This video from “Generation J” goes a long way into busting the stereotypes and false narratives that the left is smearing anyone who threatens their power with:
Monthly Archives: November 2012
Entertainment Exec: Congratulations to the GOP for losing the easiest election of our lifetime
Mr. entertainment CEO makes a good point. Romney did not do any of the late night shows such as Jay Leno nor did he appear on John Stewart. Romney did not do talk radio, which is bigger than any music format, or Fox News which beats the other news networks combined.
Richard Mgrdechian is doing something about it. He manages Madison Rising which features traditional messages in it’s music. Here is their YouTube channel.
Richard Mgrdechian:
Congratulations to the GOP for losing the easiest election of our lifetimes. Over the past four years, Obama has been exposed as a liar, a fraud, a charlatan and a scam. We’ve seen his policies of racism, divisiveness and class warfare tear at the fabric of our society on a daily basis. We’ve seen the national debt go up by $5 trillion during his watch. We’ve seen the value of the dollar go down dramatically over that same time. We’ve seen ambassadors killed overseas while he sits around and laughs it up with daytime talk show hosts. On top of it all, we’ve seen an endless amount of buyer’s remorse from people who voted for him the first time around and swore they would never do it again. Yet, even with all of this – and an economy in complete shambles – we still lost. The obvious question would have to be how is that possible? Well forget voter fraud, the Electoral College, how much we spent or anything else; at the end of the day the answer is clear and simple – we lost because, no matter how many times they talk about it, Republicans once again missed the boat on popular culture.
Keep reading, because I can tell you right now that this won’t be just another abstract article about what “needs” to be done by someone who has no clue, concept or desire to actually do anything about it, but needs to fill space in a weekly column or has to come up with something to talk about on the radio for a segment or two. No, this is an article about what is being done, what the hurdles have been – mostly from within our own party, by the way – and specific ideas on what we can do to make sure we’re ready next time around.
First of all, we need to understand that popular culture trumps politics every time. Why? Simple: logic and rational arguments are not cool, they’re not fun, they’re not easy and they’re not inspirational. Pop culture on the other hand, is – by definition – all of these things. Pop culture is what we do every day. Pop culture influences what we say, what we think, what we watch, how we dress, what we eat, what we buy and how we act. Ultimately, pop culture is what defines us both as people and as Americans.
Right now, as pathetic as it may be, our front line in the culture war is the Tea Party movement. Unfortunately, these organizations and their events are about as far from “parties” as humanly possible. In fact, the whole thing is more like a tea funeral, actually. Sure, they were effective for a year or so as a way of galvanizing support and aggregating people who felt frustrated and alone, but in reality these groups – especially given they way they are currently run – are completely unsustainable. After all, there are only so many times you can stand there and watch the same twenty people screaming at a podium about the same twenty things for four or five hours at a time. Yes, they truly are funerals in every sense of the word – boring, dreary, draining, unappealing, exhausting and most of all – they are killing the conservative movement.
The same thing seems to be true of the RNC itself, as well as the vast array of non-profits organizations that are supposed to be helping us educate voters, grow our base and win elections. From what I’ve seen, they’ve failed miserably at all three. Not only have they failed, they’ve absolutely refused to do anything innovative, to change their thinking in any manner whatsoever or to make any attempt at all to leverage the power of popular culture.
Great Video About North Korea and Elite Media Narratives (video)
The power of the elite media narratives and how to engage in the battle of the narratives will be a prime focus of Political Arena.
The elite media sets narratives not only by agenda setting, they change attitudes with the emotional nature in which they report combined with what they leave out.
As the fictional character Chad Dumier explained – the rhetoric utilized by government has done more to defeat liberty than all the armies of the world. The war all around us is being fought over the very meanings of words. Meaning does not exist a priori. It is order imposed by individuals with arsenals of communication devices. Every inscription, every utterance, every gesture seeks to dominate the plain of meaning. Real violence is only an extension of this process. Culture, by definition a shared territory of meaning, inspires conflicts far more destructive than any other dispute over territory on the Earth’s surface. It is the message, the communication event that must be targeted.
Latino voters are culturally no different than the population at large, believe Democrat’s false narratives
There is some very wrongheaded thinking in part of the establishment GOP. They believe that in order to get in power Republicans should pander, and move to the left.
Those who hold such a view actually seem to believe that the Democrats will then stop calling Republicans racist and every dirty word in the book.
Look at what the Democrats do to black and Hispanic Republicans, they release their credit history to the public illegally like they did to Michael Steele, they release their social security number publicly like they did to Allen West, and they use every racial attack they can think of.
Democrats sent agitators to Michael Steele events to literally throw Oreo’s at him. They accused Allen West of being a part of a motorcycle drug gang, they trashed his military service, they trashed his family and even went after his children. They they engaged on what is now well reported outrageous vote fraud to unseat him, and replace him with a rich white guy.
Then the Democrats said it was Republican’s fault that Congress is richer and whiter.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee trashed Miquel Estrada when he was nominated to the DC Court of Appeals saying in their own committee memo’s that they must stop him “because he is Latino”.
Democrats trotted out campaign ringers to call South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who is Indian-American, a slut.
AEI:
I’ll start with the General Social Survey (GSS), the most widely used database for monitoring social trends. All the results that follow are based on the biennial GSS surveys conducted from 2000 to 2010.
Latinos aren’t married more than everyone else. Among Latinos ages 30–49, 52 percent are married. Everyone else: 54 percent.
Latinos aren’t more religious than everyone else. Among Latinos, 29 percent attend worship services regularly (nearly once a week or more). Everyone else: 31 percent. Among Latinos, 18 percent not only attend regularly but also say they have a strong affiliation with their religion. Everyone else: 24 percent.
Latinos aren’t more opposed to gay marriage than everyone else. Among Latinos, 44 percent disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that “homosexuals should have the right do marry.” Everyone else: 50 percent.
Latinos are a little more opposed to abortion than everyone else, but not by a landslide. Among Latinos, 12 percent are opposed to abortion under all circumstances. Everyone else: 9 percent. Among Latinos, 21 percent are opposed to all abortion unless the mother’s health is seriously endangered. Everyone else: 14 percent.
Latinos aren’t more conservative than everyone else. Among Latinos, 14 percent describe themselves as “conservative” or “extremely conservative.” Everyone else: 20 percent.
What about the Latino work ethic? For indicators on that, I turn from the GSS to the Current Population Survey (CPS). I restrict the results to the surveys from 2000–2008, before the financial meltdown—that is, we’re looking at work behavior in years in the normal range of unemployment.
Latino men are only fractionally more likely to be in the labor force than everyone else, and those with jobs work slightly fewer hours. Among Latino men ages 30–49, 92 percent were in the labor force. All other men ages 30–49: 91 percent. Among men ages 30–49 who had jobs, Latinos worked an average of 42 hours in the preceding week. All other men ages 30–49: 44 hours.
Latino women are substantially less likely to be in the labor force than everyone else. Among Latino women ages 30–49, 68 percent were in the labor force. All other women ages 30–49: 78 percent. Among those with jobs, hours-worked in the preceding week were virtually identical: 37.3 for Latino women, 37.5 for everyone else.
I can understand why people think Latinos are natural conservatives. Just about every Latino with whom I come in contact is hard-working and competent. I don’t get into discussions with them about their families and religion, but they sure look like go-getting, family-values Americans to me. But note the caveat: “with whom I come in contact.” There’s a huge selection artifact embedded in that caveat—I always come in contact with Latinos because they are on a work crew that’s doing something at my house or office, or at my neighbors’ houses. That’s the way that almost all Anglos in the political chattering class come in contact with Latinos. Of course they look like model Americans.
The data I used for the numbers above come from the most trustworthy, carefully conducted surveys available. They paint a portrait that gives no reason to think that Republicans have an untapped pool of social conservatives to help them win elections.
Heather MacDonald:
A March 2011 poll by Moore Information found that Republican economic policies were a stronger turn-off for Hispanic voters in California than Republican positions on illegal immigration. Twenty-nine percent of Hispanic voters were suspicious of the Republican party on class-warfare grounds — “it favors only the rich”; “Republicans are selfish and out for themselves”; “Republicans don’t represent the average person”– compared with 7 percent who objected to Republican immigration stances.
[In other words Republicans have allowed themselves to be maldefined, have been timid in the battle of the narratives, and not aggressive enough to show why capitalism and freedom work when given the chance. Conservatives have also not been active in pop-culture and public education. – Political Arena Editor]
And a strong reason for that support for big government is that so many Hispanics use government programs. U.S.-born Hispanic households in California use welfare programs at twice the rate of native-born non-Hispanic households. And that is because nearly one-quarter of all Hispanics are poor in California, compared to a little over one-tenth of non-Hispanics. Nearly seven in ten poor children in the state are Hispanic, and one in three Hispanic children is poor, compared to less than one in six non-Hispanic children. One can see that disparity in classrooms across the state, which are chock full of social workers and teachers’ aides trying to boost Hispanic educational performance.
Dr. Walter Williams: Central Planning Defined (video)
Famed economist and scholar Dr. Walter E. Williams:
“Central Planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of someone else’s plan by the powerful elite.”
Pew: Media coverage of Obama was largely positive in the final week of campaign, Romney coverage negative
Media coverage of President Barack Obama was largely positive in the final week of the presidential campaign, while coverage of Mitt Romney was mostly negative, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
From October 29 to November 5, positive stories about Obama in mainstream media outlets outnumbered negative ones by 10 percentage points, with 29 percent positive, and 19 negative. On the other hand, negative stories about the GOP nominee Mitt Romney outweighed positive stories by 17 points, with 33 percent negative compared to 16 positive.
The report, which analyzed 660 stories from 59 media outlets, also notes the positive media coverage of Obama was higher in the final week than it had been in previous weeks.
MSNBC Did No Negative Stories About Obama or Positive Ones About Romney Last Week of Campaign:
A new study just released by the Pew Research Center found that in the final week of the just-ended presidential campaign, the “Lean Forward” network did absolutely no negative stories about President Obama or positive ones about Mitt Romney.
MSNBC’s coverage of Romney during the final week (68% negative with no positive stories in the sample), was far more negative than the overall press, and even more negative than it had been during October 1 to 28 when 5% was positive and 57% was negative.
For Obama, meanwhile, the coverage improved in the last week. From October 1 to 28, 33% was positive and 13% negative. During the campaign’s final week, fully 51% of MSNBC’s stories were positive while there were no negative stories at all in the sample.
Democrats hope for return of the 55% “death tax” in 2013
Democrats love the death tax. It creams most small farms and small businesses while their super rich corporate donors get off the hook. It makes family farms easy targets for big corporate buyers. It also punishes larger companies for being privately held. It is yet another tax that the little guy has to pay while the mega-corporate interests that run the Democratic Party benefit from.
Fox News:
Ranchers, farmers brace for ‘death tax’ impact
Rancher Kevin Kester works dawn to dusk, drives a 12-year-old pick-up truck and earns less than a typical bureaucrat in Washington D.C., yet the federal government considers him rich enough to pay the estate tax — also known as the “death tax.”
And with that tax set to soar at the beginning of 2013 without some kind of intervention from Congress, farmers and ranchers like Kester are waiting anxiously.
“There is no way financially my kids can pay what the IRS is going to demand from them nine months after death and keep this ranch intact for their generation and future generations,” said Kester, of the Bear Valley Ranch in Central California.
Two decades ago, Kester paid the IRS $2 million when he inherited a 22,000-acre cattle ranch from his grandfather. Come January, the tax burden on his children will be more than $13 million.
For supporters of a high estate tax, which is imposed on somebody’s estate after death, Kester is the kind of person they rarely mention. He doesn’t own a mansion. He’s not the CEO of a multi-national. But because of his line of work, he owns a lot of property that would be subject to a lot of tax.
“Our number one goal is to repeal the estate tax, to get rid of it, not have it for every generation, when I die and my kids die and so on,” he told Fox News. “For everyone to have to re-purchase the ranch or farm over and over for each generation, that’s inherently unjust. So what we’re doing is asking our politicians to understand that and repeal the estate tax.”
That, however, is unlikely. Currently, the federal government taxes estates worth $5 million dollars and up at 35 percent. When the Bush-era tax rates expire in January, rates increase to 55 percent on estates of $1 million or more. While some Republicans want to eliminate the death tax entirely, President Obama has proposed a 45 percent rate on estates of $3.5 million and up.
“The idea behind the estate tax is to prevent the very wealthy among us from accumulating vast fortunes that they can pass along to the next generation,” said Patrick Lester, director of Federal Fiscal Policy with the progressive think tank — OMB Watch. “The poster child for the estate tax is Paris Hilton — the celebrity and hotel heiress. That’s who this is targeted at, not ordinary Americans.”
Editor’s Note – Wait just a minute. Why can’t Paris Hilton’s family pass their fortune on to their children? The Hilton’s provide a valuable service and also provide tens of thousands of good jobs. They also pay massive amounts on taxes and give to charities. Why should they be targeted for punishment by the federal government?
Where did we adopt the tyrannical Marxist idea that just because someone has it, it then becomes another’s right to take it? Do we have the rule of law or the law of the jungle?
The Democrats do not take that money to pass out to you and me, they spend the money over seas or hand it out to campaign donors and cronies just as they have dome in the emerging Green Corruption scandal.
Isn’t the “American Dream” to pass on something to your kids so they can do better than you? This is how radical the Democratic Party leadership has become.
More from Fox News:
But according to the American Farm Bureau, up to 97 percent of American farms and ranches will be subject to an estate tax where the exemption is set at $1 million. At that rate, the federal government will pocket $40 billion in 2013 and up to $86 billion in 2021. That contrasts with just $12 billion this year.
Tammy Bruce, Bill Whittle & Stephen Kruiser: Why the establishment GOP was stupid enough to adopt the Democrats false narratives (video)
This is very informative (more so in the second video). Tammy Bruce has been a TEA Party leader from before the beginning. She is a former leftist, former President of NOW, and an out of the closet homosexual who attributes Western enlightenment and tolerance to our Christian heritage.
If you only have time to watch one video, watch the second one (as the first one is sorta “meh”).
Tammy Bruce, Bill Whittle & Stephen Kruiser: Why the establishment GOP was stupid enough to adopt the Democrat’s false narratives
Tammy Bruce vs Milignant Narcisist Athiest Bigot (video)
[Editor’s Note – Tammy Bruce is one of the greatest thinkers alive today and any chance to see her in action is a privilege.]
In this video Tammy debates an atheist who represents a group that is trying to monopolize all of the city public displays for the holiday season with posters that insult people of faith.
The atheist says it is all about rights, Tammy Bruce sees right through his “rights” shield red herring argument and blasts his agenda, which is pushing people of faith out because his tiny minority cannot adapt to a country that is 95% religious. It is about bullying and malignant narcissism. The intellectual and philosophical mismatch becomes apparent very quickly. Enjoy.
Senator Ted Cruz to GOP: If you don’t make the argument you don’t win it (video)
Senator Ted Cruz:
Why the Obamacare insurance mandate WON’T help those with pre-existing conditions (video)
The way the Obamacare health insurance mandate is structured is unsustainable. It creates what is called an “adverse selection spiral” (death spiral); meaning that if people act for their own best interests within the Obamacare structure, the more it weakens the system. Insurance companies are already getting out of health insurance because of this and countless employers are already dropping health insurance coverage for employees. Health insurance premiums have already gone up by $2,500 dollars a year, I was just notified that my premium went up to $267.00 a month.
This system will crash and it won’t take long. What will people who need insurance do then? What will those with preexisting conditions do then?
We need a new solution to the preexisting condition problem. Obamacare makes the problem worse, not better.
Rush Limbaugh rips Steve Schmidt on the air
Establishment GOP Pinheads “blame the voters”…..
I am sure readers have heard by now that Mitt Romney is blaming the 47% who is “on the take” and “isn’t paying taxes”.
Political Arena contributor Warren Roche put together this brilliant and entertaining montage, “Where is the love?”:
While it was impolitic for Mitt to include veterans and retirees in that number there is some truth to it, but in saying it they way he did left him open to be demagogued and attacked as hating retires, the disabled and veterans.
How many times will Republicans get whacked in the “battle of the narratives” before they learn? Or is the current crew in charge so used to fooling themselves that they have to be swept out for the party to have a chance in future elections?
At least some people get it:
I just think it’s nuts. First of all it is insulting. It is like WalMart after a bad week saying “The customers are being unruly”. – Newt Gingrich
“You have a political problem when the voters don’t like you, but you have a real problem when the voters feel like you don’t like them”. – George Will
Governor Bobby Jindal:
Yours truly had this to say a few days ago in Facebook Notes:
Much of the blue collar in this country used to be solidly in the Republican corner, but they feel like they have been lied to and taken for granted. Since the 2003 Bush tax cuts there have been ZERO domestic policy victories for this group of voters. That is why they are disillusioned and believe that no matter who they vote for government will just gets bigger, the economy will just get smaller while jobs dry up and flee the country. They feel squeezed and while they know that the Democrats are bad, they no longer have confidence in the Republican party. That is why these voters are staying home.
What isn’t helping is Republicans with an entitlement mentality who actually have the nerve to believe that just because the Democrat in power is a failed neo-Marxist Saul Alinsky radical that the man they cram down our throats is entitled to the blue collar conservative vote, and when they don’t get it they call them imbeciles.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz gets it as well and comments on why so many blue collar Republicans stayed home again:
Senator Marco Rubio:
Fordham University Censors Ann Coulter, College Republicans
UPDATE: O’Reilly Factor goes to Fordham University – VIDEO
Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate:
Censorship is a huge problem in public schools and universities and most parents have no idea. If you doubt it simply go to thefire.org where you can see literally thousands of examples of illegal censorship and retaliation by academics and university administrators. The site is updated almost daily with new examples.
To see real life examples of incredible censorship and retaliation on video go HERE.
Fordham President Joseph McShane, S.J. expressed his “disgust” with College Republicans for inviting Ann Coulter to campus, and the invitation has now been withdrawn. He sent an e-mail to all students and parents accusing her of “hate speech.”
Fordham’s 2006 commencement speaker was MSNBC host Chris Matthews. The university did not even wait for Coulter to give her speech before condemning her.
Robert Shibley of The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education said “Can Fordham’s adult students not be trusted to make up their own minds about the views expressed by a speaker? Does Father McShane believe Coulter is so diabolically clever that her use of ‘disgusting’ rhetoric will somehow fool Fordham students into believing what she wants them to believe? If so, he has a significantly lower opinion of the quality of American college students than I do.
“If Fordham students truly lack the ability to listen to an invited speaker, separate rhetoric from reality, and make up their own minds, then Fordham has much graver problems than Ann Coulter coming to campus.”
Coulter is shown answering questions at the Yale Political Union. The Yale Daily News said “Love her or hate her, it is impossible to ignore Ann Coulter. She’s made a career out of being a firebrand.” Below are a few of her more quotable moments at Yale:
“Liberals love mobs because they see them as their path to power.”
“I love the argument that illegal immigrants need a path to citizenship. We have a path to citizenship: it’s called legal immigration.”
“Every single thing President Obama has done is designed to wreck the economy and drive up the unemployment rate. It’s like he took everything Reagan did right and did exactly the opposite.”
“As long as Obama’s playing golf, he isn’t socializing anything else.”
Obama Admin proposes 68 regulations per day, 6,125 in 90 days
And people wonder why jobs and wealth leave the country……
It’s Friday morning, and so far today, the Obama administration has posted 165 new regulations and notifications on its reguations.gov website.
In the past 90 days, it has posted 6,125 regulations and notices – an average of 68 a day.
The website allows visitors to find and comment on proposed regulations and related documents published by the U.S. federal government. “Help improve Federal regulations by submitting your comments,” the website says.
The thousands of entries run the gamut from meeting notifications to fee schedules to actual rules and proposed rule changes.
In recent days, for example, the EPA posted a proposed rule involving volatile organic compound emissions from architectural coatings: “We are approving a local rule that regulates these emission sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act),” the proposed rule states. “We are taking comments on this proposal and plan to follow with a final action.”
Another proposed rule will provide guidance for FDA staff on “enforcement criteria for canned ackee, frozen ackee, and other ackee products that contain hypoglycin A.” (Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica; unripened or inedible portions can be toxic.)
Some of the proposed regulations revise regulations already on the books.
The website also links to a video of a speech President Barack Obama gave at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 7, 2011, in which the president promised to remove “outdated and unnecessary regulations.”
“I’ve ordered a government-wide review, and if there are rules on the books that are needlessly stifling job creation and economic growth, we will fix them,” the president said.
A number of groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, expect a rush of new regulations now that President Obama has won a second term:
CEI expects the EPA to move ahead on delayed rules on everything from greenhouse gas emissions to ozone standards. “Rules from the health care bill and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill will also likely make themselves known in the weeks to come,” the group said on its website.
CNN runs doctored photo for Hugo Chavez
From his grand election victory…..
This is far form the first time CNN has gotten in trouble. Of course CNN has pulled the picture down after the blogs had a field day with this.
Related:
CNN Reporter Blows Whistle: CNN Telling Reporters Not to Report on Massacres By Governments Paying for “Sponsored Content” (video)
CNN Fires Entire Jewish Staff Of Israel Bureau….
How CNN reports on violent leftist protestors vs reporting of the Tea Party protestors
CNN shows brazen contempt towards Tea Party protestors
CNN publishing misleading headlines and spin to protect Obama over the massive job losses
How Does CNN Define a “Moderate Democrat”
CNN Correspondent Now the Communist Candidate in El Salvador
CNN Debates: Unbiased and Undecided Voters Turn Out to be Democrat Operatives
Lawsuit Alleges “Corruption and Negligence” at Department of Energy
More about “Green Corruption” and kickbacks. Welcome to energy policy, Chicago style.
Via Heritage:
A lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday alleges mass favoritism in the Department of Energy’s decisions to award federal grants to major car companies to develop electric vehicles, according to a legal complaint obtained by Scribe.
The plaintiff, San Francisco-based XP Technology, says in a complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that “corruption and negligence” pervaded DOE’s decision to award loan guarantees to Ford, Nissan, Tesla Motors, and Fisker Automotive for the development of electric vehicle technology.
“Investigations have shown that DOE officials intentionally stalled numerous applicants’ reviews in order to force them out of business and protect favored players,” the complaint claims. It adds:
XP has received information demonstrating that the unprecedented number of failures in the DOE program relative to what DOE officials have claimed to be “the most expensive and extensive due diligence in history” is explained by manipulated reviews, in the due diligence effort, on behalf of what the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigations found to be “favoritism” in published investigation reports. A senate ethics investigation states, in published reports, that “negligence and mismanagement by DOE officials” was a regular occurrence.
XP, which applied for federal backing under the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, “is seeking to have applicants who were “targeted” receive fair re-reviews, in a transparent manner, if they so desire.”
In addition to an unfair selection process, XP alleges that DOE retaliated against the company for reporting evidence of negligence and corruption incorporated into the various investigations into the ATVM program.
After XP staff first reported the incidents, becoming “whistle-blowers”, by reporting the evidence to GAO, Justice Department, The White House Press Office and The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, among others, they received threats and personal attacks. Over time, the volume of third party investigations, which have validated the charges of questionable acts by DOE staff have become voluminous.
Read the full complaint HERE.
Obama Pushes UN Gun Registration Scheme Hours After Election
Of course, criminals do not register guns. Canada has admitted that their gun registration program has been a waste of time and money as it was not helpful in deterring crime so the laws are being changed.
Via Gun Owners of America:
That didn’t take too long. Within hours of securing his second term as President, Obama moved forward to support renewing the debate over the UN Arms Trade Treaty. By “renew debate” i mean that the only reason it had stalled in the first place was because Obama didn’t want to back it during an election year and now that the little hurdle of being re-elected has been cleared he doesn’t have to hedge his gun grabbing bets any more.
An official at the US mission says all the right things to the press:
“We will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of our citizens to bear arms.”
Now, they can say that but it doesn’t make it true. The Arms Act as it stands does the following:
“The most recent draft treaty includes export/import controls that would require officials in an importing country to collect information on the ‘end user’ of a firearm, keep the information for 20 years, and provide the information to the country from which the gun was exported. In other words, if you bought a Beretta shotgun, you would be an ‘end user’ and the U.S. government would have to keep a record of you and notify the Italian government about your purchase. That is gun registration. If the U.S. refuses to implement this data collection on law-abiding American gun owners, other nations might be required to ban the export of firearms to the U.S.”
In short this is a gun registration that wouldn’t have to pass into law by both houses of Congress but is implemented by treaty. A treaty that, while it would need a 2/3 majority in the Senate, could be accomplished by misdirection and out right lies to the people, who in turn could pressure enough on the fence Senators to foolishly vote for this treaty.
This act also allows for a foreign body, the United Nations, to control and dictate how US firearm manufacturers operate and as such runs the risk of crippling if not outright eliminating the industry in its entirety.
If there is no company to make new guns for private citizens then eventually citizens will run out of guns to buy. Another end around to eroding the Second Amendment.
In short, America would lose its own sovereignty with regards to how it handles its industry and civil rights.
When Barack Obama talks about “under the radar” THIS IS WHAT HE MEANS!
A number of people have kept telling me how good Obama was on the Second Amendment. How we have National Park Carry now. They ignored me when I told them that he had to sign it since it was an add on to a bill he needed to sign for his own credibility (Credit Card reform). But now we see, and unfortunately we will continue to see for the next four years just how wrong you were.
The curtain has been pulled back and Obama has no fear of treading softly for re-election. The attack began even before all the votes were counted.
Reminder: This is how far Obama will go to Politicize National Security (video)
Christians, veterans, church goers, and people who are pro-life are dangerous militants according to Obama’s Department of Homeland Security. Radicalized Muslims are not even mentioned.
Teachers flock to Northwestern University “Marxism Conference”
UPDATE – Former KGB Agent Yuri Bezmonov on how the KGB targeted public education:
Most parents have no idea how well marxists, communists and similar far left radicals have infiltrated our public education system. We have been covering this story for a long time and we encourage readers to go through our coverage and see for yourself.
This is coverage that you will never see in the elite media, which is ironic because the marxism conference is held at NWU’s school of journalism.
Related: Campaign donations from university employees went overwhelmingly to Obama
This Saturday, the Midwest Marxist Conference was held at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The event was teeming with teachers who spoke about the new found bond between the radical socialists and their Teachers Union. The all-day event, which collected money to support Chicago Socialists and featured a communist bookstore, provided students on-campus along with the radical left community to plan the next phase in their activism.
Becca Barnes, a Chicago Teachers Union teacher and organizer with Chicago Socialists, proclaimed at the beginning of the conference that “the struggle here in the United States has entered a new phase. Nowhere have we pointed the way forward more clearly than here in Chicago with the teachers union strike.”
After the opening plenary, breakout sessions addressed more specific topics like the history of the Democratic party, education, and case studies in Russia. In these sessions, speakers continued to celebrate the use of education as a mechanism to insert Marxism into public institutions. In one session, the idea of targeting their message to students, even over “the working class,” was debated.
One teacher, who spoke in an afternoon session, described his tactics to overcome the problem of teachers’ unwillingness to take part in the strike, while Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey underscored Barnes’s earlier point when he spoke about the “struggle” of Chicago teachers and the need for additional support from other revolutionary movements. Through a renewed focus on the “strike weapon,” Socialist organizers remarked that they felt their movement had rediscovered its vigor—and the path forward ought to include “mass strikes,” they said.
Eric Ruder of the ISO spoke about the Socialists’ partnership with the Chicago Teachers Union during “The Meaning of Marxism” breakout session:
There are big moments in the sort of chain of historical development that we have to be able to intervene… And in order to that, you need an organization. That’s really the sort of thing you saw in the Chicago teachers strike. In a situation where there was a huge struggle, our organization threw itself in the middle of that and had a demonstrable impact on it.
Because we’ve been rooted, experienced activists who worked together in a collaborative way to try to build up that influence over the long haul… I think when you get in revolutionary moment where your ability to quickly assess what’s happening and make strategic and tactical shifts on the fly, that is essential.
Working class revolutions have never succeeded without the existence of a revolutionary party that’s capable of making those sorts of decisions and providing that kind of leadership. And that’s what we’re asking you, the members of this group, to join and help in that process. We need you to be able to have enough size and influence to matter, but you need us to be able to be part of a force that could intervene in that sort of chain in historical development.
The reporter who covered the event had this to say about the treatment he received while trying to cover the event:
After attending the all-day event, which began at 11 a.m., I was singled out as “not in solidarity” by International Socialist Organization (ISO) organizer Dennis Kosuth around 4 p.m, and removed from the premises for “not being a Communist.”
Despite registering for the event, the group of socialists that removed me, including pre-school teacher Kirstin Roberts, social worker Alison McKenna, printer Eric Kerl, Socialist organizer Shaun Harkin, and others. They surrounded me at the edge of a staircase, proceeded to push their way closer to me to force me down the stairs, and hurled insults at me as I attempted to find a way to leave safely. Even after leaving the conference, the group continued to bully me, with one larger man saying under his breath that “you know what would happen at Teamsters meeting” inferring a more violent solution to my presence:
Obamacare to Increase Individual Insurance Premiums by 55-85% in Ohio
I am in Indiana and my premiums just went up by a factor of 12 – Editor
Individual-market premiums to increase by as much as 85 percent
In August of 2011, the Ohio Department of Insurance retained Milliman, the prestigious actuarial consulting firm, to estimate the impact of Obamacare on the private insurance market. Milliman’s 159-page report makes clear that Obamacare’s blizzard of insurance mandates and regulations will dramatically increase the cost of individually-purchased insurance.
By 2017, write the Milliman researchers, “individual health insurance market premiums are estimated to increase by 55% to 85% above current market average rates (excluding the impact of medical inflation).” Because Obamacare forces insurers to cover a buffet of benefits that they don’t have to today, the cost of insurance will go up. Another driver of higher premiums is the fact that insurers will have to cover everyone, regardless of previous health status, a change that will attract sicker enrollees at the expense of healthier ones.
Some Obamacare defenders try to argue that these cost increases don’t matter, because a slice of the low-income population will benefit from the law’s subsidies. But if you’re not eligible for subsidies, or only partially eligible, you will be exposed to the law’s dramatic increases in the cost of insurance. And remember that Obamacare has an individual mandate, which will force most Americans to absorb these higher costs.
Obamacare to cut Medicare by $10,763 per Ohio retiree
Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion between 2013 and 2022 in order to pay for part of the law’s $1.9 trillion in new health-care spending for younger people over the same time frame. My co-blogger Robert Book and Michael Ramlet have published a paper for the University of Minnesota showing that Ohio’s share of those Medicare cuts is $21.2 billion dollars. This year, Ohio has 1,971,260 Medicare enrollees, which means that these cuts amount to $10,763 for every senior in Ohio.
Robert Book published another paper, this time with former White House budget official James Capretta, detailing Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare Advantage on a state-by-state basis. Robert and Jim found that, in 2017, Obamacare will cut $3,390 in Medicare Advantage services for every Ohioan enrolled in the program: a 26 percent cut. And 36 percent of Ohioan seniors—709,313—are enrolled in Medicare Advantage.
Survey: 24 percent of Ohio doctors will stop accepting Medicare patients
Last month, the Physicians Foundation published one of the largest physician surveys ever conducted in the United States, with 13,575 respondents. They asked physicians a broad range of questions, including several about their views on Obamacare. 62 percent of Ohio physicians said that the Affordable Care Act made them “less positive about the direction and future of healthcare in America.” Only 16 percent said it made them feel more positive.
If Medicare fees decrease by ten percent or more—as the Affordable Care Act will require—30 percent of Ohio doctors say that they will place “new or additional limits” on accepting Medicare patients. 24 percent say they’ll stop accepting Medicare patients altogether.
The survey also has bad news for Ohioans on other forms of insurance. 22 percent of Ohio physicians say that they’ll place new or additional limits on Medicaid patients as a result of the Medicare cuts; 22 percent also say they plan to raise fees on those with private insurance in order to compensate for the cuts.
Obamacare’s tax increases
Finally, it’s worth touching on Obamacare’s tax increases. From 2013-2022, Obamacare increases taxes by $1.2 trillion, which amounts to $15,796 for the average family of four. Ohio’s share of those taxes is approximately $46 billion.
Obamacare’s defenders will claim that many of Obamacare’s taxes fall on corporations and upper-income individuals. But these taxes will get passed down to every American. For example, the law applies an excise tax to health insurance premiums, which insurers will be forced to pass down to individuals in the form of higher premiums. Analysts estimate that this tax could increase premiums by as much as 3 percent, amounting to around $500 for the average Ohio family in 2014.
Other state-specific analyses of Obamacare
This is the first in a series of posts I have published on the effect of Obamacare on individual states. The complete series includes Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire, Nevada, Minnesota, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
Patrick Paule, an insurance broker in Ohio, says that the huge spike in costs for young people will force many employers to drop coverage or pass on premiums for those making more than $21,000:
Avik, As a broker in Ohio who has read the entire 159 page Milliman report I would add that the bigger issue is in the small employer (2-50 employees) group market where premiums are expected to increase by 150% for younger and healthier groups yet could also have a decrease of 40% for older and unhealthy groups. It is important to note group policy premiums will have significant variability for adjusted community rating.
Smaller employers will observe the greatest impacts since they are more likely to be at one extreme or the other of the total current premium range because of health status tier, age band, and gender.
Why is this most important? Because in Northwest Ohio the average small employer pays 80% of the premiums for single coverage and 65% for family coverage. According the the Kaiser Family Foundation Health Reform Subsidy Calculator, for a single person to get 80% of his/her premiums covered by a subsidy under Obamacare, one’s income would have to be less than $21,000 per year. Our average wages are above that figure.
Simply put, if costs rise for an employer they will do one of two things. Either increase the employees share of premiums or drop their plan. Simple conclusion, if you are employed and making over $21,000 per year plan on seeing your insurance costs increase.
Obama’s IRS targeting small business, less focus on mega-corps
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recoups $702 in taxes for every hour it spends auditing small businesses, versus $9,173 an hour for auditing large corporations. But under Barack Obama, audits of small and medium-sized businesses have skyrocketed.
So says Peter Schweizer, President of the Government Accountability Institute:
According to IRS statistics, from 2009 to 2011, the coverage rate (number of audits as a percentage of total returns filed) for corporations with assets between $10 million and $50 million has increased 32 percent. The coverage rate for corporations with assets between $50 million and $100 million has increased at the same rate. Some businesspeople file individual returns, and those with incomes higher than $1 million have experience a 94 percent increase in their coverage rate, and a 29 percent increase in the actual number of exams since 2009. Those with incomes $200,000 and higher have seen a 36 percent increase in their coverage rate.
We are not surprised. As we have reported many times before the leadership of the Democratic Party has no interest in taxing the mega-corporations and super rich, rather they are targeting small to medium sized domestic businesses and upper middle class wage earners.
Political Arena:
Democrats want to tax the rich?
This is perhaps the biggest false narrative of all. The Democratic Party leadership has never been interested in taxing the very rich. They have been “taxing the rich” for 50 years. Is it just a coincidence that they just happened to keep missing the target? President Obama gave the speech at Google, which paid 2.4% federal tax on 3.1 billion in income. In that speech he trashed the Chamber of Commerce for fighting against raising the tax on most small businesses which actually employ people from 35.5% to 39.9% . In the 2008 elections President Obama railed against Wall Street, but not only did he take more money from Wall Street and “the big banks” and such, but as if to add insult, their executives became the who’s who of those running his administration (LINK – LINK). Keep in mind that CNN once said Obama attacks private equity at 6am and is fundraising with private equity at 6pm. Wall Street and the big banks made more under three years of Obama than they did under eight years of Bush. His Treasury Secretary says that taxes on small businesses must rise so that government doesn’t shrink, and Obama’s new health care taxes target you, not just the rich. All of the stimulus and spending and so forth all in the name of the poor sounded nice, but look who got rich. Odds are that people who buy into the false narrative know none of this.
Canadian health care rationing ‘a crisis for Quebec women’
MONTREAL — Surgery wait times for deadly ovarian, cervical and breast cancers in Quebec are three times longer than government benchmarks, leading some desperate patients to shop around for an operating room.
But that’s a waste of time, doctors say, since the problem is spread across Quebec hospitals. And doctors are refusing to accept new patients quickly because they can’t treat them, health advocates say.
A leading Montreal gynecologist said that these days, she cannot look her patients in the eye because the wait times are so shocking. Lack of resources, including nursing staff and budget compressions, are driving a backlog of surgeries while operating rooms stand empty. The latest figures from the provincial government show that over a span of nearly 11 months, 7,780 patients in the Montreal area waited six months or longer for day surgeries, while another 2,957 waited for six months or longer for operations that required hospitalization.
The worst cases are gynecological cancers, experts say, because usually such a cancer has already spread by the time it is detected. Instead of four weeks from diagnosis to surgery, patients are waiting as long as three months to have cancerous growths removed.
“It’s a crisis for Quebec women,” said Lucy Gilbert, director of gynecological oncology and the gynecologic cancer multi-disciplinary team at the McGill University Health Centre. Her team has had access to operating rooms only two days a week for the past year, with dozens of patients having surgeries postponed week after week.
Patients are prioritized according to need, Gilbert said, but surgical delays are still too long.
Gilbert says there are days she can’t face going into work at the Royal Victoria Hospital, a renowned cancer centre in gynecology, and dealing with crying patients. “Put yourself in their place. … I have difficulty making eye contact with patients. I am ashamed to be in such a situation.
“People are suffering. People are waiting too long,” Gilbert said. “This should not happen. No matter how good your surgery is, no matter how good your chemotherapy is, if you delay the surgery there could be a problem. The cancer grows. The cancer spreads.”
One worried patient, a mother of five children who waited three months for surgery for invasive breast cancer, said she is worried about the effects of such a long wait. After surgery, she paid $800 for a bone scan in a private clinic rather than wait five months for a scan at the Jewish General Hospital.
“They needed the scan to see what kind of treatment to give me,” said the woman, 40, who asked that her name not be published because she is starting chemotherapy this week. “The doctors are amazing but health system is not working.”
How important is cultural diversity at your school? (video)
What did you learn from this? After some time I will post what I learned – Editor
Promise from the debate broken already: Obama Shuts Down 1.6M Acres to Oil Shale Development
So much for the “all of the above” policy….
Via Breitbart News and The Hill:
Just two days after President Obama’s re-election, the Obama Interior Department announced a plan to shut down 1.6 million acres of federal land to oil shale development. The land had originally been slated for drilling under President George W. Bush.
“By significantly reducing the acreage of wilderness potentially available for leasing, Secretary Salazar is laying out a creative, thoughtful and more responsible approach in managing some of our most precious resources,” said Bobby McEnaney, senior lands analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
From the debate October 16th, 2012:
OBAMA: That’s the strategy you need, an all-of-the-above strategy, and that’s what we’re going to do in the next four years.
ROMNEY: But that’s not what you’ve done in the last four years. That’s the problem. In the last four years, you cut permits and licenses on federal land and federal waters in half.
OBAMA: Not true, Governor Romney.
ROMNEY: So how much did you cut (inaudible)?
OBAMA: Not true.
Judge Judy: I am sending this tape to Congress (video)
I don’t have the words. Just watch.
Vote Scam by Ken Collier
This book is about vote fraud in Florida.
http://www.amazon.com/Votescam-Stealing-James-M-Collier/dp/0963416308
Lewis: The Death of Ordinary Decency
This has been a mean-spirited campaign, and the meanest, most destructive people won.
So be it.
In the last two Democratic administrations we have seen a sleazier, angrier and more selfish part of America rising up more and more in our political class. The Founders told us that ultimately our elected politicians are a mirror of ourselves. Just like you, before November 7, 2012, I lived in the fervent hope that the degradation of the Clinton and Obama years might be an exception to the long trend of American history. But two times eight years of radical leftists in high office can’t be an accident. We can’t just blame our sleazy media, or just the leftist political class, as corrupt and malevolent as they truly are.
No — the balance of decency in America has changed. Every society has normal, decent people and the other kind. The America we grew up in was fundamentally decent. Decency was the expected standard.
Now the balance has changed.
The evidence for our sleazified culture can be seen all around. It is in our pop music, which has lost melody and now just has rhythm. We have a President who won on revenge against middle class values. That’s what he meant by telling his people to vote for revenge. And they did — showing us exactly who they are.
We are now a society divided between the makers and the takers, and the takers are on a campaign of theft and revenge.
We have a President who takes dangerous pride in his hatred for “middleclassness” as Jeremiah Wright taught him to believe. We have a President who culminated his campaign with a ghetto singer rapping about hoes and bitches, about drug-ridden and broken families, as if all those cruelties were good.
This is not normal, decent America.
It is not.
We need to face that.
Morality and values are not small things. The new tide in the affairs of America also means that we can no longer be trusted to defend civilized values around the world, as we have done for the last hundred years.
It’s a sea change. Fools around the world will applaud Obama as a savior, but wise people will see us crumbling. They know they will be the worse for it.
Today the world is far more dangerous place than four years ago. If you doubt that, keep an eye on the rise of barbarisms around the world. Obama constantly facilitates barbarism, and the barbarians understand that much better than decent people do.
History buffs will remember that we’ve had decades of sleaze before. The Founders were followed by Jacksonian corruption. Abraham Lincoln was followed by Reconstruction. Yet we somehow found our way back. Come-backs can happen, but probably not soon.
So this is an elegiac moment, a moment of mourning for what has passed. From Truman and Eisenhower to Bush 43 we have had leaders of character.
No longer.
Republicans by and large still look, act, and speak like normal, decent people. But they have a hard time even understanding a thoroughly sleazified America. Normal, decent people do not know how to live in this new, barbaric society. We live in protected communities, we drive around in SUVs, like armored cars.
The left knows exactly how to act in this Brave New World. They’ve made it. We are now ruled by sleazy demagogues who take bribes from foreign nations that do not wish us well. Obama is the worst example so far. Even the Clintons, both selfish narcissists, were somewhat better.
With the decline of American decency, the civilized world has lost its foremost defender. America wasn’t a world power in earlier times of corruption. We could afford to make mistakes. Today, our national decay endangers the world. The left has purposely attacked our self-respect, our pride in our morality and decency, and our crucial role in the defense of civilized values. We are no longer the Leader of the Free World, because we have lost — for now — the values that guided us. America can no longer be trusted, as we saw so clearly in Benghazi and the fraudulent Arab Spring. Any nation that places any trust in our promises today is run by fools. Our allies must arm up to protect themselves, or they must find new, trustworthy allies.
For sixty years Europe has lived off our willingness to come to its defense. The southern rim of Europe is now going bankrupt, and even France looks ready to crumble. Without our leadership Europe has to rely on itself, or on Russia, or on the spreading Muslim empires. But Europe has shown no capacity to defend itself. Maybe they will learn. Or maybe they will be swamped. We can no longer be trusted.
Read more HERE.
72% of Obama job creation in conservative “Right to Work” states
Via Breitbart News:
From June 2009 to September 2012, America gained some 2.59 million jobs. That weak recovery was the basis for the Obama re-election campaign. But as it turns out, virtually all of that job creation happened in states that are right-to-work – states in which no industry can force people to join a union in order to work. There are 22 right-to-work states. During that period, those states saw an increase in employment of 1.86 million. That means, according to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, that “Right to Work states … were responsible for 72% of all net household job growth across the US from June 2009 through September 2012.”
That 72% statistic is all the more stunning when you realize that according to 2010 census numbers, the right-to-work states included in this calculation — which does not include Indiana, since it just went right-to-work — represent just under 40% of the population of the country. Right-to-work states disproportionately create jobs.
President Obama has been a violent opponent of right to work laws. He sees them as an attempt to quash his union buddies – which, of course, is right, since the unions bankrupt states (see Illinois, California). But Obama won re-election on the backs of those who rejected his policies.
Democrat House Leader Pelosi holds secret fundraiser with Islamist terror linked groups
Pelosi holds secret fundraiser with Islamists, Hamas-linked groups
The Daily Caller:
Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi headlined a high-dollar fundraiser in May that was attended by U.S.-based Islamist groups and individuals linked by the U.S. government to the Hamas jihad group and to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood movement.
The donors at the undisclosed May 16 event included Nihad Awad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, according to data provided by the nonpartisan Investigative Project on Terrorism.
The CAIR group was named an unindicted conspirator in a 2007 trial of a Hamas money-smuggling group.
A covertly-taken photograph provided by the IPT shows Pelosi standing near Awad at the fundraiser. Roughly 30 people attended the fundraiser, according to the IPT.
The cheapest tickets cost $5,000, and the most expensive were $30,800 per couple, according to the event invite from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which used the cash to fund Democratic candidates. (View the invite here)
The hosts of the event were DCCC chairman Rep. Steve Israel and two Muslim representatives, Rep. Keith Ellison and Rep. Andre Carson.
Ellison is the DCCC’s “national community outreach chair” and the co-chair of the House progressive caucus.
On Oct. 29, The Daily Caller asked Ellison’s press aide if the congressman would decline donations from Islamist groups. The aide replied that Ellison was not available to comment.
Political Arena 