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Herman Cain Leading Because of Fighting Bewteen Perry & Romney
Pollster Frank Luntz stopped by Your World today to analyze voter reactions to a recent debate segment in which Texas Gov. Rick Perry gets into a heated shouting match with Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney. Luntz said the measured response indicates that the fighting is exactly what Americans don’t want from their presidential candidates.
“They expect them to reach above that; they expect them to be presidential,” said Luntz. “There was nothing about that that was presidential.”
By sounding off on critical nights like last week’s CNN debate, the GOP hopefuls aren’t doing anything to help their own causes, according to Luntz. “Rick Perry has got a great record as governor, and he’s not talking about it by tearing down Mitt Romney.”
(more click link)
via Herman Cain Leading Because of Fighting Bewteen Perry & Romney.
New Herman Cain ad: The smoking man…
Lots of buzz about this among political junkies on Twitter tonight, mostly of the so-bad-it’s-good variety. Is the image of this guy taking a soothing drag on camera after 40 seconds of ad-tastic exertion really that strange and transgressive? Cain’s campaign is all about unapologetic populist authenticity, and there’s nothing more unapologetically, authentically populist than defiantly lighting one up when the mood strikes, politesse be damned. As the man says, “We’ve run a campaign like nobody’s ever seen.” If you’ve got a problem with casual smoking during presidential spots, well, that only proves what an uptight establishment RINO you really are.
In the next spot, Block should have a smoke in one hand and a can of Schlitz in the other. And as the camera pulls back, there’s Cain next to him, eating a slice of Godfather’s and giving a big thumbs-up.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com …
Obama now accused of destroying U.S. economy … on purpose!
Ya think??
NEW YORK – A new book released today documents how President Obama and progressive Democrats are deliberately overloading the U.S. financial system, using socialist designs to remake the economy.
“Red Army: The Radical Network that must be defeated to save America” by Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott unearths the radical origins of Obama’s major economic legislation and policies, including the 2009 “stimulus” and health-care law.
The book, with nearly 1,500 endnotes, documents how these radicals aim to remake the American financial system with massive government control.
“Red Army” contains a number of other major scoops while exposing the radical socialist network that seized political power in Washington over decades, shaped Obama’s presidential agenda and threatens the very future of the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com …
via Obama now accused of destroying U.S. economy … on purpose!.
What Are We Doing? The Tea Party In Peril
The Tea Party was a beautiful happening! So beautiful was the sight of watching our citizens rise up in opposition to a federal government that has lost any sense of restraint that it is easy to forget that the enlightenment, which made it all possible, came at a heavy price – the expansion of government, debt, and an obscene redistribution of wealth from the people to a few select financial firms and companies. All the hope that the Tea Party provided, along with the labor, sacrifice, and treasure that was involved in organizing it, will be for naught if we do not examine how it was that the purveyors of big government got into power with our support to begin with…I write this because I feel we are on that same tired road; the same road that gave us the bailouts and a fourteen trillion dollar national debt. We are traveling this road because we are forgetting the lessons of the past. We are engaging in the very behavior that cost us dearly in the past and will burden generations to come. We are allowing those very people who the Tea Party sought to remove from influence to regain their power…. If you think my words embellished, ask yourself the following question: why is it that the top three candidates in the Republican Presidential Primaries are the only ones in the “conservative” field that supported the bailout of Wall Street?
Will Those Who Took an Oath Save our Republic?
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”—Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Although my byline is attached to this article, in all honesty I would have to give JB Williams the lion’s share of the credit for it—you might say that I’m simply echoing his sentiments. In any event, here are some further thoughts on the “Restore the Constitution” rally being held on 11/11/11 in Washington DC.
As conditions in America have worsened over the last few years, in particular since a man with no valid discernible past took up residence in our White House, I have heard the same question asked over and over again with increasing regularity, and dismay—“Where’s our military and law enforcement? Isn’t anyone who took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, going to do something?”
EXCERPT
Sir Francis Drake’s final fleet ‘discovered off the coast of Panama’
His burial at sea in full armour and in a lead casket was designed to ensure that no one – but especially the Spanish – would find his body.
Now, more than 400 years after Sir Francis Drake’s death in the Caribbean, the great seafarer’s watery grave may be close to being discovered.
A team of treasure hunters led by an American former basketball team owner claims to have discovered two ships from Drake’s fleet lying on the seabed off the coast of Panama. The 195-ton Elizabeth and 50-ton Delight were scuttled shortly after the naval hero’s death from dysentery, aged about 55, in 1596. It is thought that Drake’s final resting place may be nearby.
Pat Croce, a former president of the Philadelphia 76ers and self-professed “pirate aficionado”, embarked on a search for the ships after researching a book on the latter part of Drake’s career, as a privateer plundering Spanish ships in the New World….
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk …
via Sir Francis Drake’s final fleet ‘discovered off the coast of Panama’.
Ray Dalio On Whether The Current-Hopeless, Mob-Rule
Mobs are at the doors of bankers and others in the financial system, screaming to politicians to put these people in jail while the vote-seeking politicians are fanning the flames rather than reminding people that the legal system is the way these people should be judged. Since banks are levered about 15 to 1, it doesn’t take much of a debt problem to cause them solvency problems, and since in deleveragings debt problems are big, there is significant risk banks will run out of equity again and the fury against them will intensify. For these reasons risks to the global banking system are much greater than normal.
While we hope that most people and their leaders will approach these difficult challenges calmly and collectively, we would not be meeting our fiduciary responsibilities if we bet on this happening without clear evidence of it. We are not alone in having and expressing our concerns in what has come to be known as “risk-on” and “risk-off” market movements.
If we calm down and work together to properly manage this difficult situation – for example, if we can properly distribute both the austerity and the increased efforts that are required to manage our debt burdens – we can get through this deleveraging without great pain. If we can’t, we may experience an economic, social and political collapse.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com …
Expect more executive orders
Some highlights from White House press secretary Jay Carney’s Q&A with reporters on Monday:
– Carney said that “you’ll be seeing more of” the use of executive orders. “Why use it? Because we have to do everything we can,” he said of the economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com …
Will Those Who Took an Oath Save Our Republic?(March on DC-Veterans Day 2011)-MUST see
A veterans groups called The Veteran Defenders of America has now answered that question. In a documented Call-to-Action titled a – A Declaration to Restore the Constitutional Republic – former Military and Law Enforcement Officers have come together to demand that all oath-takers immediately execute their oaths in preservation of the Constitutional Republic.
At present, every member of the Military, Law Enforcement, Justice, Congress and federal employment is in direct violation of their oaths. As they stand idly by allowing an anti-American transformation of our constitutional form of government, they do so in direct violation of the oaths they have each taken.
This is not just an act which justifies their immediate removal from office — it is in fact a federal crime punishable by extreme measures.
As a result, an undisclosed number of veterans across the country have joined forces to demand that every individual who has ever taken an oath to the Constitution immediately and without reservation, begin to adhere to that oath.
They have put out an open Call-to-Action for every oath-taker and every true American patriot to join them in Washington D.C. on Veterans Day, November 11, 2011 at the Washington Monument to demonstrate the will of the people and the resolve to protect and defend our Constitution and the free Republic for which it stands.
(Excerpt) Read more at thepostemail.com …
via Will Those Who Took an Oath Save Our Republic?(March on DC-Veterans Day 2011)-MUST see.
Hillary Clinton had serious doubts about Obama, but she has really, really come around
What a difference four years makes!
Not just the body language in that photo above from a CNN debate back then. Hillary Clinton had many, many doubts about the character and leadership of that ex-state senator from Illinois who was giving her a run for her political supporters’ money right about now back in 2007.
And during the hard-fought days and nights of that long, bitter Democratic primary campaign season, she shared many of those doubts with anyone who would listen.
You may remember her media availability in Toledo that wintry morning when Clinton compared Obama unfavorably to even Republican John McCain. She said she had a lifetime of experience and the Arizona senator had a lifetime of experience. While Obama merely had — what? — a speech he gave on Iraq back in 2002? Whoopee-do.
Clinton also wondered out loud numerous times how this young inexperienced man with no real resume to speak of would handle one of those dark-of-night emergency White House phone calls at 3 a.m. Not very well, was the implication of the former first lady, who’d lived there for eight years.
Now Secretary of State for that Chicago pol during these 1,007 days of his presidency, Clinton made the rounds of several Sunday shows this weekend, via satellite from central Asia. The main focus of the questions predictably dealt with the Iraq troop pullout and Moammar Gadhafi’s execution in Libya.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com …
via Hillary Clinton had serious doubts about Obama, but she has really, really come around.
Pat Robertson: GOP Base Is Becoming Too Extreme
Televangelist and mogul Pat Robertson — a man whose name is practically synonymous with the Religious Right — likely took 700 Club viewers by surprise today when he opined that the Republican base is losing support by “pushing” what he described as “an extreme position.”
Robertson expressed worry that Republican front runners are going to alienate voters during the general election by catering to a narrow base:
I believe it was Lyndon Johnson that said, “I doubt these people realize if they push me over to an extreme position that I’ll lose the election. And I’m the one who will be supporting what they want, but they’re going to make it so I can’t win.” Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off of this stuff. They’re forcing their leaders, the front runners, into positions that will mean they lose the general election. Now whether this did it to Cain, I don’t know, but nevertheless, you know, you appeal to the narrow base and they’ll applaud the daylights out of what you’re saying, and then you hit the general election and they say “no way” and then the Democrat, whoever it is, is going to just play these statements to the hilt. They’ve got to stop this! It’s just so counterproductive! Well. If they want to lose, this is the game for losers. As Right Wing Watch notes, Robertson’s statement came on the heels of a discussion about recent poll favorite Herman Cain‘s shifting views on how the government should approach the issue of abortion.
How long until people take a look at this opinion — made by a man who obviously is deeply integrated in and, we may assume, has a deep commitment to the Republican party — and declare him a “RINO,” proving his point?
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com …
NYT Reporter Outed as Protester; (Shortened title)
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yeah, we got an audio clip of Natasha Lennard who is a stringer, she’s a freelancer for the New York Times, but she is an active and proud member of Occupy Wall Street Now. This is at BigGovernment.com, Andrew Breitbart’s series of very effective websites. “A newly-discovered video — filmed by Occupy Wall Street supporters themselves — reveals that New York Times reporter Natasha Lennard is not merely covering the protests, but is also apparently taking part in planning and executing them. In the video, Lennard is seen participating as a featured speaker in a discussion among anarchists, communists, and other radicals as they examine the theory, strategy and tactics of the Occupy protests.
“Lennard, who has also written for Politico and Salon, is identified in the video by the panel’s moderator as a freelancer for the Times, and also as the Times reporter who was arrested along with seven hundred activists on the Brooklyn Bridge on Oct. 1. … In the video of the panel discussion, Lennard reveals herself to be a passionate Occupy supporter, and appears to have personal knowledge of its planned future activities, including illegal occupations of banks in New York City.”
We have just a little blurb here about 20 seconds back on October 14th. This was at the Blue Stockings bookstore during the panel discussion about Occupy Wall Street protests. This is Natasha Lennard who’s the freelancer for the New York Times talking about their strategy.
LENNARD: Being an outright anti-authoritarian or an anarchist is not really something that people like to be live-streamed across the world with a f-king (bleeped) police pen around you. So there is a silencing that’s sort of gone on without much addressing, because to address it would be to out oneself…..
EXCERPT
Perry Signs Strong America Now Pledge to Tackle Debt and Eliminate the Deficit
Gov. Rick Perry signed the Strong America Now pledge which binds him to tackling wasteful spending in Washington by implementing the waste elimination process Lean Six Sigma. The pledge was signed at the fourth annual Kaufmann Family Barbecue where Perry was the special guest.
Perry is the eighth presidential candidate to sign the pledge, but the first who has also signed Lean Six Sigma legislation. Perry signed a Texas state bill, which formed a pilot program to improve efficiencies and quality of operations while reducing costs, as well as adopt a structured approach for identifying the wasteful use of state resources.
“We have a serious responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, and the bill we passed in Texas created a process for us to examine spending and find ways to be more efficient,” said Gov. Perry. “Continuing the effort to eliminate waste will be a cornerstone of my administration. The federal government has an obligation to tighten its belt just as American families and employers have had to do for the last three years. We’ve done it in Texas, and I am proud to stand by Strong America Now to take this effort to the federal level to rein in the out-of-control spending in Washington, D.C.”
Strong America Now, a grassroots organization that began in Iowa and is expanding rapidly in other early primary states, was founded by businessman Mike George who pioneered Lean Six Sigma. Before retiring in 2007, George helped the Army and Navy implement Lean Six Sigma resulting in the savings of billions of dollars. On average George found that 25 percent of all processes in the DOD were waste that could be eliminated.
Strong America Now is the largest grassroots organization on ground in Iowa and will be conducting extensive Caucus trainings for its volunteers. The group is dedicated to educating Americans and candidates on how waste elimination can contribute to eliminating the national deficit. The group has its pledge, plan and over 50 Lean Six Sigma case studies on its website, http://strongamericanow.org/.
SOURCE Strong America Now
via Perry Signs Strong America Now Pledge to Tackle Debt and Eliminate the Deficit.
Federal judge blocks Florida’s new law requiring that welfare applicants pass drug test
ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge temporarily blocked Florida’s new law that requires welfare applicants to pass a drug test before receiving the benefits on Monday, saying it may violate the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com …
via Federal judge blocks Florida’s new law requiring that welfare applicants pass drug test.
Semper Fi: Non-active Marines called to “Occupy” (Blech!)
A new group called Occupy Marines is calling on non-active duty Marines to support the “Occupy” protest movement.
The group was formed online to support the Occupy Wall Street protests after videos circulated online of a Marine confronting New York City police, questioning their tactics used against Occupy Wall Street demonstrators….
(VIDEO AT LINK)
In a video that has received nearly 2.5 million views, Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas of Roosevelt, N.Y. an Iraq War veteran, spoke out to police in New York’s Times Square, charging that they were over-reacting to Occupy marchers – and shaming their uniform….
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com …
via Semper Fi: Non-active Marines called to “Occupy” (Blech!).
Progressives, Islamists huddle at Justice Department -(crimalize criticism of Islam)
Top Justice Department officials convened a meeting Wednesday where invited Islamist advocates lobbied them for cutbacks in anti-terror funding, changes in agents’ training manuals, additional curbs on investigators and a legal declaration that U.S. citizens’ criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination.
The department’s “civil rights lawyers are top of the line — I say this with utter honesty — I know they can come up with a way” to redefine criticism as discrimination, said Sahar Aziz, a female, Egyptian-American lawyer.
“I’d be willing to give a shot at it,” said Aziz, who is a fellow at the Michigan-based Muslim advocacy group, the Institute for Social Policy & Understanding.
The audience of Islamist advocates and department officials included Tom Perez, who heads the department’s division of civil rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com …
via Progressives, Islamists huddle at Justice Department -(crimalize criticism of Islam).
The Vatican Said What? [Document calling for 'Central World Bank' has no binding authority]
The Vatican Said What? [Document calling for 'Central World Bank' has no binding authority]
Inside the Vatican / The Moynihan Report ^ | October 24, 2011 | Dr. Robert Moynihan
Posted on Monday, October 24, 2011 5:32:31 PM by Dr. Brian Kopp
The Vatican Said What?
via The Vatican Said What? [Document calling for 'Central World Bank' has no binding authority].
Obama administration to offer home re-fi plan “independent of how deeply underwater they are”
President Barack Obama is expanding his use of federal regulations by prodding the financial sector to sell low-interest mortgages to millions of cash-strapped homeowners “independent of how deeply underwater they are,” said Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Monday morning.
White House officials worked with real-estate and financial-sector groups to shift the financial risks that have kept high-risk borrowers from getting mortgages. Under Obama’s plan, mortgages will even be offered to homeowners who need to borrow 125 percent of a house’s value, Donovan added.
via Obama administration to offer home re-fi plan “independent of how deeply underwater they are”.
Naked Ex-Postman Superglues Himself to Desk in Job Centre Protest
Ian Robinson, 43, had to leave his job after developing arthritis, but the authorities have ruled he is not entitled to disability benefits and he must now try to survive on Jobseeker’s Allowance.
Mr Robinson decided to demonstrate how angry he was about the decision by staging a bizarre protest in front of shocked staff at Bridlington Job Centre.
‘When I started taking my clothes off, a man said “You can’t do that in here”, so I went over and glued myself to his desk. Nobody tried to stop me, it was too late by that point,’ he told the Yorkshire Post.
The naked demonstrator prised himself off the furniture before paramedics arrived and he suffered only some redness to the skin on his arms.
However, Mr Robinson was arrested and charged with a public order offence and criminal damage – although he insisted the protest had been worth it and that he ‘would do it all over again’ if he felt it would help make his point.
‘A society is judged on how it treats the sick and leaving them without disability benefit is criminal,’ he adde
via Naked Ex-Postman Superglues Himself to Desk in Job Centre Protest.
All charges dropped against lemonade protesters
The lemonade three are free.
The Superior Court of the District of Columbia dropped all charges Monday against three activists arrested in August for selling 10-cent cups of lemonade on the lawn of the Capitol building.
Will Duffield, Meg McLain and Kathryn Dill were arrested on Aug. 20 for selling the lemonade as part of National Lemonade Freedom Day — a nationwide protest formed in response to a recent rash of children’s lemonade stands being shut down by police.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com …
How Obama Bungled Iraq
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The Morning Bell today at the Heritage Foundation, which is one of their morning blogs, describes Obama’s Iraq failure, pulling out of there at the end of this year with no vestige, with no reminders that we were there.
“To hear President Barack Obama describe the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, you’d think it was a long-anticipated political victory, the fruition of a promise he made when campaigning for the White House. But his announcement last week that American troops in Iraq will return by the end of the year is a result of a serious Obama Administration failure that will undermine US security interests in the Middle East. Speaking on Friday from the West Wing, President Obama wasted no time in reminding the American people that, ‘As a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end,’ and that as commander in chief, he was making good on that promise in time for the holidays. What the President didn’t mention, though, was the story behind the headline — that the Administration tried and failed to negotiate with the Iraqi government to extend the US troop presence there in order to ensure the country’s security and stability.”
EXCERPT
*****
Vitamin B-based treatment for corneal disease may offer some patients a permanent solution
3-year outcomes of clinical trial of collagen crosslinking treatment for keratoconus highlighted at American Academy of Ophthalmology 2011 Annual Meeting
ORLANDO, Fla. – October 24, 2011 – Patients in the United States who have the cornea-damaging disease keratoconus may soon be able to benefit from a new treatment that is already proving effective in Europe and other parts of the world. The treatment, called collagen crosslinking, improved vision in almost 70 percent of patients treated for keratoconus in a recent three-year clinical trial in Milan, Italy. The treatment is in clinical trials in the United States and is likely to receive FDA approval in 2012. The results of the Milan study are being presented today at the 115th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in Orlando, Florida.
In a session titled Long-term Results of Corneal Crosslinking for Keratoconus, Paolo Vinciguerra, MD will describe the treatment and three-year follow up of more than 250 keratoconus patients who received collagen crosslinking at his clinic. Sixty-eight percent of the 500 eyes treated gained significant visual acuity, with their results remaining stable at the end of the follow-up period. Patients over age 18 were most likely to improve.
In the collagen crosslinking procedure, riboflavin (vitamin B) is applied to the cornea, which is then exposed to a specific form of ultraviolet light. Collagen fibers regenerate with new bonds forming between them, increasing corneal stiffness and strength. The treatment also combats the causes of keratoconus, reducing the chance that it will recur. The rest of the eye receives only minimal UV exposure during treatment. Dr. Vinciguerra’s new study confirms that adverse effects are rare. Previous research by his team indicated no loss of corneal endothelial cell, a measurement used to assess the safety of corneal treatments, in patients who received collagen crosslinking.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org …
via Vitamin B-based treatment for corneal disease may offer some patients a permanent solution.
PDF?? Adobe?? Updates? Huh???
Anybody else getting Adobe PDF reader update notifications just about every day or so lately?
It’s getting kind of tiresome. Can’t they bunch them up and release them every two weeks or so?
Can that entire feature be turned off? I’d rather NO SOFTWARE was able to do auto-updates…
Mandatory [NYC] Sex Ed Details May Be Too Racy for Parents [sex positions, bestiality, & porn stars]
Details about the new sex education curriculum in New York City public schools are out — and some are concerned the lessons are too racy.
The New York Post obtained workbooks that will be used for the new recommended curriculum, which begins in middle schools and high schools around the city next spring. Parents, they say, may be shocked by details of the work.
Middle school students will be assigned “risk cards” that rate the safety of different activities, the paper says, from French kissing to oral sex.
The workbooks for older students direct them to a website run by Columbia University, which explores topics such as sexual positions, porn stars, and bestiality. The lessons explain risky sexual behavior and suggest students go to stores to jot condom brands and prices.
The Department of Education says the curriculum “stresses that abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy and STD/HIV” and reminded the Post that parents have the option to exclude their kids from lessons on “methods of prevention.”
When given details of the new programs, one Manhattan mom — who has a child in middle-school — was surprised.
“I didn’t know how much detail they would get,” she said.
In August, Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs commended the return of mandatory sex ed, saying the DOE wants to give students the correct information about sexual activity if they do choose to engage in it.
“We want to help kids to delay the onset of sexual activity, and if they choose to engage in sexual activity, to do it in a healthy way,” she said.
The classes will be coeducational, and can be incorporated into existing health education courses.
via Mandatory [NYC] Sex Ed Details May Be Too Racy for Parents [sex positions, bestiality, & porn stars].
Obama Making Plans to Nationalize Housing?
For over a year I have been warning that the Obama Administration plans to use Fannie Mae to nationalize a significant portion of America’s real estate market. Today the President announced plans to utilize executive orders to side-step Congress, usurp the Constitution, and allow the government owned mortgage giant Fannie Mae, to start gobbling up mortgages.
The President’s plan will implement sweeping new rules that will allow the nationalized mortgage behemoth to refinance mortgages. Once Fannie Mae owns the mortgage, there’s nothing to stop the Obama Administration from using the Making Home Affordable Plan to allow people to exit their mortgages, with $3,000 in hand, then have Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac purchase the home and rent it back to them for pennies on the dollar.
Together, Fannie and Freddie own more than half of America’s $12 trillion in outstanding mortgage balances; the majority of which are subprime loans. Beginning with the Clinton Administration and continuing with the Bush Administration, the Federal Government forced lending institutions to issue subprime loans to those that would not normally qualify for a mortgage.
Despite two feeble warnings from President Bush and a half-hearted attempt by Senator John McCain to regulate the two faltering lending giants, no one really wanted to upset the economic apple cart. The two companies kept right on issuing subprime mortgages and engaging in their predatory lending practices. Time and time again, both Rep. Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd, who are responsible for Congressional oversight of Fannie and Freddie, not only lied to Congress about the financial solvency of the two mortgage giants but to the American people.
This deliberate act of deception was engineered by two of the most prominent members of Congress and is what precipitated the mortgage crisis. Not only did Rep. Frank claim that Fannie and Freddie were “financially sound” but he doubled down when he asserted “that we should be doing more to get low income people into housing.” Furthermore, Frank stated that even if the two mortgage behemoths did fail “the government would bail them out,” which was probably the plan all along.
Then in 2008, the Democrat led House and Senate passed, then George Bush signed, the now infamous $300 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as TARP. President Bush did this in direct opposition to his conservative base. Care to make a wager on who received the lion’s share of TARP funding? If you guessed Fannie and Freddie give yourself a prize. That’s right, the two companies received a combined $169 billion from TARP which accounted for 56 percent of TARP expenditures.
And it gets worse from there. When President Obama took office, he instructed the two paper tigers to begin buying up foreclosed homes. According to Stimulus Package Details, Fannie received another $200 billion influx of cash from the Stimulus Package.
According to Reuters, Fannie received an additional $8.5 billion to continue snatching up foreclosures in May of 2010. At the time, I predicted that President Obama’s end game was to turn all of the assets owned by Fannie & Freddie into Government Housing.
This past August, Hot Air.com chronicled details of the faltering mortgage giant receiving another $5.1 billion cash infusion from the Obama administration. Furthermore, the Associated Press reported that the Obama administration quietly announced that it was planning to turn the estimated 250,000 foreclosed homes that have been purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into Government Rental Housing.
Fox News recently published an article detailing the Administration’s plans to implement a further $85 billion “instant stimulus” to nationalize Fannie and Freddie once and for all. Even the ultra-liberal website Mother Jones thinks the President’s plan is foolish. Kevin Drum who penned the article believes the president’s plan is bad because it will cause the taxpayers to loose even more money than they already have on the two failed mortgage giants.
Thus far, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have received over $382 billion in taxpayer assistance and have not repaid a cent (almost 40% of all Federal Stimulus if you were wondering). When added to the $6.1 trillion in mostly subprime mortgages that it already owns, the Federal Government could become the owner of more than half the homes in America. In one fell swoop, President Obama could effectively nationalize the housing industry, making it the largest landlord in the world, and completing the largest redistribution of wealth in history.
Specialist force trained for East Timor-style operations (Australia developing ‘Marine’ force)
AUSTRALIA’S first amphibious soldiers or “marines” will be ready for action when the navy’s new landing ship enters service next year.
More than 1000 troops from Townsville’s 3rd Brigade are being trained in amphibious operations.
Up to 350 will be at sea permanently as the defence force moves into a new era of “power projection” when two 27,000-tonne landing helicopter dock ships enter service from 2014.
The former Royal Navy 16,000-tonne auxiliary Bay class landing ship Largs Bay, bought for $100 million to become HMAS Choules, will be ready for low-level amphibious operations early next year.
“Whenever one of these ships leaves Townsville she will have soldiers on board rigged and ready to go,” said Maj-Gen John Caligari, Defence head of modernisation and plans.
The amphibious force will give the Government a power projection capability that the nation has never had before.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldsun.com.au …
via Specialist force trained for East Timor-style operations (Australia developing ‘Marine’ force).
Herman Cain: Karl Rove is trying to destroy me
Herman Cain pushed back hard at Karl Rove’s recitation of his recent campaign fumbles and miscues – which he presented on a whiteboard on Fox News this morning – and accused the operative of trying to do him intentional damage in a Byron York interview:
“It’s a good thing the voters are not looking at Karl Rove’s little whiteboard,” Cain said in a phone conversation from a stop in Chicago Monday afternoon. “I believe it is a deliberate attempt to damage me because I am not, quote unquote, the establishment choice. But why not go with the choice that the people seem to like?”
Cain accused Rove of bias in favor of candidates with big organizations, lots of money, and prior experience in political office — all things Cain doesn’t have. “What has Karl Rove done?” Cain continued. “If I become the nominee, he has given Democrats talking points for a commercial to attack me. It makes no sense unless it’s a deliberate attempt on his part to try to push me down so that the candidate he wants rises to the top.” Continue Reading
When asked which candidate he believes Rove supports, Cain said, “I believe he wants Romney to get it.”
Rove strongly denies Cain’s charges. “Herman Cain is the one giving the Democrats material for attack ads,” Rove said in a phone conversation Monday afternoon. “I want the strongest nominee to emerge from the process. I have no personal favorite. Fox expects me to call balls and strikes as I see them.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com …
Bachmann’s New Hampshire Staff Quits, Blasts National Campaign
Michele Bachmann’s New Hampshire campaign staff is definitely gone, even though Bachmann said she didn’t know about it.
The news that all five of Bachmann’s paid staffers in New Hampshire had quit broke on Friday, but when Radio Iowa approached Bachmann for comment, she said all was well.
“That is a shocking story to me,” she said. “I don’t know where that came from. We have called staff in New Hampshire to find out where that came from and the staff have said that isn’t true, so I don’t know if this is just a bad story that’s being fed by a different candidate or campaign. I have no idea where this came from, but we’ve made calls and it’s certainly not true.”
But it is true, the staffers themselves confirmed in no uncertain terms in a statement released on Monday.
“It should be clear that the entire New Hampshire team has departed,” the statement said. “While they collectively felt loyalty to the candidate, they no longer have faith in the national team. This is a sentiment that has been building since June and was expressed on numerous occasions to members of the national team. It is now apparent that Team NH’s concerns were not fully shared with Congresswoman Bachmann and were not taken seriously…. These are symptoms of the disease that infects too many members of the national campaign team.”
A New Hampshire Controversy
The five staffers — Jeff Chidester, Matt LeDuc, Caroline Gigler, Tom Lukacz and Nicole Yurek — said they could not continue to work for a campaign that was focusing so little on New Hampshire. Bachmann has been pouring most of her resources into the Iowa, where socially conservative voters play a major role in the nation’s first caucuses.
“Team NH was never involved in the shifting strategy discussions,” the statement said. “Team members were repeatedly ignored regarding simple requests, sometimes going weeks with little or no contact with the national team. Yet the members of Team NH remained committed to Congresswoman Bachmann, often at peril to their own personal and professional reputations within New Hampshire.”
The staffers claimed that because of the campaign’s financial struggles, they had not been paid in a month. They also accused members of Bachmann’s national campaign of being “abrasive, discourteous and dismissive” toward New Hampshire voters, “treat[ing] them more as a nuisance than as potential supporters.”
In a statement released Friday, the national campaign denied any knowledge of the resignations but admitted that its main focus was Iowa.
“We have a great team in New Hampshire and we have not been notified that anyone is leaving the campaign,” the statement said. “We look forward to spending more time in the Granite State between now and the primary, but our campaign has emphasized that our main focus is the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa, and we are continuing to build efforts there.”
Bachmann Campaign Departures Mount
This is far from the first major personnel loss for the Bachmann campaign. Bachmann’s chief strategist, Ed Rollins, and her chief pollster, Ed Goeas, both quit in September, and her congressional spokesman, Doug Sactleben, quit this month.
Bachmann also spent more money than she raised in the third quarter, and she has been unable to lift her poll numbers — which reached 15 percent in August and carried her to victory in the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa — out of the low single digits.
And, to add insult to injury, at least one of her former New Hampshire staffers, Caroline Gigler, has accepted a job with Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign.
via Bachmann’s New Hampshire Staff Quits, Blasts National Campaign.
Top Tier: Ron Paul Raises Most In Iowa GOP Campaign Donations
Presidential candidate Ron Paul has once again proved he is a front runner in the race for the GOP nomination, pulling in the most campaign donations from Iowa residents thus far.
The Congressman has received over $77,000 in contributions from Iowa so far this election cycle, a full $10,000 more than his closet rival Mitt Romney.
Top Tier: Ron Paul Raises Most In Iowa GOP Campaign Donations 241011finance
Indeed, the only candidate to have raised more in Iowa is the incumbent President, who has hit almost $200,000 in contributions.
Paul sits well ahead of the rest of the GOP field, having raised more than double the contributions of his next closet rival – Michelle Bachmann.
The figures were compiled from Federal Elections Commission data filed in mid-October. The figures represent contributions by individual Iowans totaling more than $200 through the end of September.
So far Iowans have donated a total of $454,000. Candidates have raised a combined $179 million nationally.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Ron Paul has made a concerted effort to make sure his message has impacted Iowa, taking out a $2 million ad buy and making several campaign stops in the state.
In August Paul came a close second in the Iowa GOP straw poll, capturing a commanding 44% of the over 6000 votes cast.
“This is more clear evidence of Dr. Paul’s large and growing base of support in the great state of Iowa,” said Ron Paul 2012 National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton.
“Iowans who are sick and tired of the status quo message coming from the establishment candidates in this race are attracted to our campaign’s message of balanced budgets, limited constitutional government, and individual liberty, and we are working to capitalize on that momentum.” Benton added.
The 2012 Iowa Caucuses are scheduled to take place on January 3. The state is traditionally home to the first major electoral event of the nominating process, and thus serve as an important indicator.
On Sunday night the Congressman appeared on Meet The Press to talk about, among other things, his plan to cut big government spending by closing down departments such as the TSA, the Energy Department and the Commerce Department, as well as phasing out federal programs such as student loans:
“They’re a trillion dollars in debt; we don’t have any jobs for them; the quality of education has gone down–so it’s a failed program,” Paul said. “When you run up debt and you print money, costs go up in the areas that the government gets involved in education and medical care and housing…it doesn’t help people.”
Paul also explained that he has been disappointed with the “uselessness” of some of the arguments raised in the GOP debates, noting “The financial system of the world is about to collapse… We’re going to have to get a handle on this–we have to quit worrying about who’s mowing Mitt Romney’s yard,”
Watch the interview below:
——————————————————————
Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.
via Prison Planet.com » Top Tier: Ron Paul Raises Most In Iowa GOP Campaign Donations.
Steve Jobs Shocker: Bill Gates Should Have Dropped Acid
Steve Jobs called long-time rival and Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates as “unimaginative” and not really a product person, according to a biography of the deceased Apple Inc chief executive.
“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology,” Jobs told author Walter Isaacson. “He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas.”
Steve Jobs, the Apple founder and former CEO who invented and masterfully marketed ever-sleeker gadgets that transformed everyday technology, from the personal computer to the iPod and iPhone, has died at age 56. Read more
“He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger,” Jobs added.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com …
via Steve Jobs Shocker: Bill Gates Should Have Dropped Acid.
The scary truth about voting machine hacking risk (exclusive video)
The scary truth about voting machine hacking risk (exclusive video)
By David Gewirtz | October 23, 2011, 9:28pm PDT
Summary: In this exclusive interview, ZDNet’ Government’s David Gewirtz sits down with Dr. Jon Warner of Argonne National Laboratories for a deep dive into voting machine hacking.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column here on ZDNet Government entitled, Four outrageous political stories that will make you scream.
In it, I discussed a number of outrages, but one in particular caught my eye: research by the scientists at Argonne National Labs showing the ease at which voting machines could be hacked. This is an issue of great concern, because free and reliable voting is at the core of every democracy.
Voting, essentially, is democracy.
After I published the article, Stephen McGregor of Argonne contacted me and offered me the opportunity to talk with Dr. Jon Warner, the scientist who conducted the study and who came up with the startling conclusions.
What follows is that interview, and it’s both fascinating and freaky. I also want to send a special shout-out of thanks to Jon for his great patience in the process. This was the maiden voyage of the studio I’ve been working on over at ZDNet’s DIY-IT and Jon was quite patient while some extra fiddling and tuning was required.
Here then is ZDNet Government’s exclusive interview with Dr. Jon Warner of Argonne National Labs. It’ll make your hair curl.
VIDEO
via The scary truth about voting machine hacking risk (exclusive video).
A Second Attempt to Tax Online Sales
Last week, Reps. Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Steve Womack (R-AR) introduced the Marketplace Equity Act of 2011 (H.R. 3179), which permits states to require out-of-state Internet retailers to collect the state’s sales tax with certain conditions. The legislation is the second state Internet-sales tax bill introduced in Congress this year, following the Main Street Fairness Act.
The Marketplace Equity Act is unacceptable to taxpayers as currently written. The measure lacks any taxpayer protections or other provisions to ensure state taxes are lowered as they are expanded to online and remote sales. The bill would also mark a blow to the physical nexus standard for tax collection, which has prevented the long arm of tax collectors from forcing residents in other states to comply with their tax codes, without offering taxpayers anything in return.
The push for a federal Internet tax bill comes in response to the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. In the Quill case, the high court ruled that forcing companies without physical presence in a state to collect sales tax was a violation of the Commerce Clause. As Congress has constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce, this law would effectively overturn the longstanding Quill decision, aiming to level the playing field between Internet and brick-and-mortar retailers.
Unlike the Main Street Fairness Act, which automatically triggered Internet taxes for states that were members of the Streamlined Sales Tax cartel, this bill requires each state to pass legislation to enact the new sales tax on remote sales. State bills that enact the law would constitute clear violations of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, unless offset by cuts elsewhere. In this way, the Womack-Speier bill represent an improvement over the Main Street Fairness Act. Other means of ensuring the tax reform is revenue neutral are so far nowhere to be found, and legislators shouldn’t even consider new taxing authority without strongly protecting taxpayers from net tax increases. In its current form, the Marketplace Equity Act (along with the Main Street Fairness Act) is simply unpalatable for taxpayers.
Critically, ATR strongly urges the Super Committee to avoid including this measure in any deal. ATR completely rejects, in principle, the idea of somehow “balancing” out federal spending cuts with state tax increases. Federal spending is completely out of control and needs to be cut—not moved around in some shell game that results in a higher tax bill. The Super Committee should be focused on federal spending cuts, but those should never come by generating new state tax hikes – on the Internet or otherwise. The result would be bigger government and higher taxes.
CLICK HERE for a PDF of the statement and visit http://www.StopETaxes.com for more information on state level Internet taxes.
Read more: http://www.atr.org/second-attempt-tax-online-sales-a6547#ixzz1bitlJxLU
The United Nations: Accessory to Slavery and other Crimes Against Humanity
The United Nations: Accessory to Slavery and other Crimes Against Humanity
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2518/united-nations-slavery ^ | Oct/19/11 | S. Deng
Posted on Monday, October 24, 2011 2:09:09 PM
via The United Nations: Accessory to Slavery and other Crimes Against Humanity.
JFK wanted movie “Seven Days in May” made – YouTube
JFK wanted movie “Seven Days in May” made
The Gaddafi Execution – Looking In The Mirror
There are bad people in the world and we look forward to the day when they make their departure; actually, many of us lift a symbolic glass of wine to celebrate, when a convicted killer is finally executed. In America, a condemned killer has been tried in a court of law or by military tribunal and has been given his right to appeal. The condemned is then executed by lethal injection. The most humane and sterile method of death, yet devised in the history of man. A method that requires the state to swab the area of injection with alcohol before inserting the needle that will allow the poisons to be injected and course through the body, until death claims the killer’s life. Thus the possibility of infection of the wound is decreased; however, like many procedures, the alcohol is only for looks, since it takes several minutes for the alcohol to kill the bacteria. But remember, we are talking about a condemned person. Some ask why wait or why even waste the alcohol. This is the accepted method of execution, it allows us to feel good about killing someone and it helps to rid ourselves of those human beings who are deemed to no longer worthy of walking among us in the civilized world…..
EXCERPT
The Obama & Hillary “Ghostbuster” moment
Upon being told of his murder, Clinton joked with news reporters between interviews, laughing as she said “we came, we saw, he died.” Regardless of Qaddafi’s status as a dictator, such demeanor of a U.S. Secretary of State should be alarming to everyone, but especially to those in the media.
In an earlier, seemingly simpler time in U.S. politics, for example during the pre-millennium election cycles, people might recall that the liberal left and their media co-conspirators embraced another Latin word: gravitas. Ironically used in context to describe the statesmanship conduct of Bill Clinton, the term means to act in a dignified, solemn and otherwise appropriate manner. Anyone watching the main stream media heard pundits and anchors waxing on the gravitas attribute of William Jefferson Clinton over all others. The term survived well into the Bush and post 9/11 years, where the media at times accused George W. Bush of not only lacking gravitas but in later years as metaphorically “spiking the football,” such as with his ill-advised but non-offensive “mission accomplished” speech aboard an aircraft carrier.
By the utterance of one sentence amid cameras and the press, we bear witness not only to the complete absence of gravitas, we also watch Hillary Clinton “spiking the football” while laughing about a murder that will have an extremely significant impact on the power structure in North Africa and the Middle East. The only thing missing from the setting in which Hillary Clinton had made her statement was a “mission accomplished” banner across the back of the room…..
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Eligibility rulings vanish from Net (Minor v Happersett, FReeper Danae quoted)
A New Jersey attorney who brought the first legal challenge to Barack Obama’s occupancy in the Oval Office to the U.S. Supreme Court has published a report revealing that references to a U.S. Supreme Court decision addressing the definition of “natural-born citizen” were scrubbed at one of the key online resources for legal documents.
The Minor v. Happersett case is significant because it is one of very few references in the nation’s archives that addresses the definition of “natural-born citizen,” a requirement imposed by the U.S. Constitution on only the U.S. president.
Among the dozens of examples identified by Donofrio was the Luria case.
Dianna Cotter wrote in the Portland Civil Rights Examiner: “This was done in these specific cases in order to prevent their being found by Internet researchers long before anyone had even begun to look for them, even before Obama would win the Democratic nomination at the DNC Convention in Denver, Colo., in August ’08. This is premeditation and intent to deceive.”
She noted that attorneys working on arguments always would return to the originals from the Supreme Court, “but 99.99 percent of the population has no access to dusty law texts or expensive legal research services such as Lexis and Westlaw.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com …
via Eligibility rulings vanish from Net (Minor v Happersett, FReeper Danae quoted).
Most in U.S. would scrap Electoral College
PRINCETON, N.J., Oct. 24 (UPI) — Most Americans say they would amend the Constitution to swap the Electoral College with a popular-vote system to elect the president, a poll indicates.
Sixty-two percent of Americans prefer replacing the Electoral College and 35 percent would keep the current method for electing presidents, results from a Gallup poll released Monday indicated.
For the first time since the disputed 2000 presidential election, the majority of Republicans said they favor amending the Constitution, the Princeton, N.J., polling agency said.
That year, Democrat Al Gore won the national popular vote but Republican George W. Bush wound up with more electoral votes and was elected.
Those who advocate abolishing the Electoral College said they thought the system puts undue emphasis on a small number of swing states, Gallup said. Americans generally agree that the United States should adopt a system in which the popular vote prevails.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com …
A Painful Mirror for America
The mirror into modern-day America created by the “occupiers” who have taken to the streets reveals painful images and insights for those committed to traditional American values. Even without a clear, core message, most Americans can identify with the anger at those who have contributed to our broken economy. But many tax-paying Americans are equally fed up with the stream of complaints from the self-obsessed protestors who want their debts forgiven and the “rich” to pay for their “free” education.
This is not the orderly and respectful Tea Party crowd who scheduled demonstrations around working hours and cleaned up after their events. More than 1,500 protestors across the country have been arrested for charges ranging from assaulting police officers and disorderly conduct to trespassing. Instead of championing liberty and smaller government, the “occupiers” seem committed to attacking capitalism and using government to take from others to meet their selfish needs.
But these demonstrators are some of our fellow citizens, neighbors, and students–products of our educational system. A look at a variety of their signs challenges citizens to look at the culture we’ve helped create.
“Smash Capitalism–People Not Profits” and “Stop the War on Working People”…We’ve failed to sell the free-enterprise system that’s created the American Dream. Without capital willing to invest, entrepreneurs willing take the risk, leaders and workers ready to deliver on the vision, and a profit to sustain the enterprise, there are no jobs, and people suffer. We’ve elected an administration that has altered the incentives that drive economic growth. Uncertainty and the fear of increased costs and taxes have put growth and jobs on hold. The “occupiers” should be marching on Washington, not Wall Street.
“The Too Big to Fail…Should Be In Jail!”… I’ll wave that sign! Instead of bailing out big, failing corporations that turned public funds into big executive bonuses, we should’ve let them fail or encouraged guided bankruptcies. In America, we let people and corporations earn their successes AND their failures. But where’s the anger at the politicians who mandated banks to give home loans to people who couldn’t afford them? Such “caring” loans have turned cruel forcing many Americans to lose their homes and their credit.
“Climate Change Is Not in Our National Interest”… The “occupiers” love lecturing Americans on their environmental crimes but show little respect for the environments they occupy and march through. They fight global warming while trashing parks and local business establishments. “Occupiers” must never have been taught to clean up their own messes and to better the environment where they are!
“If Jesus comes back, kill him again!”… This sign doesn’t speak for many demonstrators or citizens, but points out a danger. We’ve taken God out of the schools and the Nativities out of our public squares, and we wonder why believing in God has given way to believing in government. The “progressive” believers want forced “economic justice” that steals from the few to fuel the envy of the masses while trashing equal Constitutional justice. A humble appreciation for charity and community support has given way to arrogant demands for more tax-funded entitlements. Our spoiled children have become spoiled adults.
“Debt Is Slavery”… These “occupiers” funded a standard of living they couldn’t afford on debt and now want bankers and politicians to erase the consequences for their irresponsible choices. Thankfully, my depression-hardened father would’ve said: “If you don’t want the debt, don’t take the loan. Work your butt off, save every dime, and buy what you want when you can afford it!” Responsible citizens blame the borrower not the banker.
Unfortunately, our “spread the wealth” president’s own words have helped fuel the rage at the “rich.” But when has taking down the rich ever helped the poor? Has communism worked? Has Europe’s socialism worked? Class envy may provide a target for their anger, but redistribution has always ended poorly…spreading poverty instead of opportunity.
“Occupiers” have the right to exercise their freedom of speech, but their irresponsible behavior and incoherent demands are awakening the “true” majority of average Americans who recoil from their messages and actions. There’s one of their signs that might come close to being embraced by the 99% of Americans they claim to speak for–”Hope Takes Work!”
Finally, a truth worthy of support. No fairy godmother will just grant you a job. You must find one and earn the right to keep it. As my parents said, “The world doesn’t owe you a living.” Here’s my sign for the “occupiers:” “Clean up after yourself. Invest your demonstration time into making something of yourself and helping others in your community do the same. Forget occupying Wall Street; try occupying a job or starting a business of your own. Someday, Wall Street might just invest in you.”
The Adults In The Room
So, the President orders a war on a sovereign nation that has not recently attacked its neighbors or the US. He fails to consult Congress as is required by the US Constitution, and he blatantly lies about the war’s scope and purpose. Once the tyrannical regime is toppled, the President ‘spikes the ball’ in celebration – mission accomplished. He has won the war, but has no plan to secure the peace.
If this were 2003 instead of last week, extreme left organizations like Code Pink would be burning Pres. Bush in effigy. The Old Time Media and leftist groups have a vested interest in Obama, so their thundering silence is understandable, but what of the right? Shouldn’t conservatives be crying shenanigans on this one? Obama’s pass proves that the conservatives are the only adults in the room when it comes to foreign policy.
To be sure, Obama may have created a global disaster by fomenting revolutions in places such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya, and now Kenya. Most revolutions end in genocide and tyranny (e.g. France, Spain, Russia, China, and Bosnia). The US, the Czech Republic, and South Africa are exceptions where a rule of law took hold and lives improved. Cutting deals with tyrants such as the Shah of Iran is an ugly business that seems beneath the ideals of a great nation, but the fact is that most of the world is run by tyrants, and such arrangements are at a minimum pragmatic. If Obama’s strategy of disrupting Mid-East tyrants and then hoping for an organic legitimate government fails, the plight of these peoples will go from bad to worse, and the US’s interest in regional stability will be gravely damaged. Also, Obama’s calculus of ignoring terrorist tyrannies such as Iran and Syria is at least puzzling.
Obama’s alternately conciliatory and militant approach to Mid-East tyrants probably reflects incompetence or at least naiveté, but he will remain President for at least 454 more days. Congress acknowledged this reality when it determined that Obama violated the War Powers Act, yet declined to defund his illegal Libyan war. So long as Obama calls the foreign policy shots, Congress needs to support him and give him a reasonable chance to succeed. Pres. Bush won the Iraq war despite political sabotage from the likes of Sen. Reid who said “this war is lost” in 2007, just as the tide was turning in the US’s favor.
Under Pres. Bush, the OTM and the extreme left acted as children by using every tool to tear the President down, even at the expense of the war effort. Shout Bits rarely sings the praises of conservatives, but in this instance, their restraint in the face of fairly obvious Presidential incompetence is the adult response. Foreign policy should not be open to a perpetual political campaign, and with the election more than a year away, now is not the time to start. The fruits of Obama’s risky Mid-East strategy will be obvious in time, but for now he rightly enjoys the support of the loyal opposition.
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Obama to bypass Congress on housing (will announce a series of executive actions on housing)
Barack Obama wants to pose as a man of action on the economy, the New York Times reports today, and so he will announce a series of executive actions on housing and education. Obama hopes that these actions will contrast himself with Congress, where even Democrats have balked at passing his American Jobs Act either in whole or piecemeal:
EXCERPT
via Obama to bypass Congress on housing (will announce a series of executive actions on housing).
Republicans slam plan for redistricting
Frustrated GOP candidates who failed to dethrone long-serving Democratic Bay State congressmen in November say they expect to see Beacon Hill Democrats use redistricting to tighten their party’s grasp on power.
“They came out and said, ‘We’re going to do this fairly’ … then they went behind closed doors and are deciding it amongst themselves,” said Sean Bielat, a Brookline Republican who lost to U.S. Rep. Barney Frank in 2010. “The fact they were able to put the state House and Senate districts out and they still haven’t done the congressional districts is indicative of the horse-trading that’s occurring in order to save incumbents.”
Frank’s heavily gerry-mandered district encompasses parts of four counties and snakes from Brookline to New Bedford.
“It’s absolutely drawn to provide protection to the current incumbent and future Democrats who represent that district,” Bielat said. “It’s not drawn to make sure you have an equal voice for people with similar problems.”
The Special Joint Committee on Redistricting is made up of 22 Democrats and five Republicans.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com …
TSA Agent Jokes About Finding Sex Toy During Luggage Inspection
Not satisfied with fumbling through Americans’ private possessions, one TSA screener saw fit to make a humiliating joke about the contents, writing a personal message on a TSA inspection note after finding a sex toy in writer Jill Filipovic’s luggage.
TSA Agent Jokes About Finding Sex Toy During Luggage Inspection 241011feature3
After arriving at her hotel, Filipovic was unpacking when she discovered her bag had been individually searched by a TSA screener who, having seen the “personal item,” saw fit to comment, writing “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” on the reverse side of an inspection notice.
“Total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not ok, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room,” wrote Filipovic.
While proving themselves adept at identifying women’s vibrators, TSA screeners are notoriously less skilled at actually doing what they’re paid to do – find dangerous items.
TSA screeners missed a loaded gun inside a checked bag at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
“The .38-caliber handgun fell out of a duffel bag as a luggage ramp crew was loading it onto an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Ore,” reports USA Today.
Perhaps Filipovic should be relieved that the TSA goon didn’t just steal the item, but they only tend to do that when it’s something really valuable like a laptop, jewelry, precious metals, or cash.
67,000 passenger loss claims have been filed against the TSA since 2003, a figure the federal agency finds completely acceptable.
As we reported earlier, TSA screeners are also now routinely interrogating Americans with questions about their personal income and the value of items they carry through airport security.
*********************
via Prison Planet.com » TSA Agent Jokes About Finding Sex Toy During Luggage Inspection.
Mission Creep: This Tennessee Highway Is Now Patrolled by TSA
Most air travelers now endure naked scans or genital pat-downs by gloved agents of the government without surprise or complaint. But before invasive security became normal, there was a backlash. And at its height, Transportation Security Administration boss John Pistole said something revealing.
“I see flying as a privilege that is a public safety issue. So the government has a role in providing for the public safety and we need to do everything we can in partnership with the traveling public, to inform them about what their options are,” he told reporters.
“I clearly believe that passengers have a number of options as they go through screening. But the bottom line is, if someone decides they don’t want to have screening, they don’t have the right to get on the plane.” What perturbed me wasn’t his defense of mandatory security screening. It was his assertion that air travel is a special “privilege” the feds grant citizens.
I felt the same uneasy twinge when Janet Napolitano, who heads the Department of Homeland Security, told USA Today that “if people want to travel by other means, they have that right.” Because where does that attitude end? Is it a “privilege” to attend the Super Bowl, where TSA agents scan the crowd for suspicious behavior? Or to ride on a Metro system, an Amtrak train, or a boat — other forms of transportation that Napolitano has mused about targeting?
As Mark Browning wrote in 2010, using hyperbole and reduction ad absurdum to mock Napolitano, “The bus system could come next. Come to think of it, so could travel by automobile… Here, we find that not only are the crevices of our bodies searched, but so are the contents of our cars. If you don’t like it, don’t drive. Nowhere in that living document, the Constitution, are we assured of our right to move without hindrance from point to point by private automobile.”
Of course, that would never really happen… would it?
In the local news report above, which my colleague James Fallows notes here, a Tennessee TV news broadcast reports that TSA is already operating on highways in the state. The brilliant reasoning? “Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,” said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons. Perhaps he can be forgiven for this absurd quote. After all, his job is to keep Tennessee safe from terrorists. By definition he’s guarding against a remote threat. But it ought to make us all upset that the federal government assessed its counter-terrorism resources and decided that the best use of scarce funds would be random checks on vehicles on Tennessee highways.
Feel safer?
The TSA agents are urging all drivers to “say something” if they see something suspicious, which brings us to another great quote from the piece: “If somebody sees something somewhere, we want them to be responsible citizens,” says Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director. “Report that and let us work it through our processes to vet the concern they had when they saw something suspicious.” Granted, if I were driving (rather than traveling by train) to Chattanooga, and I saw an 18 wheeler with a “Death to America” bumper sticker and fertilizer spilling out the back, I’d call the cops; but if there were any actual terrorists on the highways of Tennessee, wouldn’t their explosive filled truck look, from the outside, like any other truck?
The last thing America needs is to let TSA and its absurd, security-theater loving bureaucrats out of the airport. Reports a local newspaper: “Larry Godwin, deputy commissioner of TDSHS, said the checks at the weigh stations were about showing the people of Tennessee the government is serious about transportation safety.” But quotes like that in fact show that they aren’t serious about transportation safety so much as the appearance of it.
I’d consent to beefing up airport security even more if it meant being able to keep TSA agents inside the terminal. The notion of random searches spreading everywhere in American life, whether you’re exercising the “privilege” of going to a sporting event or driving down the highway, amounts to an unconstitutional surrender to terrorism in places where we’ve never even been hit by it.
via Prison Planet.com » Mission Creep: This Tennessee Highway Is Now Patrolled by TSA.
Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk: The Tyranny of TSA Highway Checkpoints
Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk: The Tyranny of TSA Highway Checkpoints
Print The Alex Jones Channel Alex Jones Show podcast Prison Planet TV Infowars.com Twitter Alex Jones’ Facebook Infowars store
Ron Paul
October 24, 2011
The Congressman delivers some hard truths regarding the TSA.
via Prison Planet.com » Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk: The Tyranny of TSA Highway Checkpoints.
Hacker develops rear window LED to send messages to other drivers
Hacker develops rear window LED to send messages to other drivers
10-23-2011 • Digital Trends
With aggressive drivers that enjoy tailgating other vehicles in mind, a hacker decided to built a method to communicate to those annoying drivers without using obscene hand gestures.
Read Full Story
via Hacker develops rear window LED to send messages to other drivers.
GOP lawmakers urge Republicans to steer clear of ‘birtherism’ in 2012 – The Hill’s Ballot Box
During the 2008 campaign, Obama released his short-form certificate, certified by his home state of Hawaii. Then in April 2011, he released the long-form version after Donald Trump continually accused him of not being an American citizen. But critics have continued to suggest that Obama’s documents were forged.
Obama supporters have argued that ruminations about Obama not being an American or eligible to serve as president are grounded in racism, an accusation that birthers reject.
Comments (55)
EXCERPT
via GOP lawmakers urge Republicans to steer clear of ‘birtherism’ in 2012 – The Hill’s Ballot Box.
CFP: November 9th’s USA Nationwide Communication Blackout
READER RESPONSE: READ ARTICLE, OTHER RESPONSES. Etc. @ TITLE/LINK…..
Thanks for the heads-up on the upcoming information blackout. Also on that day NASA has Asteroid 2005 YU55 coming closest to Earth, passing between Earth and the Moon (0.0023 AU).
The absence of information about what is occurring in our solar system is astounding. The almost daily enormous solar flares, increased earthquake and volcanic activity is going almost totally unreported.
And what’s with that huge building project on the WH grounds all about?
EXCERPT
via CFP: November 9th’s USA Nationwide Communication Blackout .
Define the Word “Patriot”| The Post & Email
AND ARE THERE ENOUGH TO SOUND THE ALARM?
by One Pissed-off Vietnam Vet
Paul Revere risked his life to warn the colonists that “the British are coming” during his famour midnight ride of April 18, 1775
(Oct. 24, 2011) — Labeling one a Patriot just because they are a veteran would be just as inaccurate as saying every contestant in a Betty Crocker Cook-Off is a great cook. Not so because I’ve been told that there may be a veteran or two who, not only say they voted for Obama, but support him to this day, after three years of dismantling the country and trashing the Constitution. Yes, I know, hard to believe that some people who, at one time, took an Oath to the Constitution have, for whatever excuse, allowed that Oath to expire. Such a disappointment is, quite obviously, not a Patriot. So what is a Patriot?
Well, now, we’ve just learned that by taking the Oath does not necessarily make one a Patriot. My wife never took the Oath, but I can assure you she is as patriotic as any whom I served with while in the military, back in the day before the United States sunk to where it is today. It’s a lot easier to define what a Patriot is not than the other way around, but I’ll try without saying the usual platitudes about “love” and “defending.”
First off, a Patriot knows that…..
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YO, AMERICAN BLOGGERS! THE TIME FOR THE SLUMBERING GIANT TO AWAKEN IS LONG OVERDUE.
1984+PLUS IS UPON US!
AMERICAN BLOGGERS: AWAKEN THE BIG DUMMY -- DO IT NOW! !!!!!
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NO AINOs!!!!! "REAL" AMERICANS ONLY!
--Gunny G!
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT - Chuck Baldwin Archive
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LEST WE FORGET
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~JOHN ADAMS
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~ BARRY GOLDWATER
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