Tag Archives: politics

2012 Primary, China, Communications Theory, Jobs, Obama, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points

Obama invested heavily with outsourcers, after accusing Romney of doing the same…

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See our other coverage on General Electric, Obama and Outsourcing. Also see – Obama’s Top Money Man Was In Charge of Bain Capital During GST Steel Layoffs – LINK.

Here we have an outstanding piece of journalism from Phil Klein at the Washington Examiner:

President Obama has accused Mitt Romney of raking in profits from investing in companies that ship American jobs overseas, but according to his most recent financial disclosure, he and First Lady Michelle Obama have hundreds of thousands of dollars in a mutual fund that has large holdings in corporations that outsource jobs.

“(Romney) invested in companies that have been called ‘pioneers’ of outsourcing,” Obama said at a Saturday campaign event in Glen Allen, Va. “I don’t want a pioneer in outsourcing. I want some insourcing.”

But Obama’s own portfolio shows a willingness to invest in American corporations that have shifted employment overseas.

In his most recent financial disclosure from 2011, Obama and his wife reported having between $200,000 and $450,000 in the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which invests in the largest U.S. corporations. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as of Sept. 30, 2011, the fund’s biggest holding was 8,272,039 shares of Apple Inc., then valued at $3.2 billion.

The New York Times reported in January:

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas….

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

The mutual fund that the Obamas have invested in also held 94,582,281 million shares of General Electric, valued at $1.4 billion, as of the SEC filing. The multinational conglomorate has a long history of outsourcing – according to a new book  cited by the New York Times, in 1989, “G.E. became the first U.S. company to outsource software work to India.” Obama also has close ties to GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, who was appointed as chairman of his outside panel of economic advisers last year.

In addition to Apple and GE, the Obamas’ fund listed 10,655,961 shares of International Business Machines, valued at $1.9 billion. As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2009, “The technology giant has been steadily building its work force in India and other locations while reducing the number of workers based in the U.S. Foreign workers accounted for 71% of Big Blue’s nearly 400,000 employees at the start of the year, up from about 65% in 2006.”

The point in this is not to say outsourcing is wrong. Corporations are supposed to maximize profits for shareholders. But Obama’s own portfolio shows that despite his heated rhetoric, he makes investment decisions without regard to whether companies are outsourcing.

You can look at a full list of the fund’s holdings as of Sept. 30, 2011, here.

2012 Primary, Budget, Dirty Tricks, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

CIS: 57% of illegal immigrant households on welfare…

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Lets see there are about 20 million illegal aliens…..

Center for Immigration Studies:

Among the findings:

In 2009 (based on data collected in 2010), 57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.

Immigrant households’ use of welfare tends to be much higher than natives for food assistance programs and Medicaid. Their use of cash and housing programs tends to be similar to native households.

A large share of the welfare used by immigrant households with children is received on behalf of their U.S.-born children, who are American citizens. But even households with children comprised entirely of immigrants (no U.S.-born children) still had a welfare use rate of 56 percent in 2009.

Immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently higher rates than natives, even before the current recession. In 2001, 50 percent of all immigrant households with children used at least one welfare program, compared to 32 percent for natives.

Households with children with the highest welfare use rates are those headed by immigrants from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent), and Ecuador (70 percent). Those with the lowest use rates are from the United Kingdom (7 percent), India (19 percent), Canada (23 percent), and Korea (25 percent).

The states where immigrant households with children have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62 percent); Texas, California, and New York (61 percent); Pennsylvania (59 percent); Minnesota and Oregon (56 percent); and Colorado (55 percent).

We estimate that 52 percent of households with children headed by legal immigrants used at least one welfare program in 2009, compared to 71 percent for illegal immigrant households with children. Illegal immigrants generally receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children.

Illegal immigrant households with children primarily use food assistance and Medicaid, making almost no use of cash or housing assistance. In contrast, legal immigrant households tend to have relatively high use rates for every type of program.

High welfare use by immigrant-headed households with children is partly explained by the low education level of many immigrants. Of households headed by an immigrant who has not graduated high school, 80 percent access the welfare system, compared to 25 percent for those headed by an immigrant who has at least a bachelor’s degree.

An unwillingness to work is not the reason immigrant welfare use is high. The vast majority (95 percent) of immigrant households with children had at least one worker in 2009. But their low education levels mean that more than half of these working immigrant households with children still accessed the welfare system during 2009.

If we exclude the primary refugee-sending countries, the share of immigrant households with children using at least one welfare program is still 57 percent.

Welfare use tends to be high for both new arrivals and established residents. In 2009, 60 percent of households with children headed by an immigrant who arrived in 2000 or later used at least one welfare program; for households headed by immigrants who arrived before 2000 it was 55 percent.

For all households (those with and without children), the use rates were 37 percent for households headed by immigrants and 22 percent for those headed by natives.

Although most new legal immigrants are barred from using some welfare for the first five years, this provision has only a modest impact on household use rates because most immigrants have been in the United States for longer than five years; the ban only applies to some programs; some states provide welfare to new immigrants with their own money; by becoming citizens immigrants become eligible for all welfare programs; and perhaps most importantly, the U.S.-born children of immigrants (including those born to illegal immigrants) are automatically awarded American citizenship and are therefore eligible for all welfare programs at birth.

The eight major welfare programs examined in this report are SSI (Supplemental Security Income for low income elderly and disabled), TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), WIC (Women, Infants, and Children food program), free/reduced school lunch, food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), Medicaid (health insurance for those with low incomes), public housing, and rent subsidies.

Judicial Watch is also reporting this.

2012 Primary, Communications Theory, Culture War

12 TOP REASONS WHY ALL USEFUL IDIOTS VOTED DEMOCRAT

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12 TOP REASONS WHY ALL USEFUL IDIOTS VOTED DEMOCRAT

1. I voted Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my German Shepherd.

2. I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

3. I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

4. I voted Democrat because Freedom of Speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

5. I voted Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

6. I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

7. I voted Democrat because I’m not concerned about millions of babies being aborted so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

8. I voted Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits, and we should take away the social security from those who paid into it.

9. I voted Democrat because I believe that businesses should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the Democrats see fit.

10. I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

11. I voted Democrat because I think that it’s better to pay billions for their oil to people who hate us, but not drill our own because it might upset some endangered beetle, gopher or fish.

12. I voted Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my a** it’s unlikely that I’ll ever have another point of view.

Thank you: Andrea Plescia

2012 Primary, Civility, Dirty Tricks, Mitt Romney, Obama, True Talking Points, Unhinged

Pelosi trashes Romney for offshore investments; has offshore investments of her own!

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Nancy Pelosi
House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi

Of course there is nothing wrong with investing in businesses and other ventures in other countries. The whole idea is to demonize Mitt Romney because he is wealthy. The Kennedy’s, Feinstien’s and Kerry’s are loaded too, but they are Democrats so we don’t talk about that…..

Godfather Politics and the Daily Caller:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who has also been actively criticizing Romney’s business dealings has herself made millions from foreign investments.  For instance, her 2011 financial disclosures listed an income up to $5 million from an international capital group that specializes in Asian investments.

Even more hypocritical of Pelosi is the fact that she invested in Moduslink Global which just so happens to be one of the outsourcing companies linked to Bain Capital and Mitt Romney.  Oh, Nancy, can we say pot calling the kettle black?

The DC:

On the heels of The Weekly Standard’s report yesterday that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz — a vocal critic of Mitt Romney‘s investing practices, had herself dabbled in the foreign markets — we can add Nancy Pelosi to the list of prominent Democrats to profit from overseas investments.

According to Pelosi’s 2011 financial disclosure statement, the Democratic House Minority Leader received between $1 million and $5 million in partnership income from ”Matthews International Capital Management LLC,” a group that emphasizes that it has a “A Singular Focus on Investing in Asia.” A quick trip to the company website reveals a featured post extolling the virtues of outsourcing.

“Designed in California, Made in Manila” sounds like an excellent title for a smear ad to be run the by the Barack Obama campaign. Instead, it appears to be Nancy Pelosi’s investment strategy.

Pelosi is also a small investor in the embattled “Moduslink Global,” one of the “outsourcing pioneers” that Mitt Romney has been criticized for associating with while at Bain Capital.

2012 Primary, Dirty Tricks, Econ, Health Law, Obama, True Talking Points

ObamaCare promises access to “coverage” for those with existing conditions, but over time limits health care access…

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And the cost of that coverage will go up exponentially even in the first decade after full implementation, so ObamaCare leaves you with not just limited access and even bureaucrats who can deny you access to healthcare, but over time it prices the coverage itself out of reach, so all you are left with is paying the penalty tax (which is one of the primary goals of ObamaCare to begin with).

Read every last word….

Dr. Susan Berry:

The truth is that, while a definite problem has prevailed for those with pre-existing medical conditions who have attempted to obtain health insurance coverage, that problem is small and manageable and can be adequately addressed with common-sense free market solutions. Most people, regardless of political ideology, want all Americans to be able to purchase health insurance coverage and gain access to care. The difference is not in the desire but in the policies that will get the job done. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have been successful in this endeavor to date.

With ObamaTax, the left has chosen a big government policy that will offer a very brief period of health care access to individuals with pre-existing conditions, followed by little or no access to care as Americans cope with long lines to see doctors. They will soon face an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a group of unelected government bureaucrats, who, as their name says, will be more concerned with payment than health care.

The “pre-existing condition” feature of ObamaTax is, indeed, a hoax, because it assumes that, once the law is fully implemented, those with pre-existing conditions will still be able to schedule an appointment with their doctors and specialists within a reasonable period of time. The law assumes this despite the fact that, at full implementation, all the currently uninsured will be added to the rolls as patients to the health care system.

Consider that a recent survey, released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association, found that 83% of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Obama’s health care reform law, and 72% say the individual insurance mandate will not result in improved access to care. In addition, 74% of the physicians surveyed say they will stop accepting Medicare patients or leave Medicare panels completely, while 49% indicate they will stop accepting Medicaid patients.

What this means is that the number of doctors available–the supply of physicians–will likely decrease as the demand for services increases. Sure, you might be able to see a nurse practitioner for a cold or cough, but the wait to see a specialist for those “pre-existing conditions” will seem like an eternity.

In addition, those with serious pre-existing conditions who require a substantial amount of medical care will need to keep in mind that, once the IPAB is activated, their ability to obtain the access to care they need will be determined by this board of government bureaucrats. To be blunt, the IPAB will decide if it’s worth it for funds to be spent on care for someone who requires much of it yet may never get well, as opposed to someone who is likely to recover and be “useful to society.”

Let’s look at the situation of parents who have a child with special needs. Though supporters of ObamaTax will say that a child with a pre-existing condition is automatically entitled to health insurance coverage, the fact is that, when the law is fully implemented, limitations will be imposed on Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Since the demand for the services of specialists will increase dramatically, gaining access to the supply of care needed will grow difficult.

Academic Misconduct, Culture War, Education, School Indoctrination, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points

Book: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture and Ushered In the Obamacrats

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Washington Free Beacon:

Prolific author David Gelernter has covered subjects ranging from technology to Judaism, but America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered In the Obamacrats) is his first unabashedly political book.

Gelernter opposes Barack Obama primarily because Obama is one of the “Airheads” produced by the U.S. educational system.

“Obama is an Airhead and no ordinary ideologue,” writes Gelernter in America-Lite, “but he is certainly a left-liberal; he repeats the doctrine he learned from left-liberal intellectuals.”

Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale, said his teaching experience has contributed enormously to his pessimistic assessment of American culture. “Every year I see a new class of smart kids, motivated kids, who are just ignorant,” said Gelernter.

“We educators have a responsibility,” said Gelernter, “and we’re failing.”

America-Lite shows “how we lost control of our own culture,” and how the “sullen, seething contempt for Western culture” that characterizes many educators is producing generations of ignorant citizens (dubbed “Airheads” by Gelernter) who accept liberal ideology because it is all they’ve ever known.

Gelernter called out conservatives, saying Republicans are focusing on secondary issues and avoiding the “deeper problems” in American culture.

“Conservatives are letting the country down,” said Gelernter.

From the book description:

America-Lite (where we all live) is just like America, only turned into an amusement park or a video game or a supersized Pinkberry, where the past and future are blank and there is only a big NOW. How did we come to expect no virtue and so much cynicism from our culture, our leaders—and each other?

In this refreshingly judgmental book, David Gelernter connects the historical dots to reveal a stealth revolution carried out by post-religious globalist intellectuals who, by and large, “can’t run their own universities or scholarly fields, but are very sure they can run you.” These imperial academics have deployed their students into the top echelon of professions once monopolized by staid and steady WASPs. In this simple way, they have installed themselves as the new designated drivers of American culture.

Imperial academics live in a world of theory; they preach disdain for mere facts and for old-fashioned fact-based judgments like true or false. Schoolchildren are routinely taught theories about history instead of actual history—they learn, for example, that all nations are equally nice except for America, which is nearly always nasty.

With academic experts to do our thinking for us, we’ve politely shut up and let second-raters take the wheel. In fact, we have handed the keys to the star pupil and teacher’s pet of the post-religious globalist intellectuals, whose election to the presidency of the United States constituted the ultimate global group hug.

How do we finally face the truth and get back into the driver’s seat? America-Lite ends with a one-point plan.

Academic Misconduct, Alarmism, Culture War, Education, School Indoctrination, True Talking Points

Penn State Administrators “forged an agreement to conceal Sandusky’s sexual attacks”. Pattern of Coverup.

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Before we get on to the child abuse scandal, this writer has been paying attention to what has been going on at Penn State for some time. The administration at Penn State has a long history of unethical, radical, and other bad behavior including coverups of other scandals. Here are some examples:

Penn State makes a video painting returning veterans as dumb, mentally unstable, and violent – LINK

Professor at Penn State explains how to teach anti-Israel propaganda to students (video) – LINK

Until the Sandusky Scandal, the most recent internationally covered scandal at Penn State was with their premier climate Scientist Michael Mann. Prof. Mann is one of the infamous “ClimateGate” scientists, who’s own emails revealed that Mann, along with other leftist climate scientists, manipulated data, destroyed data that concerned them, used ridicule and pressure tactics to manipulate the peer review process, etc all in an effort to push global warming alarmism. According to their own emails they had agreed that if ever caught they would destroy much of their raw data, which they did.

Understand that billions of dollars (including billions of your tax dollars) has been spent on the global warming question and as a result Prof. Mann brought in millions for himself and Penn State University. So when the emails were leaked and they were as caught as caught could be, and when other climate scientists started to back away from the claims of Dr. Mann and others at the IPCC, Penn State was pressured to have an investigation of Prof. Mann and their investigation said that Prof. Mann did nothing wrong and totally cleared him, even though the evidence was plain as could be and in the public domain – LINK –  LINK –  LINK.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has cataloged a list of cases of illegal censorship, retaliation, and discrimination at Penn State as long as your desk – LINK.

While such a child abuse scandal may be unusual on our college campuses, the pattern of abuse of power, illegal actions and the effort to cover them up is typical of university administrations and is a huge problem.

CNN:

State College, Pennsylvania (CNN) — The most powerful leaders at Penn State University showed “total and consistent disregard” for child sex abuse victims while covering up the attacks of a longtime sexual predator, according to an internal review into how the school handled a scandal involving its former assistant football coach.

Investigators conducted more than 400 interviews and found that several officials had “empowered” Jerry Sandusky to continue his abuse, while Joe Paterno, the school’s legendary head football coach, could have stopped the attacks had he done more, investigators said Thursday.

Read the report here (PDF)

In a scandal that has shaken Pennsylvania residents and gripped the nation, leading to Paterno’s dismissal and the ouster of longtime president Graham Spanier, Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who led the review, said top university officials forged an agreement to conceal Sandusky’s sexual attacks more than a decade ago.

“There are more red flags here than you can count,” said Freeh, emphasizing the abuse occurred just “steps away” from where Paterno worked in the university’s Lasch Building.

Freeh’s 267-page report is the product of a Penn State-funded investigation, which is separate from a government investigation into charges of perjury and failure to report abuse pinned against the school’s former Athletic Director Tim Curley and ex-Vice President Gary Schultz.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office is investigating what Penn State knew about a 2001 incident of child sex abuse by Sandusky, reported by then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary, and how it was handled.

Neither McQueary, Sandusky nor Paterno — who died in January — were interviewed by Freeh’s team and no trial date has been set for Curley and Schultz, though proceedings are expected to begin later in July.

The prosecution of Curley and Schultz comes on the heels of the widely watched Sandusky trial, in which the former defensive coordinator was convicted of sexually abusing young boys over 15 years.

“Our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders at Penn State,” Freeh wrote. “The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized.”

The Wall Street Journal also covered the Freeh Report on Penn State HERE.

2012 Primary, Econ, Health Law, Lies, Obama, True Talking Points

Broken Promises in Obamacare. More New Taxes.

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Via the Heritage Foundation:

Yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) almost called Obamacare’s individual mandate a tax, stopping mid-word to call it a “penalty”. White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and other spokespersons echoed this talking point. This is in spite of last week’s Supreme Court ruling that deemed the mandate unconstitutional under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause, but ruled that it could stand as part of Congress’s authority to “lay and collect taxes.”

Dubbing the individual mandate a tax saved the President’s health care law, but it’s a concept that President Obama himself has strongly denied. In a 2009 interview, President Obama argued that his individual mandate was not a tax increase, stating, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

But after last week, President Obama must now admit it’s a tax or admit the mandate is unconstitutional. It’s can only be one or the other.

The mandate is in fact a tax, and it’s just one of many new taxes that hit the middle class in Obamacare. Lo and behold, another broken promise. President Obama claims that the mandate is holding people responsible, keeping with that spirit, here’s a reminder of the other promises the President and his health care law are responsible for breaking:

Promise #1: “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.”

Reality: The individual mandate is far from alone on Heritage’s lengthy list of Obamacare’s new taxes and penalties, many of which will heavily impact the middle class. Altogether, Obamacare’s taxes and penalties will accumulate an additional $500 billion in new revenue over a 10-year period. Yesterday, a senior economist for The Wall Street Journal revealed that 75 percent of Obamacare’s new taxes will be paid for by American families making under $120,000 a year. Among the taxes that will hit the middle class are the individual mandate, a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices, a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning, and an increase of the floor on medical deductions from 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income to 10 percent.

Promise #2: “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period.”

Reality: Research continues to show that as many as 30 percent of employers will dump their employees from their existing health care coverage. The Administration itself has admitted that “as a practical matter, a majority of group health plans will lose their grandfather status by 2013.”

Promise #3: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future.”

Reality: As Heritage analysts explain, “A close examination of what [the Congressional Budget Office] said, as well as other evidence, makes it clear that the deficit reduction associated with [Obamacare] is based on budget gimmicks, sleights of hand, accounting tricks, and completely implausible assumptions. A more honest accounting reveals the new law as a trillion-dollar budget buster.”

Promise #4: “I will protect Medicare.”

Reality: A Heritage Factsheet shows the various ways Obamacare ends Medicare as we know it, including severe physician reimbursement cuts that threaten seniors’ access to care and putting an unelected board of bureaucrats in charge of meeting Medicare’s new spending cap.

Promise #5: “I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.”

Reality: Obamacare does not accomplish universal coverage; it leaves 26 million Americans without insurance. Moreover, Heritage research outlines 12 ways that Obamacare will increase premiums instead of reducing health care costs. Requirements that plans allow young adults to stay on their parents’ coverage and offer preventive services with no cost sharing are already leading to higher growth in premiums.

When polled, 70 percent of Americans held an unfavorable view of the individual mandate. It’s doubtful that calling it a “tax” will dramatically change their opinion. Now that Obamacare and its broken promises remain the law of the land, it’s up to the American people to see to it that the law is ultimately repealed by Congress. Then, they can move forward with real reform that puts patients’ needs first.

Quick Hits:

2012 Primary, Health Law, Obama, SCOTUS, True Talking Points

27% Less Likely to Vote for Obama After Supreme Court Ruling

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Chief Roberts got his wish, he got involved in the election.

TownHall and Quinnipiac University:

Now that ObamaCare has been upheld as a massive new tax, the Supreme Court decision not the scrap the legislation is bleeding into the political arena in a very big way. According to a new Quinnipiac Poll, 27 percent of voters are now less likely to vote for Obama. Independent voters are in the same boat.

A total of 55 percent of American voters say a presidential candidate’s position on health care is “extremely important” or “very important” to their vote in November, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. While 59 percent say the Supreme Court decision will not affect their vote, 27 percent say it will make them less likely to vote for President Barack Obama, while 12 percent say more likely. Independent voters say less likely 27 – 9 percent. [Meaning 27% of Independents less likely to vote for Obama after the SCOTUS ruling and 9% more likely – Political Arena Editor]

2012 Primary, Culture War, Jihad, Obama, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points

Obama Administration: Murdering 1,000 Christians Is Not Terrorism

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You just can’t make this stuff up folks…

Via Godfather Blog and Jewish World Review:

In the past three years, over 1,000 Christians in Nigeria have been brutally murdered by an extremist Islamic group known as Boko Haram and the United States has refused to classify the group as being a terrorist organization.

Nigeria’s Christian leaders had asked the United States government to place Boko Haram on the list of terrorist organizations.  The radical Islamic group has vowed to eradicate all Christians from Nigerian soil and will continue to murder men, women and children in the process unless something is done to stop them.

Instead of declaring Boko Haram a terrorist organization, the U.S. government only placed three of the group’s leaders on a terrorist blacklist and then said that it was more important to address social inequalities in the country first.  Christian leaders in Nigeria said the actions or perhaps lack of action by the United States has only served to make the group bolder and more aggressive in their pursuit to exterminate the remaining Christians.

Appearing before House Foreign Affairs Committee, Christian Association of Nigeria President Ayo Oritsejafor said the decision was:

“The equivalent of designating (Osama) bin Laden a terrorist but failing to designate Al-Qaeda a terrorist organization.”

“By refusing to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization, the United States is sending a very clear message, not just to the federal government of Nigeria, but to the world that the murder of innocent Christians and Muslims who reject Islamism — and I make a clear distinction here between Islam and Islamism — are acceptable losses.”

“It is hypocritical for the United States and the international community to say that they believe in freedom and equality when their actions do not support those who are being persecuted.”

2012 Primary, Mitt Romney, Obama, True Talking Points

Gov. Sununu: Obama is dumb enough to inject the word “felony” in the discourse when he is from Chicago and surrounded by felons (video)

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Tony Rezco, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn, and Obama was a campaign chairman for Rod Blagoyevich and this is just the surface. Eric Holder with the his illegal gun running to Mexican drug cartels….

…and Mitt Romney is the felon? Gimme a break.

Obama’s list of felonious associations can be found HERE.

2012 Primary, Energy Policy, Obama, Pay to Play, True Talking Points

Political Ad: This is how Obama defines “a fair shot” (video)

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With so many of thee green energy boondoggles it looks like this: Obama gives big taxpayer money to a fund raiser who is an owner in a “green energy company”. Said owners pay themselves in a big way, give big money to Democrats and go out of business – 15th Green Energy Company Funded By Obama Goes Under (video).

Communications Theory, Editorial, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points

An example of how TEA Party people should NOT behave (VIDEO)

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The Congressman is right. Listen to what he said – he said that you have to have a plan to get back to it (constitutional limited government) and you just can’t say “I stand for the Constitution” and expect to win. He never said or implied, to set the Constitution aside like he was accused. Immediately the TEA Party activists took what he said and converted it into something he never came close to saying in the video.

The Congressman is right when he said half the people do not believe in the Constitution – largely because they are clueless to what it says. Just the other day I had to sit down and talk with a 59 year old women who was furious and decided that she would never vote again. Why? Because she had just heard about the Electoral College and so she thought that no ones vote counted any more.

I LOVE TEA Party people, but the kind of knee jerk over reaction to what he said, without actually LISTENING to what he said, is the kind of stupidity that will render them irrelevant. No one wants to talk to you when talking to you is like talking to a Klingon. Knee-jerk over reaction rampage is not how to win people to your side.

With that said there is a lot of truth to what the TEA Party activist at the end said about the erosion of the Bill of Rights.

No one is going to win an election by campaigning on going back to 1787 overnight. Campaigning on going back to 1787 is not electorally possible when half the people are more familiar with Justin Bieber’s love life than they are with Separation of Powers.

Much like the abortion battle, we are winning more and more people to the pro-life cause and there are fewer and fewer abortions because we are educating people and winning hearts and minds. This is why pro-life people did a whole lot more than block the doors to abortion mills.

The Founders repeatedly and ad nauseum went to King George and appealed to him and others and yes they even offered compromises, and while it did not influence the king it did influence others and brought allies to our cause when shots were fired.

If in 1743 When Sam Adams started bring people onto his “radical” cause had gone around saying “War with England tomorrow if we do not get all of our demands tonight” he would have gotten no where. It is the journey to get there that brought him allies that he could never had gotten if he tried to go from 1743 to 1787 overnight.

I am not saying that we should sell out, what I am saying is that getting back to limited government is a path that will take time, it is not just something one can do overnight.

I would like to remind our TEA Party friends of my initial point: the group of activists in that video basically applied a point of view to the Congressman that he never said or advocated in the video. They took what he said, converted it to something MUCH worse, and applied that to him. Those are the tactics of Saul Alinsky.

2012 Primary, History, Mitt Romney, True Talking Points

George Romney – A Republic No More (video)

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Wow, what a guy. I would like to see Mitt live up to that. Do you see how the language of conservatism comes to him so easily? It does so because that is who George Romney was. What a difference.

George Romney explains how America has transmogrified from a republic to special interest democracy. He also explains how social problems are the first major crisis that caused the federal government to expand.

2012 Primary, Communications Theory, Culture War, Obama, True Talking Points

Forbes: Capitalists Need To Learn How To Use Words

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This is one of the most important columns you may ever see. Read every last word. It is good to see the message I have preached for years get some backup – Editor.

“When government surveillance and intimidation is called ‘freedom from terrorism’ or ‘liberation from crime’, freedom and liberty have become words without meanings. The rhetoric in Washington has done more to defeat liberty than all the armies and police forces in the world. This war all around us is being fought over the very meanings of words.” – Chad Dumier

Harry Binswanger at Forbes Magazine:

It’s the concepts, stupid.

A wag in my high school said “Words are the tools of the English language.”

It was supposed to be a parody of deep-sounding but vacuous pronouncements. But the joke turns out to be on him: since words *are* the tools of language, they are the tools of thought. That means you must resist unto death using the terminology of your enemy. The side that controls language controls thought.

Anti-capitalists are onto this fact. Pro-capitalists need to catch up–especially since the mainstream media are dominated by anti-capitalists, who insinuate their distorted terms into what would otherwise seem to be open debate.

Notice I said “anti-capitalists.” That’s a case in point. I did not say “progressives”–that’s how they wish to be known. But capitalism, not government dictation, is the system of progress, replacing primordial collectivism with the radical concept of individual rights, including property rights. And embracing technology not environmentalism is required of anyone who favors actual progress. The self-styled “progressives” are regressives.

“Liberal” is another word that is booby-trapped. Joe Lieberman is the last living liberal–a museum piece, really. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Krugman, and the rest are not liberals but Leftists, if you want a shorter term than “anti-capitalists.” Today’s Leftists have nothing of substance in common with those we used to know as “liberals”–JFK, Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson.

The word “liberal” derives from “liberty.” Liberty is the last thing on the mind of today’s Leftists. They seek to stamp out not only economic freedom but freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Just make a visit to your local university. The term “liberal” should never be used for people whose driving ideology is, to use a proper term, statism.

Words matter because words stand for concepts–abstract ideas that join certain things and separate others. Your ideological enemy is your ideological enemy in part because he divides the world up differently from you. He works with different concepts, different classifications. Where you see the opposition of freedom vs. government force, he sees the opposition of “exploitation” vs. “equality.” Where you see earning vs. freeloading, he sees “luck” vs. “compassion.”

Even little, innocuous concepts are game-changers. Take “access.” Is there some national, collective problem in the fact that some people don’t have “access” to quality medical care? What if we rephrase the question to be: do some people have the right to force other people to pay for their medical care? Sounds a little different, doesn’t it? I don’t have “access” to your car, your home, and your bank account. That’s a disgrace!

Politicians know, or at least sense, the power of language. President Obama speaks of government “investment,” a term properly applied only to the private sector, not to the government’s expropriation of capital from the private sector to finance boondoggles that men’s free financial decisions would not allow.

The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department defines “monopoly” in terms of earned market-share–i.e., success in competition–which it proceeds to penalize. The term “monopoly” should be applied to coercively imposed barriers to competition, and coercion is what is wielded by the government, not by business.

You see the theme running throughout the ideological distortion of language: evading the fundamental distinction: freedom vs. force. The free market is the scene of voluntary, uncoerced cooperation. Government is the agency with the exclusive power to compel obedience by law–i.e., at gunpoint.

It’s the dollar or the gun. As a hero in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged puts it:

When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other.

There is no other choice regarding the concepts we use, either. Our concepts either recognize or obliterate the distinction between freedom and force.

Harry Binswanger is a member of the Ayn Rand Institute’s Board of Directors and has taught philosophy at Hunter College (City University of New York), The New School for Social Research, and the University of Texas, Austin. His forthcoming book is “How We Know”.

History, Mortgage Crisis, Obama, Pay to Play, True Talking Points

House Oversight Committee: Members of Congress Received Special Favors from Mortgage Lenders

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Including the Democrat Chair of the Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd who was in a position to block mortgage reform legislation, either in Committee or through filibuster and so he did. Republican Senators and the Bush Administration tried repeatedly since 2001 to get such legislation passed Chris Dodd and were unable to do so.

Here’s a quote from the House Oversight Committee’s staff report on Countrywide Mortgage influence-peddling:

http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Countrywide-112th-Report-7.3.12-1207-PM.pdf

“Considering the cost to taxpayers of the failure to reform the GSEs, Congress should consider legislation prohibiting companies from offering discounts and other forms of preferential treatment to Members of Congress and congressional staff. In addition to mortgage lenders like Countrywide, such legislation should cover banks, auto dealerships, jewelry stores, and any other company that offers financing to customers.To foreclose the possibility that a lender might apply a discount to a loan without their knowledge, Members of Congress and congressional staff should consider notifying all parties to complex financial transactions that they must not receive discounts due to congressional ethics rules, as Congressman Sessions did.”

2012 Primary, Communications Theory, Econ, Obama, True Talking Points

Devastating new ad: Obama’s “war on women” (video)

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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:

2012 Primary, Culture War, Jihad, Obama, Treason, True Talking Points

Obama threatened to Veto the Defense Authorization Act because it would require that soldiers shot by home grown terrorists be given the purple heart

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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?

USA Today:

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.

Dirty Tricks, Econ

Rihanna Sues Accountants for ‘Tens of Millions’ in Losses

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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.

Reuters:

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.

2012 Primary, Budget, Econ, Elite Media, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points, West

Allen West: Why I don’t care about my critics; real journalism is dead (video)

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“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”.

2012 Primary, Civility, Communications Theory, Culture War, Dirty Tricks, Elite Media, Obama, True Talking Points, Unhinged

Liberal Elite Media Group Calls Romney Too White…..

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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….

Washington Examiner:

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.

2012 Primary, Mitt Romney, Obama, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points, Unhinged

Democrat Party Chair Debbie Schultz Trashed Romney for Having a Swiss Bank Account – She Has One Too!

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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.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Democrat Party Boss Debbie Wasserman Schultz

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.

2012 Primary, Econ, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points

16.8% of millenials are unemployed or have given up looking for work

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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.”

2012 Primary, Econ, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

Study: In Maryland, Higher Taxes Chase Out Rich

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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.