Many young stars are taken advantage of by trusted advisors. By filing the lawsuit, Rihanna shows that she spotted the possible wrongdoing at an early age and is taking steps to recover her losses.
Allen West: Why I don’t care about my critics; real journalism is dead (video)
“I don’t care about my critics, I understand that my country is at a very perilous situation and I’m going to use the type of words that are necessary to get the attention of the American people.”
“I want to make sure that the United States of America, that has been around for 236 years as the beacon of liberty, freedom and democracy, continues on for our subsequent generations. Our children and grandchildren. And I really don’t care about critics. I really don’t care about the liberal media”.
Liberal Elite Media Group Calls Romney Too White…..
This is the kind of race bating sleaze the leftists in the elite media are pushing. Wait until you see below who is behind this sleaze campaign. Remember when the left tried to make like they were the civility police? And some people wonder why the public does not trust the elite media….
In advance of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech Wednesday to the NAACP, a liberal group headed by a former New York Times reporter and ex-Media Matters executive have produced a video “satire” that claims blacks don’t like Romney, who they dub so white he makes “Wonder Bread look like pumpernickel.”
The YouTube from “The Message,” an online “media hub,” is described as a satirical video of Romney getting advice on what to say to the civil rights group. Or, as they said in a release, the video “lacerates Romney and his advisors as they prepare for his speech to NAACP in Houston on Wednesday.”
The lead “advisor” in the video is described as the brainchild of the 1988 Willie Horton ads and the 2004 swift boat campaign. He states bluntly that “blacks don’t like us and we’re about to give a speech to a whole lot of them.”
He also says to the candidate, “you are so white, you are extremely white, you make Wonder Bread look like pumpernickel,” before advising the Romney actor never fully seen to “go on out there and get all Mormon, Martin Luther King on them, you’re going to be great.”
Now pay close attention:
The group is directed by Razor & Tie co-founder Cliff Chenfeld, former Media Matters for America president Eric Burns, former AOL chief creative officer and co-founder of theknot.com Michael Wolfson, and former New York Times journalist Andrew Zipern.
So much for objective credibility. These are the kinds of loons that get hired in elite media news rooms. If you don’t tow the line they get rid of you.
Democrat Party Chair Debbie Schultz Trashed Romney for Having a Swiss Bank Account – She Has One Too!
Of course there is nothing wrong or illegal about having a Swiss bank account or overseas investments. With the state of American banks and this government I would keep cash in solid foreign banks as well. The hypocrisy in this story is just overwhelming and the Democrats are pulling every desperate card to play on the ignorance of people who aren’t familiar with such financial tools.
The Weekly Standard:
Disclosure forms reveal that Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Florida, previously held funds with investments in Swiss banks, foreign drug companies, and the state bank of India. This revelation comes mere days after the Democratic chair attacked presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for holding money in Swiss bank accounts in the past.
“Americans need to ask themselves, why does an American businessman need a Swiss bank account and secretive investments like that?” the DNC chair, a chief surrogate for President Obama’s reelection team, said on Fox News Sunday two days ago. “Just something, a thought, that I’d like to leave folks with.”
It’s been a consistent theme of Obama’s reelection strategy: Attack Romney for foreign investments he held, especially in Swiss bank accounts, “to try to promote his wealthy, out-of-touch businessman persona.”
But disclosure forms reveal that in 2010, Wasserman Schultz invested between $1,001-$15,000 in a 401k retirement fund run by Davis Financial Fund. As the fund discloses, it is invested in the Julius Baer Group Ltd. and the State Bank of India GDR Ltd., as well as other financial, insurance, bank institutions.
Arizona SB1070 Law Has Already Led to Thousands of Self-Deportations, Lower Crime Rates, 13 School Closings
Arizona’s “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” (SB 1070) was signed into law by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in April 2010. The U.S. Justice Department is challenging Arizona to try to stop the law, as are other groups. A federal judge of the Ninth District issued a temporary injunction against four parts (out of 10) of the law in July 2010, and the case has now reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
At a press conference on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, former State Senator Russell Pearce said that the law has achieved several of its goals, including the voluntary departure of thousands of illegal aliens from Arizona, a reduction in crime and prison population, and a shrinking number of students in Mesa Public Schools that led to the closure of 13 elementary schools.
MORE:
Pearce said that statistics from the Department of Homeland Security and other groups show that between 100,000 and 200,000 illegal aliens have voluntarily left the state since most of it went into effect in 2010.
“We have a violent crime rate drop by three times that of the national average,” Pearce said. “My school district – Mesa – the largest school in the state, can close 13 elementary schools because of the declining population in K-12, out of neighborhoods known for high concentrations of illegals.”
“Our prison population’s on the decline for the first time in the history of the state of Arizona,” Pearce said, adding that there are about 2,500 fewer inmates in Arizona prisons today than there were before the law went into effect.
16.8% of millenials are unemployed or have given up looking for work
Via our pal Michelle Fields at The Daily Caller:
New jobs numbers for June released Friday show that Americans 18-29 years old continue to suffer under the Obama administration with a 12.8% unemployment rate.
The jobs report shows that there are now 1.735 million young Americans who are no longer counted as “employed” because they have given up looking for a job and have left the labor force all together.
Generation Opportunity — a conservative non-profit focused on young Americans — notes that if “the labor force participation rate were factored into the overall 18-29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18-29-unemployment rate would rise to 16.8 percent.”
CNBC: Best place to do business and create jobs is Texas
Will the Democrats send Rick Perry congratulations?
CNBC:
#1 – Texas
We scored all 50 states on 43 measures of competitiveness developed with input from business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness. States received points based on their rankings in each metric. Then, we separated those metrics into ten broad categories, weighting the categories based on how frequently they are cited in state economic development marketing materials. That way, our study ranks the states based on the criteria they use to sell themselves.
Here are the ten categories ranked in our study:
Study: In Maryland, Higher Taxes Chase Out Rich
This is not a surprise. Wealth goes where it is treated well and as we saw on the last Census people are voting with their feet to Republican controlled states. I first reported on this back in 2009 when Maryland actually lost revenue after they imposed their “millionaire’s tax”.
CNBC:
The study, by the anti-tax group Change Maryland, says that a net 31,000 residents left the state between 2007 and 2010, the tenure of a “millionaire’s tax” pushed through by Gov. Martin O’Malley. The tax, which expired in 2010, in imposed a rate of 6.25 percent on incomes of more than $1 million a year.
The Change Maryland study found that the tax cost Maryland $1.7 billion in lost tax revenues. A county-by-county analysis by Change Maryland also found that the state’s wealthiest counties also had some of the largest population outflows.
In total, Maryland has added 24 new taxes or fees in recent years, Change Maryland says. Florida, which has no income-tax, has been a large recipient of Maryland’s exiled wealthy.
“Maryland has reached the point of diminishing returns. We’re taxing people too much and people are voting with their feet,” said Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan. “Until we change our focus from tax increases to increasing the tax base, more people are simply going to leave, leading to a downward spiral of raising revenues on fewer citizens.”
The finding adds to the renewed debate over raising taxes on the wealthy. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie recently vetoed a millionaire’s tax passed by his legislature, while California and other state governments are also considering higher taxes on high earners to fix budget problems. President Obama on Monday asked Congress to extend tax cuts for those making $250,000 or less – effectively increasing taxes for the higher earners.
Many contend that higher taxes drive out the highly mobile rich, who can simply move to a lower-tax state or even lower-tax country. Recent data shows that a record 1,800 Americans renounces their citizenship last year.
Leading Demographer: The Great California Exodus
Related:
California tops states in teen unemployment. Students with jobs hits 20 year low – LINK
Nine of the top 10 jobless metro areas are in California – LINK
A leading U.S. demographer and ‘Truman Democrat’ talks about what is driving the middle class out of the Golden State.
‘California is God’s best moment,” says Joel Kotkin. “It’s the best place in the world to live.” Or at least it used to be.
Mr. Kotkin, one of the nation’s premier demographers, left his native New York City in 1971 to enroll at the University of California, Berkeley. The state was a far-out paradise for hipsters who had grown up listening to the Mamas & the Papas’ iconic “California Dreamin'” and the Beach Boys’ “California Girls.” But it also attracted young, ambitious people “who had a lot of dreams, wanted to build big companies.” Think Intel, Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
Now, however, the Golden State’s fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product is red tape. The first thing that comes to many American minds when you mention California isn’t Hollywood or tanned girls on a beach, but Greece. Many progressives in California take that as a compliment since Greeks are ostensibly happier. But as Mr. Kotkin notes, Californians are increasingly pursuing happiness elsewhere.
Nearly four million more people have left the Golden State in the last two decades than have come from other states. This is a sharp reversal from the 1980s, when 100,000 more Americans were settling in California each year than were leaving. According to Mr. Kotkin, most of those leaving are between the ages of 5 and 14 or 34 to 45. In other words, young families.
The scruffy-looking urban studies professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., has been studying and writing on demographic and geographic trends for 30 years. Part of California’s dysfunction, he says, stems from state and local government restrictions on development. These policies have artificially limited housing supply and put a premium on real estate in coastal regions.
“Basically, if you don’t own a piece of Facebook or Google and you haven’t robbed a bank and don’t have rich parents, then your chances of being able to buy a house or raise a family in the Bay Area or in most of coastal California is pretty weak,” says Mr. Kotkin.
While many middle-class families have moved inland, those regions don’t have the same allure or amenities as the coast. People might as well move to Nevada or Texas, where housing and everything else is cheaper and there’s no income tax.
And things will only get worse in the coming years as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and his green cadre implement their “smart growth” plans to cram the proletariat into high-density housing. “What I find reprehensible beyond belief is that the people pushing [high-density housing] themselves live in single-family homes and often drive very fancy cars, but want everyone else to live like my grandmother did in Brownsville in Brooklyn in the 1920s,” Mr. Kotkin declares.
Read more HERE.
Bill O’Reilly: The ghost of Ronald Reagan is haunting Barack Obama (video)
Bill O’Reilly on the historical parallels from 1980 and today.
Political Arena 