Wednesday, August 31, 2011
American's are seeing right through Obama the more he tries to play Dirty Politics and Create Division in America
August 31, 2011
Ron Paul threatens to object to Obama’s job speech request
Published: 4:07 PM 08/31/2011 By C.J. Ciaramella- The Daily Caller
Republicans are crying foul over President Barack Obama’s Sept. 7 jobs speech, announced Wednesday, which will conflict with a long-scheduled GOP candidate debate.
Obama has requested a joint session of Congress to unveil his new jobs plan. It would be at the same time as a GOP presidential candidate debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
Republicans have called Obama’s timing a campaign ploy, and Texas Representative and GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul has hinted that he is considering objecting to the president’s request.
“Dr. Paul is weighing his options,” Paul’s campaign spokesman Jesse Benton told Slate. “Our campaign, however, thinks it is undignified that the President of the United States would resort to such transparent tactics to step on our Republican debate. The real losers here are the American People who deserve the opportunity to hear from both the President and the GOP contenders.”
Paul could not block the president’s request by himself, but he — or any other member of Congress — could force a roll-call vote. Since Congress is currently out of session, the most likely way for Obama’s request to be approved would be through a “unanimous consent” vote during a pro forma session of Congress.
If a member of Congress requests a recorded vote, Congress would have to reconvene sometime before the speech. Unified Republican opposition in either the House or the Senate would block the president’s request.
Other GOP candidates also criticized Obama’s announcement. (PICTURE IN PICTURE: Obama requests joint session of Congress to introduce ‘jobs plan’ on same day as GOP presidential debate)
“Desperate political times for the president call for desperate political measures,” Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said. “His latest purely political maneuver won’t work though, because his economic policies have failed.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called Obama’s timing a “thinly-veiled political ploy.”
“President Obama’s decision to address Congress at the same time as a long-scheduled Republican Presidential debate cements his reputation as Campaigner-in-Chief,” Priebus said in a statement. “While the White House claims it’s simply a ‘coincidence,’ the American people can see right through that excuse. The President has had months to get to work on the economy, but instead he chose to take a taxpayer-funded campaign trip and a cushy Martha’s Vineyard vacation. If the President were serious about putting ‘country before politics,’ as he said in his request to speak to Congress, he wouldn’t be caught in such a thinly-veiled political ploy.”
Obama's Lying Again....He didn't check with Anyone before announcing the Date and Time for his speech....
I believe Boehner that the White House NEVER consulted with him about the date and time for Obama's speech...the way Obama constantly lies about everything it's obvious he's lying again. If he can't even work with the Republicans to set a date and time for his speech what makes anyone think Obama would be willing to work across party lines to get anything done that is good for America! Obama and his Administration is a HUGE problem for America
Boehner requests that Obama delay jobs speech
Published: Updated: 8:53 PM 08/31/2011 By C.J. Ciaramella - The Daily Caller
Speaker of the House John Boehner has requested that President Obama delay his September 7 speech before a joint session of Congress, which the president plans to use to unveil his new jobs plan, by one day.
The time that the president requested for the joint session, announced Wednesday, would have directly conflicted with a long-scheduled debate between GOP presidential contenders at the Reagan Library in California. In his letter, Boehner did not mention the debate but instead cited the time-crunch that would result from a September 7 joint session.
A concurrent vote is required by both chambers, and the date is the first day that the House is back in session, with voting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (RELATED: Ron Paul threatens to object to Obama’s job speech request)
“With the significant amount of time — typically more than three hours — that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a President, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks,” Boehner wrote in a letter to the president.
“As such, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and Senate, I respectfully invite you to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8, 2011 in the House Chamber, at a time that works best for your schedule,” the letter read.
But a September 8 date for the president’s speech would not be without its detractors. The NFL season starts that night at 8:30 p.m. EST, with the Packers playing the Saints.
The date debate has devolved into a back-and-forth game of he-said, she-said. The White House is insisting that it consulted Boehner’s office about the Sept. 7 date and that the Speaker’s office did not object, CBS News’ Mark Knoller reported Wednesday evening.
A spokesman for Boehner says that’s not true.
“No one in the Speaker’s office — not the Speaker, not any staff — signed off on the date the White House announced today,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement. “Unfortunately we weren’t even asked if that date worked for the House.”
“Shortly before it arrived this morning, we were simply informed that a letter was coming,” the statement read. “It’s unfortunate the White House ignored decades — if not centuries — of the protocol of working out a mutually agreeable date and time before making any public announcement.”
Boehner requests that Obama delay jobs speech
Published: Updated: 8:53 PM 08/31/2011 By C.J. Ciaramella - The Daily Caller
Speaker of the House John Boehner has requested that President Obama delay his September 7 speech before a joint session of Congress, which the president plans to use to unveil his new jobs plan, by one day.
The time that the president requested for the joint session, announced Wednesday, would have directly conflicted with a long-scheduled debate between GOP presidential contenders at the Reagan Library in California. In his letter, Boehner did not mention the debate but instead cited the time-crunch that would result from a September 7 joint session.
A concurrent vote is required by both chambers, and the date is the first day that the House is back in session, with voting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (RELATED: Ron Paul threatens to object to Obama’s job speech request)
“With the significant amount of time — typically more than three hours — that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a President, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks,” Boehner wrote in a letter to the president.
“As such, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and Senate, I respectfully invite you to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8, 2011 in the House Chamber, at a time that works best for your schedule,” the letter read.
But a September 8 date for the president’s speech would not be without its detractors. The NFL season starts that night at 8:30 p.m. EST, with the Packers playing the Saints.
The date debate has devolved into a back-and-forth game of he-said, she-said. The White House is insisting that it consulted Boehner’s office about the Sept. 7 date and that the Speaker’s office did not object, CBS News’ Mark Knoller reported Wednesday evening.
A spokesman for Boehner says that’s not true.
“No one in the Speaker’s office — not the Speaker, not any staff — signed off on the date the White House announced today,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement. “Unfortunately we weren’t even asked if that date worked for the House.”
“Shortly before it arrived this morning, we were simply informed that a letter was coming,” the statement read. “It’s unfortunate the White House ignored decades — if not centuries — of the protocol of working out a mutually agreeable date and time before making any public announcement.”
Go Jim DeMint...!
Senate jam: DeMint also vows to block Obama speech
By JONATHAN ALLEN | 8/31/11 7:52 PM EDT
Sen. Jim DeMint vowed Wednesday to try to block President Barack Obama from addressing a joint session of Congress on the same day as a Republican presidential debate next week.
Obama could learn something from the GOP, DeMint reasoned, in adding his voice — and his vote — to a growing chorus of Republican objections.
“The president should pick another night. I’m planning to watch the Republican primary debate … and the president should watch it, too.”
The iconic South Carolina conservative said. “If he has a jobs proposal, put it in writing, give us a cost estimate, and send it over. I want to read the bill, not listen to talking points off a TelePrompter. If he insists on playing politics by picking the night of the GOP debate, I will object to the session.”
A lone determined senator can tie the chamber in knots for days, and the House and Senate must both pass a concurrent resolution to allow for the president to speak to a joint session.
To the surprise of Republican officials, Obama announced Wednesday that he wanted to give a jobs-focused speech to Congress on Sept. 7 — at the same time as the NBC News- and POLITICO-sponsored Republican debate in Simi Valley, Calif.
House Speaker John Boehner countered with Sept. 8 — using the fig leaf of security, logistical and procedural concerns to cover tension over the handling of the request. That date presents its own problems when it comes to the potential network television audience — it’s opening night of the NFL, with NBC broadcasting a huge game between the past two Super Bowl champions, the Saints and the Packers.
The back-and-forth between the Obama and Boehner camps quickly turned into an only-in-Washington sideshow, with each side proclaiming offense at the other’s lack of courtesy and flouting of protocol.
While Boehner’s response didn’t reject Obama’s plan outright, DeMint’s threat adds another sizable obstacle to the Sept. 7 proposal.
DeMint says Obama should pay attention to his would-be opponents.
“He will hear job creation ideas that don’t involve more wasteful stimulus spending,” DeMint said. “And he’ll hear ideas that don’t include job-destroying tax hikes.”
Hilda Solis is just another Obama Administration Idiot!
SEE BOTH STORIES
#1 Is this Administration this clueless????....This Stupid????
Obama Labor Boss Buys Canadian-Built Car
Says purchase was to show support for American workers
By Paul Bedard Posted: August 31, 2011
To show her support for American workers, President Obama's labor secretary, Hilda Solis, has junked the standard black limo and purchased a new Chevrolet Equinox to ride around Washington in. The problem: the crossover SUV is built and assembled in Canada from parts also made in Canada.
Solis proudly arrived at a media breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor today in the shiny silver vehicle, which she has dubbed the "bullet." She was asked about why she traded the standard-issue limo for the SUV. "What better example could I set if I encouraged my staff to go and purchase and seek how we could acquire a vehicle that would for me would send a signal that we're for supporting our American workers, American-made products, fuel efficient as well," she told the Monitor's Dave Cook, who provided this video of her answer.
[Check out political cartoons about the economy.]
Solis added that she was inspired to buy the Chevy because of the pride she saw in American auto workers during trips to U.S. car and truck plants. She said that she was wowed by "the pride that they take making our automobiles here in America."
The car is made at two Canadian plants and has been so popular that General Motors has been hiring more workers in Canada to keep up with demand. [See who's in Obama's inner circle.]
A company official noted that the profits do come back to the United States.
Solis did note that the Equinox, which she's driven once, is a nice ride. "It drives well. It's a good family car. Its not too big and I think women really like it."
Update: When Whispers notified her office that her “American-made” car was actually Canadian, Labor spokesman Carl Fillichio said, “Modern automobile manufacturing is a global industry and General Motors is a company whose reach extends far beyond the boundaries of the United States. Cars assembled here in the U.S. are made from globally sourced parts, just as cars assembled in other countries utilize parts made in America. Not only is the Equinox the second fastest selling SUV in America—a good sign for the overall health of the U.S. auto industry—66 percent of its parts were made in America. That’s up from about 50 percent just a few years ago.”
#2 - Does Solis not Understand the Term Illegal???? Does she not respect the rule of law???? Does she not know that these jobs taken by illegals could be taken by legal citizens????
Labor Department Agreements Protect Illegal Workers
By Shannon Bream Published August 31, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has overseen a number of signed agreements between U.S. agencies and foreign officials pledging to give migrant workers the full protections of U.S. workplace laws -- regardless of their legal status -- and she says her department will uphold them.
"No matter how you got here or how long you plan to stay, you have certain rights," Solis said at an event unveiling the latest agreements on Monday in Washington.
Solis says foreign workers need to know their rights, so that they can lodge complaints without fear that they will be fired or deported. She believes the signed agreements with countries like El Salvador and Mexico will serve to "remove those fears."
Critics of the move say the policy flies in the face of U.S. laws on both immigration and labor, and find the pledges especially worrisome in a time of high unemployment.
"Obviously everyone wants workers protected in the workplace, that's not the issue," said Phil Kent, national spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control. "The problem is the bending over backwards to help and promote black market labor."
Solis defends the agreements, saying that current U.S. law protects all workers.
"Previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have held to that, so I'm not doing anything different," she said.
But critics argue that regardless of which party advocates for the written agreements, the policy is wrong. They also note that the Labor Department’s own website states that businesses may only hire workers who are U.S. citizens or those who are in the country legally.
Kent says it's also a slap in the face to immigrants who try to go through proper legal channels for naturalization, saying they must ask themselves whether it’s worth it to immigrate legally.
"Why did I bother to go through six, seven years of this to become a citizen when you have people like Secretary Solis and the Obama administration just thumbing their nose at the law -- and the American worker?" Kent said, describing how legal immigrants may respond.
In addition to the agreements already signed with countries in Central America, Solis says there are also plans to enter into similar partnerships with governments in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.
#1 Is this Administration this clueless????....This Stupid????
Obama Labor Boss Buys Canadian-Built Car
Says purchase was to show support for American workers
By Paul Bedard Posted: August 31, 2011
To show her support for American workers, President Obama's labor secretary, Hilda Solis, has junked the standard black limo and purchased a new Chevrolet Equinox to ride around Washington in. The problem: the crossover SUV is built and assembled in Canada from parts also made in Canada.
Solis proudly arrived at a media breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor today in the shiny silver vehicle, which she has dubbed the "bullet." She was asked about why she traded the standard-issue limo for the SUV. "What better example could I set if I encouraged my staff to go and purchase and seek how we could acquire a vehicle that would for me would send a signal that we're for supporting our American workers, American-made products, fuel efficient as well," she told the Monitor's Dave Cook, who provided this video of her answer.
[Check out political cartoons about the economy.]
Solis added that she was inspired to buy the Chevy because of the pride she saw in American auto workers during trips to U.S. car and truck plants. She said that she was wowed by "the pride that they take making our automobiles here in America."
The car is made at two Canadian plants and has been so popular that General Motors has been hiring more workers in Canada to keep up with demand. [See who's in Obama's inner circle.]
A company official noted that the profits do come back to the United States.
Solis did note that the Equinox, which she's driven once, is a nice ride. "It drives well. It's a good family car. Its not too big and I think women really like it."
Update: When Whispers notified her office that her “American-made” car was actually Canadian, Labor spokesman Carl Fillichio said, “Modern automobile manufacturing is a global industry and General Motors is a company whose reach extends far beyond the boundaries of the United States. Cars assembled here in the U.S. are made from globally sourced parts, just as cars assembled in other countries utilize parts made in America. Not only is the Equinox the second fastest selling SUV in America—a good sign for the overall health of the U.S. auto industry—66 percent of its parts were made in America. That’s up from about 50 percent just a few years ago.”
#2 - Does Solis not Understand the Term Illegal???? Does she not respect the rule of law???? Does she not know that these jobs taken by illegals could be taken by legal citizens????
Labor Department Agreements Protect Illegal Workers
By Shannon Bream Published August 31, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has overseen a number of signed agreements between U.S. agencies and foreign officials pledging to give migrant workers the full protections of U.S. workplace laws -- regardless of their legal status -- and she says her department will uphold them.
"No matter how you got here or how long you plan to stay, you have certain rights," Solis said at an event unveiling the latest agreements on Monday in Washington.
Solis says foreign workers need to know their rights, so that they can lodge complaints without fear that they will be fired or deported. She believes the signed agreements with countries like El Salvador and Mexico will serve to "remove those fears."
Critics of the move say the policy flies in the face of U.S. laws on both immigration and labor, and find the pledges especially worrisome in a time of high unemployment.
"Obviously everyone wants workers protected in the workplace, that's not the issue," said Phil Kent, national spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control. "The problem is the bending over backwards to help and promote black market labor."
Solis defends the agreements, saying that current U.S. law protects all workers.
"Previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have held to that, so I'm not doing anything different," she said.
But critics argue that regardless of which party advocates for the written agreements, the policy is wrong. They also note that the Labor Department’s own website states that businesses may only hire workers who are U.S. citizens or those who are in the country legally.
Kent says it's also a slap in the face to immigrants who try to go through proper legal channels for naturalization, saying they must ask themselves whether it’s worth it to immigrate legally.
"Why did I bother to go through six, seven years of this to become a citizen when you have people like Secretary Solis and the Obama administration just thumbing their nose at the law -- and the American worker?" Kent said, describing how legal immigrants may respond.
In addition to the agreements already signed with countries in Central America, Solis says there are also plans to enter into similar partnerships with governments in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.
Good for Boehner!
Good for John Boehner....Obama has really got guts...he says he wants to get above politics and craps on the political event long planned by the republicans....All Obama knows is playing politics....he spent over a week in Martha's Vineyard and up to a few days ago he was still supposedly working on his jobs speech, but now everyone else has to change their plans because he's finally ready to talk...and he wants a huge stage to deliver what we all know will be the same old, same old repackaged crap.....I'm glad Boehner told him to change his date....
Boehner Asks Obama to Delay Jobs Speech
By Kate Andersen Brower and Margaret Talev - Aug 31, 2011 4:56 PM CT .
House Speaker John Boehner rebuffed President Barack Obama’s request to address a joint session of Congress on the same night as a Republican presidential debate in California.
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, cited a lack of time to prepare for the speech that Obama wants to deliver on Sept. 7 and instead asked for the address to be given a day later, according to a letter addressed to the president that was released by the speaker’s office.
Obama earlier in the day said he wants to deliver the address to announce his proposals to create jobs and jump-start the economy. A White House official speaking on condition of anonymity said the administration consulted with Boehner’s office before releasing the request and no objections were raised. Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said the speaker’s office didn’t agree to the timing of the speech and that the White House "ignored" protocol for working out an agreeable time before making an announcement.
The unprecedented public dispute over the timing of the presidential address sets the stage for a battle to lead the political debate on the economy going into next year’s election. Obama is proposing measures he says would boost growth and bring down the 9.1 percent unemployment rate. He’s confronted by Republicans who won control of the House from Democrats in 2010 on a campaign that stressed criticism of Obama’s economic stewardship and the $830 billion stimulus he pushed through Congress in 2009.
Donald A. Ritchie, the U.S. Senate historian, said he and his staff had not found any other public examples in which a president had requested a joint session date and been turned away.
Private Negotiations
Ritchie said he isn’t aware of an example of a president publicly requesting a date for a joint session without first checking privately with House and Senate leaders. “The emphasis is on the word public,” he said. “We don’t know what kind of negotiations have gone on” in private.
Ritchie said there are factors beyond politics to consider. “Congress will just be coming back from a month-long recess. Monday’s a holiday. So it’s a rather truncated week to start with. All of that factors into it.”
Obama’s request to address Congress at 8 p.m. Washington time on Sept. 7 drew criticism from Republicans earlier because that also is the time that eight of the candidates running for the party’s presidential nomination are scheduled to debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
‘All Politics’
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a message on Twitter that Obama’s plan to give the address on the night of the debate is “further proof” that the Obama White House “is all politics all the time.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed the criticism, saying the scheduling was “coincidental.” Asked at a White House briefing whether the administration intended to interfere with the Republican debate, Carney said, “No, of course not.”
In his letter, Boehner made no mention of the conflict with the Republican debate. He said the House wasn’t scheduled to hold votes until 6:30 p.m. Sept. 7 and it would require more than three hours to conduct a security sweep of the House chamber before a presidential address. Both houses must adopt a resolution to allow a joint session, he said.
Moving the address to the next evening would “ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks,” Boehner wrote.
NFL Opening Game
A Sept. 8 address would conflict with the opening game of the National Football League season.
Boehner said he was recommending the change of dates “on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and Senate.”
House Democratic leaders weren’t consulted by Boehner about requesting a different day, according to an aide to minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The White House official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, declined to say how far in advance of Obama’s announcement the request for a joint session was made or who in Boehner’s office was involved in the discussions.
Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said picking Sept. 7 for his address gives Obama an advantage.
‘Unfiltered Gateway’
“He wants an unfiltered gateway to the American voters and what better way of doing that than when Brian Williams is somewhere else?” she said, referring to the NBC News anchor. The Republican presidential debate is sponsored by NBC News and Politico.
“If you want to bypass mainstream media then you pick a day when half of them are busy,” Schiller said.
In his request to address both chambers of Congress, Obama wrote to Boehner and Reid that, “It is my intention to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the middle class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order.”
The request would place Obama in a forum that presidents traditionally reserve for their annual State of the Union addresses and occasions such as national crises as he opens the fall political season with a new economic agenda.
Health-Care Speech
Besides his annual State of the Union addresses and a speech delivered just after he took office, Obama used the forum of a joint session of Congress once before, in September 2009, when he was prodding lawmakers to act on his proposal to overhaul the U.S. health-care system.
Among the provisions Obama has been considering for his jobs agenda are more infrastructure spending, tax incentives to spur hiring, a reduction in the employer portion of the payroll tax and changes to unemployment insurance to subsidize worker retraining, according to people familiar with discussions.
Obama has spent much of the year pressing Congress to act on a familiar set of plans: renewal of a 2-percentage-point cut in the employee-paid portion of the payroll tax and extended unemployment benefits, which are both scheduled to expire on Dec. 31; establishment of an infrastructure bank to fund public works spending; ratification of free-trade deals; and overhauling patent law. Obama has said those also will remain priorities.
‘Unprecedented’ Challenges
Obama said in his letter that the nation, with an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, faces “unprecedented” economic challenges. More than two years after the recession’s official end, the jobless rate is just one percentage point below its post-financial crisis peak of 10.1 percent, which it reached in October 2009.
Concern about the economy has increased as growth weakened during the first half of the year to its slowest pace of the recovery and financial markets turned tumultuous amid concern about the European debt crisis.
The signs of weakness have led private economists to increase their forecasts for the unemployment rate next year, when Obama faces re-election. The median forecast for unemployment during next year’s fourth quarter is 8.5 percent, according to 51 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News Aug. 2 through Aug. 10.
Since World War II, no U.S. president has won re-election with a jobless rate above 6 percent, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, who faced 7.2 percent unemployment on Election Day in 1984. The jobless rate under Reagan had come down more than 3 percentage points during the prior two years.
Economic Forecast
The administration will give its updated forecast on the economy and the deficit tomorrow in its mid-session budget review.
Obama wrote that on his three-day bus tour in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois in mid-August, he “heard a consistent message: Washington needs to put aside politics and start making decisions based on what is best for our country and not what is best for each of our parties in order to grow the economy and create jobs. We must answer this call.”
Boehner Asks Obama to Delay Jobs Speech
By Kate Andersen Brower and Margaret Talev - Aug 31, 2011 4:56 PM CT .
House Speaker John Boehner rebuffed President Barack Obama’s request to address a joint session of Congress on the same night as a Republican presidential debate in California.
Boehner, an Ohio Republican, cited a lack of time to prepare for the speech that Obama wants to deliver on Sept. 7 and instead asked for the address to be given a day later, according to a letter addressed to the president that was released by the speaker’s office.
Obama earlier in the day said he wants to deliver the address to announce his proposals to create jobs and jump-start the economy. A White House official speaking on condition of anonymity said the administration consulted with Boehner’s office before releasing the request and no objections were raised. Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said the speaker’s office didn’t agree to the timing of the speech and that the White House "ignored" protocol for working out an agreeable time before making an announcement.
The unprecedented public dispute over the timing of the presidential address sets the stage for a battle to lead the political debate on the economy going into next year’s election. Obama is proposing measures he says would boost growth and bring down the 9.1 percent unemployment rate. He’s confronted by Republicans who won control of the House from Democrats in 2010 on a campaign that stressed criticism of Obama’s economic stewardship and the $830 billion stimulus he pushed through Congress in 2009.
Donald A. Ritchie, the U.S. Senate historian, said he and his staff had not found any other public examples in which a president had requested a joint session date and been turned away.
Private Negotiations
Ritchie said he isn’t aware of an example of a president publicly requesting a date for a joint session without first checking privately with House and Senate leaders. “The emphasis is on the word public,” he said. “We don’t know what kind of negotiations have gone on” in private.
Ritchie said there are factors beyond politics to consider. “Congress will just be coming back from a month-long recess. Monday’s a holiday. So it’s a rather truncated week to start with. All of that factors into it.”
Obama’s request to address Congress at 8 p.m. Washington time on Sept. 7 drew criticism from Republicans earlier because that also is the time that eight of the candidates running for the party’s presidential nomination are scheduled to debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
‘All Politics’
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a message on Twitter that Obama’s plan to give the address on the night of the debate is “further proof” that the Obama White House “is all politics all the time.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed the criticism, saying the scheduling was “coincidental.” Asked at a White House briefing whether the administration intended to interfere with the Republican debate, Carney said, “No, of course not.”
In his letter, Boehner made no mention of the conflict with the Republican debate. He said the House wasn’t scheduled to hold votes until 6:30 p.m. Sept. 7 and it would require more than three hours to conduct a security sweep of the House chamber before a presidential address. Both houses must adopt a resolution to allow a joint session, he said.
Moving the address to the next evening would “ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks,” Boehner wrote.
NFL Opening Game
A Sept. 8 address would conflict with the opening game of the National Football League season.
Boehner said he was recommending the change of dates “on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and Senate.”
House Democratic leaders weren’t consulted by Boehner about requesting a different day, according to an aide to minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The White House official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, declined to say how far in advance of Obama’s announcement the request for a joint session was made or who in Boehner’s office was involved in the discussions.
Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said picking Sept. 7 for his address gives Obama an advantage.
‘Unfiltered Gateway’
“He wants an unfiltered gateway to the American voters and what better way of doing that than when Brian Williams is somewhere else?” she said, referring to the NBC News anchor. The Republican presidential debate is sponsored by NBC News and Politico.
“If you want to bypass mainstream media then you pick a day when half of them are busy,” Schiller said.
In his request to address both chambers of Congress, Obama wrote to Boehner and Reid that, “It is my intention to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the middle class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order.”
The request would place Obama in a forum that presidents traditionally reserve for their annual State of the Union addresses and occasions such as national crises as he opens the fall political season with a new economic agenda.
Health-Care Speech
Besides his annual State of the Union addresses and a speech delivered just after he took office, Obama used the forum of a joint session of Congress once before, in September 2009, when he was prodding lawmakers to act on his proposal to overhaul the U.S. health-care system.
Among the provisions Obama has been considering for his jobs agenda are more infrastructure spending, tax incentives to spur hiring, a reduction in the employer portion of the payroll tax and changes to unemployment insurance to subsidize worker retraining, according to people familiar with discussions.
Obama has spent much of the year pressing Congress to act on a familiar set of plans: renewal of a 2-percentage-point cut in the employee-paid portion of the payroll tax and extended unemployment benefits, which are both scheduled to expire on Dec. 31; establishment of an infrastructure bank to fund public works spending; ratification of free-trade deals; and overhauling patent law. Obama has said those also will remain priorities.
‘Unprecedented’ Challenges
Obama said in his letter that the nation, with an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, faces “unprecedented” economic challenges. More than two years after the recession’s official end, the jobless rate is just one percentage point below its post-financial crisis peak of 10.1 percent, which it reached in October 2009.
Concern about the economy has increased as growth weakened during the first half of the year to its slowest pace of the recovery and financial markets turned tumultuous amid concern about the European debt crisis.
The signs of weakness have led private economists to increase their forecasts for the unemployment rate next year, when Obama faces re-election. The median forecast for unemployment during next year’s fourth quarter is 8.5 percent, according to 51 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News Aug. 2 through Aug. 10.
Since World War II, no U.S. president has won re-election with a jobless rate above 6 percent, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, who faced 7.2 percent unemployment on Election Day in 1984. The jobless rate under Reagan had come down more than 3 percentage points during the prior two years.
Economic Forecast
The administration will give its updated forecast on the economy and the deficit tomorrow in its mid-session budget review.
Obama wrote that on his three-day bus tour in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois in mid-August, he “heard a consistent message: Washington needs to put aside politics and start making decisions based on what is best for our country and not what is best for each of our parties in order to grow the economy and create jobs. We must answer this call.”
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
It will be Interesting to See what Happens to Uncle Omar Obama!!!
Below is a copy of the police report from Fox News, which notes Onyango is being held on an “ICE Detainer:”
The mugshot featuring Barack Obama's alleged "Uncle Omar" -- Onyango Obama.
Update: Obama‘s ’Illegal’ Uncle Has Valid Social Security Number, License
Posted on August 30, 2011 at 10:25am by Jonathon M. Seidl
The plot thickens in a story The Blaze first reported on Sunday. We first told you that Barack Obama’s alleged uncle was arrested last week for DUI in Framingham, MA, despite being wanted for deportation. Now, local news is reporting that Onyango Obama — or “Uncle Omar” — has had a valid social security number for “at least” 19 years, and also a valid driver’s license.
The Boston Herald reports:
President Obama’s accused drunken-driving uncle — who was busted after a near collision with a Framingham cop — has had a valid Social Security number for at least 19 years, despite being an illegal immigrant ordered to be deported back to Kenya, the Herald has learned.
The president’s 67-year-old uncle, Obama Onyango, has had a valid Massachusetts driver’s license and Social Security number since at least 1992, said Registry of Motor Vehicles spokesman Michael Verseckes.
Onyango Obama was arrested last week and charged with DUI. “According to a police report,” The Blaze’s Madeleine Morgenstern reported on Sunday, “he rolled through a stop sign and then made a quick left turn, requiring the squad car and another vehicle to slam on their breaks to avoid hitting him.”
Asked by the Herald to respond to the arrest, MA Gov. Deval Patrick didn’t mince words: “You know my stance: Illegal is illegal. We need comprehensive immigration reform.”
It remains to be seen if the president agrees.
.
The mugshot featuring Barack Obama's alleged "Uncle Omar" -- Onyango Obama.
Update: Obama‘s ’Illegal’ Uncle Has Valid Social Security Number, License
Posted on August 30, 2011 at 10:25am by Jonathon M. Seidl
The plot thickens in a story The Blaze first reported on Sunday. We first told you that Barack Obama’s alleged uncle was arrested last week for DUI in Framingham, MA, despite being wanted for deportation. Now, local news is reporting that Onyango Obama — or “Uncle Omar” — has had a valid social security number for “at least” 19 years, and also a valid driver’s license.
The Boston Herald reports:
President Obama’s accused drunken-driving uncle — who was busted after a near collision with a Framingham cop — has had a valid Social Security number for at least 19 years, despite being an illegal immigrant ordered to be deported back to Kenya, the Herald has learned.
The president’s 67-year-old uncle, Obama Onyango, has had a valid Massachusetts driver’s license and Social Security number since at least 1992, said Registry of Motor Vehicles spokesman Michael Verseckes.
Onyango Obama was arrested last week and charged with DUI. “According to a police report,” The Blaze’s Madeleine Morgenstern reported on Sunday, “he rolled through a stop sign and then made a quick left turn, requiring the squad car and another vehicle to slam on their breaks to avoid hitting him.”
Asked by the Herald to respond to the arrest, MA Gov. Deval Patrick didn’t mince words: “You know my stance: Illegal is illegal. We need comprehensive immigration reform.”
It remains to be seen if the president agrees.
.
America is Waking up on Obama...and they Don't Like what they See...
Victor Davis Hanson August 30, 2011 4:00 A.M.
A Vineyard Too Far
People who rail against “fat cats” shouldn’t vacation with them.
By Sunday afternoon, the Gallup tracking poll showed a 17-point spread in the president’s approval rating — 38 percent approval to 55 percent disapproval. Such polls are fickle and can go up and down quickly, often depending on unwarranted and unfair perceptions and media hype, hinging on everything from hurricanes to killing bin Laden. That said, these recent abysmal numbers might suggest that for the first time, a considerable number of Americans are starting to be turned off not just by Barack Obama’s economic policies, but by Barack Obama himself. But why now?
The president’s latest Martha’s Vineyard vacation was a public-relations disaster, wholly unnecessary, and in part responsible for Obama’s most recent slide in the polls. Part of the problem was purely coincidental and no one’s fault: Who could have expected that while the president of the United States was resting on an exclusive private beach on a tony island on a calm August day, millions of Eastern Seaboarders around him would be engaged in a media-driven frenzy of emergency preparation and evacuation?
Yet most of the negative perception was the president’s own doing. For nearly three years, there has been something strange about the First Family’s ritzy getaway tastes. The annual Martha’s Vineyard rentals were bookended by First Family junkets to Vail, Costa del Sol, and Hawaii. The choice of venues spawned at least three problems for the president that have nothing to do with the First Family’s right, and indeed duty, to enjoy a little well-earned vacation time — or with the fact that other presidents have vacationed in nice places.
First, Obama’s fiery rhetoric (“fat-cat bankers,” “corporate jets,” “millionaires and billionaires,” “redistributive change,” “at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” etc.) has demonized the better off. Many successful liberal presidents do that, but they finesse the necessary fundraising and schmoozing with Wall Street zillionaires with tact and discretion. Bill Clinton was a past master at gluing a populist veneer atop his deep fascination with old money and hip celebrity. The Obamas are far clumsier in both their class-warfare boilerplate and their overt elite tastes, whose contradictions they apparently either miss or don’t much care about.
No doubt this August the presidential advisers, without a clue about life in Tulare or Des Moines, gave sycophantic pep talks to the Obamas not to listen to “right-wing talk radio” and just enjoy what they like to enjoy. Obama himself apparently is still confident that the media will always exempt his golfing in a way they never did Bush’s far less frequent putting. Michael Moore, after all, is not going to cut and paste a video clip of Obama on the fairway.
Yet some photos inevitably leaked out of the “redistributive change” statist at his $50,000-a-week rented estate, surrounded by “millionaires and billionaires” who could alone afford such rental prices, many of whom flew in on “corporate jets.” That disconnect appears to the American public as abjectly hypocritical. We all know that for the president to keep pushing his agenda of higher taxes, he will soon inevitably get back to bashing the rich. But we also assume that this time the public has seen the flip side of a one-eyed Jack and wonders, when the president hits up his Vineyard neighbors for campaign cash at his $20 million rented estate, whether he will first make sure that they are not “fat cats” and owners of “corporate jets.”
Even right-wing presidents, even in good times, know enough not to rub in too much the perks of being president. George W. Bush was pilloried for chain-sawing at “the ranch,” as if he were a counterfeit outdoorsman; but he still knew that his media critics suffered far more in his beloved nowheresville of Crawford than did he. The “Reagan Ranch” in the Santa Barbara Mountains was not really a ranch at all, but a rustic hovel, and the videos of Reagan in his early seventies, chopping wood amid burrs and stickers, with sweat spots under his arms, were not faked. In contrast, the elder Bush liked boating off his family estate in Maine — and was flayed for being a bit too happy with his seaside, preppie-sounding Kennebunkport mansion.
Timing poses a second problem, hurricanes apart. The United States is in the doldrums. The economic news — high unemployment, credit-downgrading, a ruined housing market, almost no growth, record debt, trillion-dollar-plus deficits, soaring fuel and food prices — is not just bad, but seems to be getting worse. Could not the president have gone home to Chicago for a week, followed by a weekend at Camp David — demonstrating in symbolic fashion to hurting Americans that their chief executive is cutting back on exclusive travel and amenities? Even Jimmy Carter knew enough to turn down the White House thermostat and put on a cardigan sweater when gas was hard to find. The misdemeanors of phony man-of-the-people photo-ops (the awkward, camouflaged John Kerry coming back from goose hunting) are usually far outweighed by the felonies of “I do what I want to do” overt elitism (the smug windsurfing John Kerry in spandex).
Finally, this summer’s golfing at Martha’s Vineyard has torn the curtain away from an image that Barack Obama has taken a lifetime to cultivate, to considerable advantage. He was decidedly a middle-class prep-schooler in Hawaii. He was not born into Clinton-like poverty. Occidental and Columbia are not Eureka College or Texas A&M. When Obama finally got some real money, he almost immediately bought a wannabe Chicago mansion and tried to enhance his grounds with help from Mrs. Tony Rezko. Nothing in Obama’s résumé suggests poverty — or disdain for elite enjoyment.
To square his apparently embarrassing middle-class circle, Obama has brilliantly manipulated some weird facets of American culture: Being not quite so-called “white,” and vocally left-wing, can mean that even a multi-millionaire has innate street credibility and can qualify for minority victimhood. The fact that Barack Obama is part Kenyan meant for many — and apparently for Barack Obama himself — that a record number of presidential golf outings, and Michelle’s Costa del Sol jetting, were still excused by the fossilized 1960s nexus between poverty, prejudice, and race.
Likewise, Obama (thanks to the two-decade tutelage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright) does not talk like someone from Hawaii — at least not all the time. With some flair, he is able to turn on and off the slightly southern soaring cadences of the inner city (better than Hillary Clinton’s awkward attempts at clingers populism), both to reassure skeptical blacks of his racial solidarity and authenticity, and (as Harry Reid bluntly noted of the adroitly opportunistic diction) to remind his white liberal supporters that their efforts at penance really were genuinely well grounded. Again, in our upside-down world of race, a Clarence Thomas or a Condoleezza Rice, who grew up amid the authentic African-American struggle against Jim Crow, could never quite be as legitimately “black” as was Barack Obama (preppie, half-white/half-Kenyan), simply because liberal identity politics offers instant superficial authentication in a way real life cannot.
But this last in-your-face Martha’s Vineyard vacation was one too many even for our most adroit gymnast of identity and class politics: The public at last really does believe that Barack Obama, whatever his heritage or nomenclature, is an out-of-touch elitist who simply likes hanging out with wealthy people and shares their refined tastes, even as millions are out of work or broke. This summer all the old SEIU talk about “fat cats” and “corporate jets” has been reduced to a parlor game.
In short, this year’s vacation was a vineyard too far.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.
A Vineyard Too Far
People who rail against “fat cats” shouldn’t vacation with them.
By Sunday afternoon, the Gallup tracking poll showed a 17-point spread in the president’s approval rating — 38 percent approval to 55 percent disapproval. Such polls are fickle and can go up and down quickly, often depending on unwarranted and unfair perceptions and media hype, hinging on everything from hurricanes to killing bin Laden. That said, these recent abysmal numbers might suggest that for the first time, a considerable number of Americans are starting to be turned off not just by Barack Obama’s economic policies, but by Barack Obama himself. But why now?
The president’s latest Martha’s Vineyard vacation was a public-relations disaster, wholly unnecessary, and in part responsible for Obama’s most recent slide in the polls. Part of the problem was purely coincidental and no one’s fault: Who could have expected that while the president of the United States was resting on an exclusive private beach on a tony island on a calm August day, millions of Eastern Seaboarders around him would be engaged in a media-driven frenzy of emergency preparation and evacuation?
Yet most of the negative perception was the president’s own doing. For nearly three years, there has been something strange about the First Family’s ritzy getaway tastes. The annual Martha’s Vineyard rentals were bookended by First Family junkets to Vail, Costa del Sol, and Hawaii. The choice of venues spawned at least three problems for the president that have nothing to do with the First Family’s right, and indeed duty, to enjoy a little well-earned vacation time — or with the fact that other presidents have vacationed in nice places.
First, Obama’s fiery rhetoric (“fat-cat bankers,” “corporate jets,” “millionaires and billionaires,” “redistributive change,” “at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” etc.) has demonized the better off. Many successful liberal presidents do that, but they finesse the necessary fundraising and schmoozing with Wall Street zillionaires with tact and discretion. Bill Clinton was a past master at gluing a populist veneer atop his deep fascination with old money and hip celebrity. The Obamas are far clumsier in both their class-warfare boilerplate and their overt elite tastes, whose contradictions they apparently either miss or don’t much care about.
No doubt this August the presidential advisers, without a clue about life in Tulare or Des Moines, gave sycophantic pep talks to the Obamas not to listen to “right-wing talk radio” and just enjoy what they like to enjoy. Obama himself apparently is still confident that the media will always exempt his golfing in a way they never did Bush’s far less frequent putting. Michael Moore, after all, is not going to cut and paste a video clip of Obama on the fairway.
Yet some photos inevitably leaked out of the “redistributive change” statist at his $50,000-a-week rented estate, surrounded by “millionaires and billionaires” who could alone afford such rental prices, many of whom flew in on “corporate jets.” That disconnect appears to the American public as abjectly hypocritical. We all know that for the president to keep pushing his agenda of higher taxes, he will soon inevitably get back to bashing the rich. But we also assume that this time the public has seen the flip side of a one-eyed Jack and wonders, when the president hits up his Vineyard neighbors for campaign cash at his $20 million rented estate, whether he will first make sure that they are not “fat cats” and owners of “corporate jets.”
Even right-wing presidents, even in good times, know enough not to rub in too much the perks of being president. George W. Bush was pilloried for chain-sawing at “the ranch,” as if he were a counterfeit outdoorsman; but he still knew that his media critics suffered far more in his beloved nowheresville of Crawford than did he. The “Reagan Ranch” in the Santa Barbara Mountains was not really a ranch at all, but a rustic hovel, and the videos of Reagan in his early seventies, chopping wood amid burrs and stickers, with sweat spots under his arms, were not faked. In contrast, the elder Bush liked boating off his family estate in Maine — and was flayed for being a bit too happy with his seaside, preppie-sounding Kennebunkport mansion.
Timing poses a second problem, hurricanes apart. The United States is in the doldrums. The economic news — high unemployment, credit-downgrading, a ruined housing market, almost no growth, record debt, trillion-dollar-plus deficits, soaring fuel and food prices — is not just bad, but seems to be getting worse. Could not the president have gone home to Chicago for a week, followed by a weekend at Camp David — demonstrating in symbolic fashion to hurting Americans that their chief executive is cutting back on exclusive travel and amenities? Even Jimmy Carter knew enough to turn down the White House thermostat and put on a cardigan sweater when gas was hard to find. The misdemeanors of phony man-of-the-people photo-ops (the awkward, camouflaged John Kerry coming back from goose hunting) are usually far outweighed by the felonies of “I do what I want to do” overt elitism (the smug windsurfing John Kerry in spandex).
Finally, this summer’s golfing at Martha’s Vineyard has torn the curtain away from an image that Barack Obama has taken a lifetime to cultivate, to considerable advantage. He was decidedly a middle-class prep-schooler in Hawaii. He was not born into Clinton-like poverty. Occidental and Columbia are not Eureka College or Texas A&M. When Obama finally got some real money, he almost immediately bought a wannabe Chicago mansion and tried to enhance his grounds with help from Mrs. Tony Rezko. Nothing in Obama’s résumé suggests poverty — or disdain for elite enjoyment.
To square his apparently embarrassing middle-class circle, Obama has brilliantly manipulated some weird facets of American culture: Being not quite so-called “white,” and vocally left-wing, can mean that even a multi-millionaire has innate street credibility and can qualify for minority victimhood. The fact that Barack Obama is part Kenyan meant for many — and apparently for Barack Obama himself — that a record number of presidential golf outings, and Michelle’s Costa del Sol jetting, were still excused by the fossilized 1960s nexus between poverty, prejudice, and race.
Likewise, Obama (thanks to the two-decade tutelage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright) does not talk like someone from Hawaii — at least not all the time. With some flair, he is able to turn on and off the slightly southern soaring cadences of the inner city (better than Hillary Clinton’s awkward attempts at clingers populism), both to reassure skeptical blacks of his racial solidarity and authenticity, and (as Harry Reid bluntly noted of the adroitly opportunistic diction) to remind his white liberal supporters that their efforts at penance really were genuinely well grounded. Again, in our upside-down world of race, a Clarence Thomas or a Condoleezza Rice, who grew up amid the authentic African-American struggle against Jim Crow, could never quite be as legitimately “black” as was Barack Obama (preppie, half-white/half-Kenyan), simply because liberal identity politics offers instant superficial authentication in a way real life cannot.
But this last in-your-face Martha’s Vineyard vacation was one too many even for our most adroit gymnast of identity and class politics: The public at last really does believe that Barack Obama, whatever his heritage or nomenclature, is an out-of-touch elitist who simply likes hanging out with wealthy people and shares their refined tastes, even as millions are out of work or broke. This summer all the old SEIU talk about “fat cats” and “corporate jets” has been reduced to a parlor game.
In short, this year’s vacation was a vineyard too far.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.
Our REAL disaster is Obama!
Obama is the REAL natural disaster in America...He needs to go in 2012 so we can begin to take back America....
Our Muslim Leaning President Obama hasn't lost his Muslim Base in America....How comforting???
This has got to make you feel good....Most Muslims in America (7 out of 10) view Obama Presidency as favorably..That alone is enough for me to vote for ANYONE but Obama in 2012!!!.....
Most American Muslims are satisfied Obama backers
By Andrew Stern
CHICAGO | Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:38am IST
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A majority of U.S. Muslims are content with the nation's direction in contrast to many Americans and few Muslims believe there is support for Islamic extremism here, a survey released on Tuesday found.
With the 10th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon approaching, the Pew Research Center found that most Muslims felt ordinary Americans were friendly or neutral toward them.
In contrast to the majority of the general public dissatisfied with the nation's direction, 56 percent of the estimated 2.75 million American Muslims said they are satisfied, the survey showed. Seven out of 10 view President Barack Obama's tenure favourably.
"On a variety of measures, Muslims in America are very content with their own lives and with the communities where they live," Pew researcher Greg Smith said in an interview.
Four out of five Muslim Americans surveyed were satisfied with the way things are going in their lives and rated their communities very positively as places to live.
"We've seen Muslims move in a different direction than the rest of the country (with more) believing America is going in the right direction," Smith said.
Only 6 percent of Muslims in the survey of slightly more than 1,000 surveyed by telephone between April and July said they there is a great deal of support for Islamic extremism in Muslim-American communities. Another 15 percent said there is a fair amount of support among U.S. Muslims of extremism.
Among the general public, four in 10 believe extremism is supported in the Muslim American community, researchers said.
Pew last surveyed American Muslims in 2007, and researchers compared their attitudes in light of various disputes over mosque building, attacks on Muslims and mosques, a heating up of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and hearings in the U.S. Congress about the threat of home-grown Muslim terrorism.
Since 2007, there has been little change in how Muslim Americans see how they are viewed by the rest of America, with 28 percent saying other Americans viewed them suspiciously and 22 percent saying they had been called offensive names. Only 6 percent said they had been threatened or attacked, while 38 percent were bothered by their sense that they were singled out for increased government surveillance.
In response to questions about being a Muslim in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, 55 percent said it is more difficult while 37 percent saw no change.
Two-thirds of those survey said the quality of life for Muslims in the United States is better than in most Muslim countries.
In 2007 only one-quarter of Muslim Americans believed the U.S.-led war on terrorism was sincere, while 43 percent surveyed this year believed the effort was sincere.
The survey found nearly seven in 10 Muslim Americans said the Muslim community is cooperating to the extent it should with U.S. law enforcement -- an issue raised in congressional hearings. However, only one-third said U.S. Muslim leaders had spoken out sufficiently against extremism.
Muslim American attitudes toward terror attacks and al Qaeda had not changed much in four years, with 81 percent saying suicide bombings and other violence against civilians to defend Islam were never justified, with 1 percent saying it was often justified.
Only 5 percent had a somewhat or very favourable view of al Qaeda, with a growing majority of 70 percent holding very unfavourable views of the group.
The general level of satisfaction among American Muslims was reflected in the 76 percent who approved of Obama's performance as president -- nine out of 10 said they voted for the Democrat in 2008. Muslim support for Obama contrasts with unfavourable views of his Republican predecessor, George Bush.
There are an estimated 1.8 million Muslim adults in the United States, including U.S.-born converts, a 300,000 increase since 2007. Two-thirds were born in other countries.
The survey had an error margin of 5 percentage points.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
Most American Muslims are satisfied Obama backers
By Andrew Stern
CHICAGO | Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:38am IST
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A majority of U.S. Muslims are content with the nation's direction in contrast to many Americans and few Muslims believe there is support for Islamic extremism here, a survey released on Tuesday found.
With the 10th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon approaching, the Pew Research Center found that most Muslims felt ordinary Americans were friendly or neutral toward them.
In contrast to the majority of the general public dissatisfied with the nation's direction, 56 percent of the estimated 2.75 million American Muslims said they are satisfied, the survey showed. Seven out of 10 view President Barack Obama's tenure favourably.
"On a variety of measures, Muslims in America are very content with their own lives and with the communities where they live," Pew researcher Greg Smith said in an interview.
Four out of five Muslim Americans surveyed were satisfied with the way things are going in their lives and rated their communities very positively as places to live.
"We've seen Muslims move in a different direction than the rest of the country (with more) believing America is going in the right direction," Smith said.
Only 6 percent of Muslims in the survey of slightly more than 1,000 surveyed by telephone between April and July said they there is a great deal of support for Islamic extremism in Muslim-American communities. Another 15 percent said there is a fair amount of support among U.S. Muslims of extremism.
Among the general public, four in 10 believe extremism is supported in the Muslim American community, researchers said.
Pew last surveyed American Muslims in 2007, and researchers compared their attitudes in light of various disputes over mosque building, attacks on Muslims and mosques, a heating up of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and hearings in the U.S. Congress about the threat of home-grown Muslim terrorism.
Since 2007, there has been little change in how Muslim Americans see how they are viewed by the rest of America, with 28 percent saying other Americans viewed them suspiciously and 22 percent saying they had been called offensive names. Only 6 percent said they had been threatened or attacked, while 38 percent were bothered by their sense that they were singled out for increased government surveillance.
In response to questions about being a Muslim in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, 55 percent said it is more difficult while 37 percent saw no change.
Two-thirds of those survey said the quality of life for Muslims in the United States is better than in most Muslim countries.
In 2007 only one-quarter of Muslim Americans believed the U.S.-led war on terrorism was sincere, while 43 percent surveyed this year believed the effort was sincere.
The survey found nearly seven in 10 Muslim Americans said the Muslim community is cooperating to the extent it should with U.S. law enforcement -- an issue raised in congressional hearings. However, only one-third said U.S. Muslim leaders had spoken out sufficiently against extremism.
Muslim American attitudes toward terror attacks and al Qaeda had not changed much in four years, with 81 percent saying suicide bombings and other violence against civilians to defend Islam were never justified, with 1 percent saying it was often justified.
Only 5 percent had a somewhat or very favourable view of al Qaeda, with a growing majority of 70 percent holding very unfavourable views of the group.
The general level of satisfaction among American Muslims was reflected in the 76 percent who approved of Obama's performance as president -- nine out of 10 said they voted for the Democrat in 2008. Muslim support for Obama contrasts with unfavourable views of his Republican predecessor, George Bush.
There are an estimated 1.8 million Muslim adults in the United States, including U.S.-born converts, a 300,000 increase since 2007. Two-thirds were born in other countries.
The survey had an error margin of 5 percentage points.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
Organized Labor Acting like Idiots AGAIN in Wisconsin....
This is just despicable behavior in a nation that was founded on free speech and a nation that is made up of a mixing of many cultures....Who do these unions think they are?....The Mayor should hold back funding for the parade!....Do the Unions think Labor Day is JUST about organized labor....most Americans labor every day and most do NOT work for a Union! Thank God...if they did we would be even more noncompeitive than we are today.
Republicans Barred From Labor Day Parade as Wisconsin Union Fight Simmers
Published August 30, 2011 | FoxNews.com
A Wisconsin group of unions has barred Republican officials from attending a local Labor Day parade as payback for controversial collective bargaining legislation earlier this year, leading one congressman to call for an end to the "petty" disputes.
The spat over the parade is just the latest flare-up between union supporters and GOP lawmakers. Protesters repeatedly have disrupted events with Gov. Scott Walker. Some have threatened to mount a recall campaign against him, though the state just endured a round of recall elections aimed at state legislators from both parties that did nothing to change the majority in the state Senate.
The Marathon County Central Labor Council, a coalition of unions which sponsors the parade in Wassau, Wis., reasoned that lawmakers hostile to their cause should not be at the parade.
"It should come as no surprise that organizers choose not to invite elected officials who have openly attacked worker's rights or stood idly by while their political party fought to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain," President Randy Radtke said in a statement.
But Republican Rep. Sean Duffy, who represents the district, told Fox News it's time to start moving on.
"It's been a little contentious in Wisconsin, but we all just went through a whole recall election and the folks in Wausau, they're sick of partisanship," he said Tuesday. "They want to see people start working together. They want to see all the bickering set aside."
The mayor of Wausau reportedly is threatening to withhold city funding for the parade as long as the GOP boycott remains in place, but Duffy said he doesn't expect the group to reverse itself, though he hopes they'll reconsider next year.
"I think in Wisconsin it has become so divisive, we have to start working to bridge that divide and this doesn't go to that end," Duffy said, adding, "We almost have to laugh at it."
The partisan tensions from the collective-bargaining-bill brawl have not subsided. Though a round of recalls resulted in a gain of two Senate seats for Democrats, it did not change the partisan dynamic in the state. A new lawsuit against the law was filed after the state Supreme Court upheld the legislation.
Some protesters are targeting Walker.
Already the object of sustained and vocal protests, protesters gathered outside a school where Walker was visiting last week to read Dr. Seuss to kids. The building also had its locks vandalized. Members of the Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society reportedly said they will hound Walker wherever he goes.
State Republican Party Director Stephan Thompson decried the protest.
"The effort to disrupt an education initiative is ... just the latest glimpse into the distorted tactics of the left," Thompson said in a statement. "These individuals have no discernable message except 'we will try to create chaos at any cost.'"
Walker was also shouted at during the Wisconsin State Fair earlier this month. The incident led the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, on its editorial page, to call for a time-out, "so folks can chill out."
"Asking the demonstrators for a little show of civility is probably a waste of ink," the editorial board wrote. "But we'll still do it. Allowing the governor or anyone else to make the speech without interruption could be a good step toward a more rational and constructive public debate, the kind of debate that all sides say is needed. Protest all you want before and after, but let the speaker speak."
Republicans Barred From Labor Day Parade as Wisconsin Union Fight Simmers
Published August 30, 2011 | FoxNews.com
A Wisconsin group of unions has barred Republican officials from attending a local Labor Day parade as payback for controversial collective bargaining legislation earlier this year, leading one congressman to call for an end to the "petty" disputes.
The spat over the parade is just the latest flare-up between union supporters and GOP lawmakers. Protesters repeatedly have disrupted events with Gov. Scott Walker. Some have threatened to mount a recall campaign against him, though the state just endured a round of recall elections aimed at state legislators from both parties that did nothing to change the majority in the state Senate.
The Marathon County Central Labor Council, a coalition of unions which sponsors the parade in Wassau, Wis., reasoned that lawmakers hostile to their cause should not be at the parade.
"It should come as no surprise that organizers choose not to invite elected officials who have openly attacked worker's rights or stood idly by while their political party fought to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain," President Randy Radtke said in a statement.
But Republican Rep. Sean Duffy, who represents the district, told Fox News it's time to start moving on.
"It's been a little contentious in Wisconsin, but we all just went through a whole recall election and the folks in Wausau, they're sick of partisanship," he said Tuesday. "They want to see people start working together. They want to see all the bickering set aside."
The mayor of Wausau reportedly is threatening to withhold city funding for the parade as long as the GOP boycott remains in place, but Duffy said he doesn't expect the group to reverse itself, though he hopes they'll reconsider next year.
"I think in Wisconsin it has become so divisive, we have to start working to bridge that divide and this doesn't go to that end," Duffy said, adding, "We almost have to laugh at it."
The partisan tensions from the collective-bargaining-bill brawl have not subsided. Though a round of recalls resulted in a gain of two Senate seats for Democrats, it did not change the partisan dynamic in the state. A new lawsuit against the law was filed after the state Supreme Court upheld the legislation.
Some protesters are targeting Walker.
Already the object of sustained and vocal protests, protesters gathered outside a school where Walker was visiting last week to read Dr. Seuss to kids. The building also had its locks vandalized. Members of the Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society reportedly said they will hound Walker wherever he goes.
State Republican Party Director Stephan Thompson decried the protest.
"The effort to disrupt an education initiative is ... just the latest glimpse into the distorted tactics of the left," Thompson said in a statement. "These individuals have no discernable message except 'we will try to create chaos at any cost.'"
Walker was also shouted at during the Wisconsin State Fair earlier this month. The incident led the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, on its editorial page, to call for a time-out, "so folks can chill out."
"Asking the demonstrators for a little show of civility is probably a waste of ink," the editorial board wrote. "But we'll still do it. Allowing the governor or anyone else to make the speech without interruption could be a good step toward a more rational and constructive public debate, the kind of debate that all sides say is needed. Protest all you want before and after, but let the speaker speak."
Monday, August 29, 2011
Dems are Realizing Obama Won't Win....
August 29, 2011 3:38pm
One in four Democrats wants to dump Obama
by Byron York Chief Political Correspondent
A new poll by CNN and ORC International finds that 27 percent of Democrats would like to see their party nominate a candidate other than Barack Obama for president in 2012.
In response to the question, "Do you think the Democratic party should renominate Barack Obama as the party's candidate for president in 2012, or do you think the Democratic party should nominate a different candidate for president in 2012?" -- 72 percent said they wanted to see Obama renominated. But 27 percent, slightly more than one in every four, said they wanted to see Democrats nominate a different candidate. One percent had no opinion.
The poll was taken August 24-25. In a survey taken in early August, 28 percent of Democrats said they wanted a different candidate. Polls taken in July and before showed Obama in a stronger position, with no more than 22 percent saying they preferred a different candidate. The current poll is based on interviews with 463 Democrats and has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.
The new poll is another indication of Democratic unhappiness with the president, but it does not mean Obama will face a challenge in his party's primaries. Despite the complaints of a few liberals like Sen. Bernard Sanders, the odds of a Democrat opposing the president appear to be something less than zero. But the new poll is still a matter of concern to Democrats, because it is yet another indication that there is significant disillusionment with the president within his own party. Whether those disaffected Democrats will come around to supporting Obama next year is an open question -- and perhaps the most worrying of the president's re-election bid.
One in four Democrats wants to dump Obama
by Byron York Chief Political Correspondent
A new poll by CNN and ORC International finds that 27 percent of Democrats would like to see their party nominate a candidate other than Barack Obama for president in 2012.
In response to the question, "Do you think the Democratic party should renominate Barack Obama as the party's candidate for president in 2012, or do you think the Democratic party should nominate a different candidate for president in 2012?" -- 72 percent said they wanted to see Obama renominated. But 27 percent, slightly more than one in every four, said they wanted to see Democrats nominate a different candidate. One percent had no opinion.
The poll was taken August 24-25. In a survey taken in early August, 28 percent of Democrats said they wanted a different candidate. Polls taken in July and before showed Obama in a stronger position, with no more than 22 percent saying they preferred a different candidate. The current poll is based on interviews with 463 Democrats and has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.
The new poll is another indication of Democratic unhappiness with the president, but it does not mean Obama will face a challenge in his party's primaries. Despite the complaints of a few liberals like Sen. Bernard Sanders, the odds of a Democrat opposing the president appear to be something less than zero. But the new poll is still a matter of concern to Democrats, because it is yet another indication that there is significant disillusionment with the president within his own party. Whether those disaffected Democrats will come around to supporting Obama next year is an open question -- and perhaps the most worrying of the president's re-election bid.
Looks like some cracks in the Democrat Party....I Guess They are Realizing that Obama will Lose in 2012!
Carney grilled over potential Hillary primary challenge
Lester Kinsolving asked Jay Carney if President Obama is "certain" that Hillary Clinton won't primary him. This comes after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Obama has moved to the right because he has no primary opponent.
Carney said the White House is pretty certain Clinton won't challenge Obama, however he tells Kinsolving "you'll have to ask her." Transcript of the exchange:
Lester Kinsolving: "Vermont's Senator Bernie Sanders said, and this is a quote, "one of the reasons the president has moved so far to the right is there is no primary opposition to him." And my question: Why is the president certain Hillary won't run against him?"
Jay Carney: "You win the award for originality today."
Kinsolving: "Thank you very much."
Carney: "The president is focused not on any election, he's focused right now on doing his job to grow the economy, create jobs, ensure Americans who are in the path of this hurricane are taken care of.
Kinsolving: "I understand. Why are you running away from this question? Can you guarantee, I mean, are you sure Hillary is not going to run."
Carney: "You'll have to ask her. We're fairly confident -- that we need to focus on the task at hand."
Lester Kinsolving asked Jay Carney if President Obama is "certain" that Hillary Clinton won't primary him. This comes after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Obama has moved to the right because he has no primary opponent.
Carney said the White House is pretty certain Clinton won't challenge Obama, however he tells Kinsolving "you'll have to ask her." Transcript of the exchange:
Lester Kinsolving: "Vermont's Senator Bernie Sanders said, and this is a quote, "one of the reasons the president has moved so far to the right is there is no primary opposition to him." And my question: Why is the president certain Hillary won't run against him?"
Jay Carney: "You win the award for originality today."
Kinsolving: "Thank you very much."
Carney: "The president is focused not on any election, he's focused right now on doing his job to grow the economy, create jobs, ensure Americans who are in the path of this hurricane are taken care of.
Kinsolving: "I understand. Why are you running away from this question? Can you guarantee, I mean, are you sure Hillary is not going to run."
Carney: "You'll have to ask her. We're fairly confident -- that we need to focus on the task at hand."
Obama more of the same...Spend, Spend, Spend...
Obama...more of the same...Spend, Spend, Spend....Protect the Unions, Protect the Unions, Protect the Unions.....Obama doesn't get it....He wasted $800 billion in the stimulus now he wants another $109 billion...No Way....IF Obama wants to create jobs then open up drilling...let us mine and use coal....let Boeing move to South Carolina.....All can be done with any government spending!
MLK's daugther talks of LINCOLN signing the Declaration of Independence....
What an Idiot.....Did this person attend school????.....She sounds like Michelle Bachmann....
Obama Can't even Make a Three Minute Speech without Two Teleprompters....
What a Leader....What an orator...he can't even make a three minute speech without two teleprompters......What a loser!
August 29, 2011 11:41am
Three minutes, two teleprompters
by Hayley Peterson
President Obama required two heavy-duty teleprompters on Monday during a three-minute speech in which he nominated Alan Krueger to serve as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers.
"I am very pleased to appoint Alan and I look forward to working with him," Obama said, staring at the large, flat-screen monitor to his right, then shifting his eyes to the teleprompter on his left. "I have nothing but confidence in Alan as he takes on this important role as one of the leaders of my economic team."
Krueger stood silently to the right of Obama as the president spoke. Krueger will replace Austan Goolsbee, who recently stepped down as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A professor at Princeton University, Krueger served two years in the U.S. Treasury Department under Obama. He also served as chief economic adviser for the Labor Department during the Clinton administration.
Obama did not give Krueger a chance to make any comments on Monday.
Another Liberal Academic Type to Join the Administration....More of the Same!
Here's another liberal academic from the college campus joining the Administration...Obama just doesn't get it....It's all about the academic world...not practical experience needed for him...that's why nothings getting any better.
Obama to Nominate Princeton Professor as Head of Economic Advisers Team
Published August 29, 2011 | FoxNews.com
President Obama is nominating Princeton Professor Alan Krueger to be his new chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
As President Obama prepares his jobs plan speech, he's also filling out his economics team, preparing to nominate Princeton University's Alan Krueger to be chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Krueger, 50, a labor specialist who served in Obama's Treasury Department in the first two years of the administration, returns to Washington to succeed Austan Goolsbee, who is now back at the University of Chicago.
A senior administration official told Fox News on Monday that Krueger's job will be to provide policy prescriptions on ways to spur unemployment. Obama was expected to announce his nominee, who has already been confirmed by the Senate once, for the post.
Krueger, whose nomination was first revealed by The Wall Street Journal, has reportedly worked on several analyses at Treasury, including the impact of tax incentives to encourage employers to hire, the "cash for clunkers" program to expand vehicle purchases and Build America taxable municipal bonds.
Krueger also worked as the chief economist at the Labor Department during the Clinton administration. He has published studies while at Princeton on job growth in the 2000s, the impact of minimum wage increases on employment rates and studies on terrorists' economic backgrounds.
Krueger will be returning to the administration where Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the last remaining top official from Obama's original economics team.
Obama to Nominate Princeton Professor as Head of Economic Advisers Team
Published August 29, 2011 | FoxNews.com
President Obama is nominating Princeton Professor Alan Krueger to be his new chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
As President Obama prepares his jobs plan speech, he's also filling out his economics team, preparing to nominate Princeton University's Alan Krueger to be chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Krueger, 50, a labor specialist who served in Obama's Treasury Department in the first two years of the administration, returns to Washington to succeed Austan Goolsbee, who is now back at the University of Chicago.
A senior administration official told Fox News on Monday that Krueger's job will be to provide policy prescriptions on ways to spur unemployment. Obama was expected to announce his nominee, who has already been confirmed by the Senate once, for the post.
Krueger, whose nomination was first revealed by The Wall Street Journal, has reportedly worked on several analyses at Treasury, including the impact of tax incentives to encourage employers to hire, the "cash for clunkers" program to expand vehicle purchases and Build America taxable municipal bonds.
Krueger also worked as the chief economist at the Labor Department during the Clinton administration. He has published studies while at Princeton on job growth in the 2000s, the impact of minimum wage increases on employment rates and studies on terrorists' economic backgrounds.
Krueger will be returning to the administration where Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the last remaining top official from Obama's original economics team.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
What a Joke this Hurricane Irene Story has been....
What a joke!!!....Total overreaction...total overexposure...this wasn't a hurricane it was a northeasterner.....If you want to see a Hurricane look at Katrina or Ike...they were hurricanes.....and all the discussion about "sea foam"????....if you live by the coast you see sea foam all the time...again just a joke...just a manipulation for the media and the politicians....IF it were a real hurrican you know Obama would have blown handling the crisis...he's blown every other crisis we've been up against since he took office...
The Perfect Storm of HYPE...great for the Media and the Politicians...
By Toby Harnden World Last updated: August 28th, 2011
For the television reporter, clad in his red cagoule emblazoned with the CNN logo, it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.
“We are in, right, now…the right eye wall, no doubt about that…there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”
Stumbling and apparently buffeted by ferocious gusts, he took shelter next to a building. “This is our protection from the wind,” he explained. “It’s been truly remarkable to watch the power of the ocean here.”
The surf may have told a story but so too did the sight behind the reporter of people chatting and ambling along the sea front and just goofing around. There was a man in a t-shirt, a woman waving her arms and then walking backwards. Then someone on a bicycle glided past.
Across the screen, the “Breaking News: Irene Batters Long Island” caption was replaced by stern advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): “Stay inside, stay safe.”
The images summed up Hurricane Irene – the media and the United States federal government trying to live up to their own doom-laden warnings and predictions while a sizeable number of ordinary Americans just carried on as normal and even made gentle fun of all the fuss.
There was almost palpable disappointment among the TV big guns rolled out for the occasion when Irene was downgraded to a mere ‘tropical storm”. In New York city, CNN’s silver-haired Anderson Cooper, more usually seen in a tight t-shirt in a famine or war zone, was clad in what one wag dubbed “disaster casual”.
He looked crestfallen and fell briefly silent when a weatherwoman told him that the rain was not going to get any worse. “Wow, because this isn’t so bad,” he said. “It’s an annoying rain but it isn’t even a sideways rain.”
Then came the press conferences from the politicians, with Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey insisting that his evacuation of the Jersey Shore was “a pre-emptive measure that I am confident saved lives” and there could still be damage worth “tens of billions” of dollars.
Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief, declared that there was “a ways to go with Irene” but “with the evacuations and other precautions taken we have dramatically decreased the risk to life”. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York seemed thoroughly delighted with himself, as if he personally had calmed the waters and stifled the winds.
The truth is that the dire warning beforehand suited both politicians and journalists. Just as with the minor earthquake that shook the east coast last week causing no loss of life and virtually no damage, Irene became a huge story because it was where the media lived.
For politicians, Irene was a chance to either make amends or appear in control. The White House sent out 25 Irene emails to the press on Saturday alone.
There were photographs of President Barack Obama touring disaster centres and footage of him asking sombre, pertinent questions. With his poll ratings plummeting, Obama needed to project an aura of seriousness and command. He was all too aware that the political fortunes of his predecessor George W Bush never recovered after the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005.
The press mostly reported the message the White House had carefully crafted: “Obama takes charge” read the headline of one wire service story.
At the state level, Irene was a chance for political redemption. Christie had been lambasted around the start of the year for taking a holiday during one of the worst snow storms in New Jersey history.
Bloomberg, who ordered a mandatory evacuation of residents in low-lying areas during Irene that thousands ignored, had been widely criticised for inadequate clean-up plans during the same blizzards.
There was some loss of life during Irene, though significantly less than during dozens of other weather events across the US this year.
Preparation for the worst-case scenario makes sense and could have saved hundreds during Katrina. But the worst-case scenario was largely portrayed as inevitable. Some of the footage of television reporters putting themselves in the most extreme position possible just to get the best “stand-up” live shot was beyond parody.
First prize went to Tucker Barnes, a reporter for Fox 5, who went live from Ocean City, Maryland amid a strange, brown foamy substance. He reported that it “didn’t taste great” and had a “sandy consistency”. Apparently, it was raw sewage:
As Howard Kurtz notes, The media and politicians enjoy a symbiotic relationship during possible impending disasters. The resultant perfect storm of hype over Irene runs the risk of making Americans even more like to ignore warnings in the future.
By lunchtime on Sunday, the sun was peeking through over New York. The TV anchors were expressing their relief at the good news that the east coast had “dodged a bullet” and Irene had not been the apocalypse they had predicted.
Perhaps it would be a bit too much to hope that they and certain politicians felt a little sheepish too.
The Perfect Storm of HYPE...great for the Media and the Politicians...
By Toby Harnden World Last updated: August 28th, 2011
For the television reporter, clad in his red cagoule emblazoned with the CNN logo, it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.
“We are in, right, now…the right eye wall, no doubt about that…there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”
Stumbling and apparently buffeted by ferocious gusts, he took shelter next to a building. “This is our protection from the wind,” he explained. “It’s been truly remarkable to watch the power of the ocean here.”
The surf may have told a story but so too did the sight behind the reporter of people chatting and ambling along the sea front and just goofing around. There was a man in a t-shirt, a woman waving her arms and then walking backwards. Then someone on a bicycle glided past.
Across the screen, the “Breaking News: Irene Batters Long Island” caption was replaced by stern advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): “Stay inside, stay safe.”
The images summed up Hurricane Irene – the media and the United States federal government trying to live up to their own doom-laden warnings and predictions while a sizeable number of ordinary Americans just carried on as normal and even made gentle fun of all the fuss.
There was almost palpable disappointment among the TV big guns rolled out for the occasion when Irene was downgraded to a mere ‘tropical storm”. In New York city, CNN’s silver-haired Anderson Cooper, more usually seen in a tight t-shirt in a famine or war zone, was clad in what one wag dubbed “disaster casual”.
He looked crestfallen and fell briefly silent when a weatherwoman told him that the rain was not going to get any worse. “Wow, because this isn’t so bad,” he said. “It’s an annoying rain but it isn’t even a sideways rain.”
Then came the press conferences from the politicians, with Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey insisting that his evacuation of the Jersey Shore was “a pre-emptive measure that I am confident saved lives” and there could still be damage worth “tens of billions” of dollars.
Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief, declared that there was “a ways to go with Irene” but “with the evacuations and other precautions taken we have dramatically decreased the risk to life”. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York seemed thoroughly delighted with himself, as if he personally had calmed the waters and stifled the winds.
The truth is that the dire warning beforehand suited both politicians and journalists. Just as with the minor earthquake that shook the east coast last week causing no loss of life and virtually no damage, Irene became a huge story because it was where the media lived.
For politicians, Irene was a chance to either make amends or appear in control. The White House sent out 25 Irene emails to the press on Saturday alone.
There were photographs of President Barack Obama touring disaster centres and footage of him asking sombre, pertinent questions. With his poll ratings plummeting, Obama needed to project an aura of seriousness and command. He was all too aware that the political fortunes of his predecessor George W Bush never recovered after the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005.
The press mostly reported the message the White House had carefully crafted: “Obama takes charge” read the headline of one wire service story.
At the state level, Irene was a chance for political redemption. Christie had been lambasted around the start of the year for taking a holiday during one of the worst snow storms in New Jersey history.
Bloomberg, who ordered a mandatory evacuation of residents in low-lying areas during Irene that thousands ignored, had been widely criticised for inadequate clean-up plans during the same blizzards.
There was some loss of life during Irene, though significantly less than during dozens of other weather events across the US this year.
Preparation for the worst-case scenario makes sense and could have saved hundreds during Katrina. But the worst-case scenario was largely portrayed as inevitable. Some of the footage of television reporters putting themselves in the most extreme position possible just to get the best “stand-up” live shot was beyond parody.
First prize went to Tucker Barnes, a reporter for Fox 5, who went live from Ocean City, Maryland amid a strange, brown foamy substance. He reported that it “didn’t taste great” and had a “sandy consistency”. Apparently, it was raw sewage:
As Howard Kurtz notes, The media and politicians enjoy a symbiotic relationship during possible impending disasters. The resultant perfect storm of hype over Irene runs the risk of making Americans even more like to ignore warnings in the future.
By lunchtime on Sunday, the sun was peeking through over New York. The TV anchors were expressing their relief at the good news that the east coast had “dodged a bullet” and Irene had not been the apocalypse they had predicted.
Perhaps it would be a bit too much to hope that they and certain politicians felt a little sheepish too.
America is Waking up to What a Disaster Obama is....
AP-GfK Poll: Obama Faces Trouble With Key Voters
Published August 28, 2011 | Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Whites and women are a re-election problem for President Obama. Younger voters and liberals, too, but to a lesser extent.
All are important Democratic constituencies that helped him win the White House in 2008 and whose support he'll need to keep it next year.
An analysis of Associated Press-GfK polls, including the latest survey released last week, shows that Obama has lost ground among all those groups since he took office. The review points to his vulnerabilities and probable leading targets of his campaign as he seeks to assemble a coalition diverse enough to help him win re-election in tough economic times.
In his victory over Arizona Sen. John McCain, Obama cobbled together a base of support from across the political spectrum by wooing Democratic loyalists as well as independents and first-time voters.
This time, Obama's team is working to build voter outreach organizations and reconnect with supporters in hopes of expanding his pool of voters.
It's no easy task.
The nation's high unemployment is weighing on Obama, dragging down his marks for handling the economy. His overall standing has slid, too, after a difficult summer marked by contentious negotiations over the country's borrowing limit, a downgrade of the nation's credit rating and concerns about the U.S. falling into another economic recession.
The poll shows that 46 percent now approve of how he's doing his job, down from 52 percent in June.
Obama will have to win over people such as Brian Arnold, 33, of Pickerington, Ohio. He's an independent who voted for Obama in 2008 because he liked the Democrat's outsider image.
Now, Arnold says he's undecided and down on Obama. "He got elected, it was a big party and after that he went back to being a politician. As soon as he got in office, he just did more of the same."
The AP analysis looked at the viewpoints of all adults, not just those who plan to vote in 2012. In no way does it predict how Obama will fare with influential demographic groups next fall.
It does, however, indicate which groups will need extra attention in this campaign as he tries to persuade voters to stick with him for another four years.
Among the findings:
--White independent voters, who divided their support evenly between Obama and McCain in 2008, may be the president's biggest challenge now. Just 3 in 10 white independents say Obama deserves to be re-elected and only 41 percent say he understands the problems of people like them.
Obama didn't win the largest share of white voters in 2008, when they made up 74 percent of the electorate. Still, his inroads were enough to beat McCain.
Fifty-six percent of all whites approved of how he was doing his job in the first three months of his presidency. But that support has fallen, with only 36 percent now liking how he's doing his job, while 59 say Obama deserves to be voted out of office.
In 2008, Obama won the backing of most whites in the Northeast and was competitive in the Midwest and West, outperforming the previous two Democratic nominees. Now, majorities of whites in every region but the Northeast say he deserves to lose in 2012 and that he is not a strong leader.
The outlook is negative for Obama among white voters in the Midwest and West, regions where so many electoral votes are at stake.
More than 6 in 10 white voters who did not graduate say the president deserves to be voted from office, while 53 percent of white college graduates say as much.
--Women no longer are a bright spot for Obama.
At the 100-day mark of his presidency, they gave him significantly higher approval ratings than did men, 68 percent to 60 percent. That's since fallen dramatically.
In the latest AP-GfK survey, less than half of all women and less than half of all men approve of the job Obama is doing. Just 50 percent of women said Obama deserves re-election.
Still, women are more likely than men to see Obama as empathetic or a strong leader, and they give him sharply higher positive ratings on his handling of the economy. Forty-three3 percent of women approve, compared with 29 percent of men.
--Younger voters and liberals are showing doubts about him, too.
Obama won younger voters in 2008 by a bigger margin than Democrat Bill Clinton in his victories in 1992 and 1996. But younger Democrats are no more apt to say the president deserves re-election than are older Democrats. Twenty-seven percent of Democrats under age 45 say Obama is not a strong leader, compared with 11 percent in June.
While a majority of liberals continue to say they view Obama as a strong leader, the strength of those opinions dropped sharply this summer. The share of liberals who say "strong leader" describes Obama "very well" has fallen from 53 percent to 29 percent in the aftermath of the debt-ceiling debate.
"Sometimes he needs to put his foot down and not be the nice guy," said Democrat Kathleen Salak, 44, of Omaha, Neb.
The most recent AP-GfK poll was conducted Aug. 18-22 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
What a Hypocrite Obama is...he's the Great Divider...Mr. Class Warfare....Mr. Demonizer and he has the GUTs to tell us to rekindle the spirit of UNITY
What a Hyprocrite....this is from the GREAT DIVIDER....Mr. Class Warfare....Mr. Demonizer.....What a joke...one thing you have to give Obama is that he shameless!
Obama Calls on Americans to Recall the Spirit of Unity From 9/11
Published August 27, 2011 | Associated Press
President Obama is calling on Americans to rekindle the spirit of unity that characterized the country's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "It can be a lasting virtue," he said. "Not just on one day, but every day."
The president made his appeal during his weekly radio and Internet address, two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the day Al Qaeda terrorists turned commercial jetliners into deadly weapons in New York, Pennsylvania and northern Virginia.
Obama plans to observe the anniversary on Sept. 11 with stops at ground zero in lower Manhattan, where the World Trade Center towers fell; at Shanksville, Pa., where one of the commandeered planes crashed; and at the Pentagon, which was also hit by a hijacked jetliner.
But he cast his plea for good will on Saturday against the backdrop of the economic challenges facing the country today. Coming in the aftermath of bitter partisan fights over government spending and tough criticism of his administration by Republican presidential candidates, his remarks were an overt call for greater cooperation.
"Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11," he said.
He recalled the work of volunteers following the attacks, the blood donations and the food and clothing drives.
"We were united, and the outpouring of generosity and compassion reminded us that in times of challenge, we Americans move forward together, as one people," he said.
These days, he said, the country is still fighting al-Qaida, it is ending the war in Iraq, pulling back troops from Afghanistan and "emerging from the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes."
"None of this will be easy," he said. "And it can't be the work of government alone. As we saw after 9/11, the strength of America has always been the character and compassion of our people.
"So as we mark this solemn anniversary, let's summon that spirit once more. And let's show that the sense of common purpose that we need in America doesn't have to be a fleeting moment; it can be a lasting virtue -- not just on one day, but every day."
In the Republican address, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada stuck to economic themes, criticizing the Obama administration for creating "more government that continues to impede economic growth at every turn."
"To paraphrase one of the business leaders in my state, this president and his policies have been a big wet blanket on our economy," he said.
Heller called for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and repeal of the health care law that Obama signed last year, both demands that Republicans have failed to achieve.
He also called for an overhaul of Social Security and Medicare to reduce their long-term costs and to simplify the tax code by eliminating loopholes and lowering tax rates.
Obama Calls on Americans to Recall the Spirit of Unity From 9/11
Published August 27, 2011 | Associated Press
President Obama is calling on Americans to rekindle the spirit of unity that characterized the country's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "It can be a lasting virtue," he said. "Not just on one day, but every day."
The president made his appeal during his weekly radio and Internet address, two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the day Al Qaeda terrorists turned commercial jetliners into deadly weapons in New York, Pennsylvania and northern Virginia.
Obama plans to observe the anniversary on Sept. 11 with stops at ground zero in lower Manhattan, where the World Trade Center towers fell; at Shanksville, Pa., where one of the commandeered planes crashed; and at the Pentagon, which was also hit by a hijacked jetliner.
But he cast his plea for good will on Saturday against the backdrop of the economic challenges facing the country today. Coming in the aftermath of bitter partisan fights over government spending and tough criticism of his administration by Republican presidential candidates, his remarks were an overt call for greater cooperation.
"Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11," he said.
He recalled the work of volunteers following the attacks, the blood donations and the food and clothing drives.
"We were united, and the outpouring of generosity and compassion reminded us that in times of challenge, we Americans move forward together, as one people," he said.
These days, he said, the country is still fighting al-Qaida, it is ending the war in Iraq, pulling back troops from Afghanistan and "emerging from the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes."
"None of this will be easy," he said. "And it can't be the work of government alone. As we saw after 9/11, the strength of America has always been the character and compassion of our people.
"So as we mark this solemn anniversary, let's summon that spirit once more. And let's show that the sense of common purpose that we need in America doesn't have to be a fleeting moment; it can be a lasting virtue -- not just on one day, but every day."
In the Republican address, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada stuck to economic themes, criticizing the Obama administration for creating "more government that continues to impede economic growth at every turn."
"To paraphrase one of the business leaders in my state, this president and his policies have been a big wet blanket on our economy," he said.
Heller called for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and repeal of the health care law that Obama signed last year, both demands that Republicans have failed to achieve.
He also called for an overhaul of Social Security and Medicare to reduce their long-term costs and to simplify the tax code by eliminating loopholes and lowering tax rates.
Friday, August 26, 2011
America is waking up find that Obama is the WRONG choice in 2012!
Survey: Women, youth drift away from Obama
Published: Updated: 6:11 PM 08/26/2011 By Neil Munro - The Daily Caller
A critical bloc of Democratic-aligned voters has lurched away from President Barack Obama’s campaign and won’t come back until Democrats develop a new “narrative,” warns a new survey by a Democratic polling firm.
The bloc of “unmarried women, people of color, and younger voters — comprises a rapidly growing majority of the eligible voting population in this country … [but they] are not hearing an economic narrative that speaks to their problems and concerns or convinces them that their leaders have the ability to solve those problems,” says the Aug. 24 report titled “Creating a New Economic Narrative; Engaging the Rising American Electorate for 2012.”
Other Democratic advocates corroborate the survey’s data. For example, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said Wednesday that fewer working-class voters will turn out in 2012 unless Obama can persuade them that their votes can change government policy. “Give them the narrative about why it will work,” he said at a press breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.
Republicans advocates say they’re winning over women, youth and blue-collar voters partly because Obama’s government-focused economic policies have failed to reduce the unemployment rate.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign’s Project Vote effort says it will work to ”engage key demographic groups, such as African Americans, Women, Youth, Latinos, LGBT, Veterans, Asian Americans and others.”
These voters are especially valuable to the Obama campaign because many have not registered or voted before, giving the campaign a change to increase its tallies amid expected losses among older and white voters.
The Obama campaign sketched out its strategy for winning these “Project Vote” groups and for getting them to register for the ballot. “Project Vote will communicate with and engage targeted constituencies by reaching them where they are, in their communities and neighborhoods, and having one-on-one grassroots conversations about the issues they care about most – jobs, health care and education,” the statement said.
The survey of 1,480 likely “Rising American Electorate” voters was completed in early August by Washington, D.C.-based Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps, a Democratic research group, and for the Women’s Voices, Women Vote Action Fund.
“This is a real challenge … unmarried women and young voters continue to indicate strong support for Obama and the Democrats heading into next year, but a stronger economic rationale is needed to ensure they turn out and support traditional allies who support their public policy agenda,” said the report, which did not attempt to offer a vision that would mobilize these voters.
The decline has already damaged the Democrats. The RAE voters gave 69 percent of their vote to Obama in 2010, but only 60 percent to Democrats in 2010, said the report.
The Truth HURTS Barack...
Golfer Paul Azinger Zings Obama Over Jobs
Published August 26, 2011 | FoxNews.com
U.S. team captain Paul Azinger holds the Ryder Cup after defeating the European team to win the 37th Ryder Cup Championship at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., in this Sept. 21, 2008 file photo.
Pro golfer Paul Azinger thinks President Obama might be hitting the links a bit too hard.
The author, businessman and 12-time PGA Tour winner took to Twitter Thursday to zing the commander-in-chief over his frequent golf outings while on vacation in Martha's Vineyard.
"Facts: Potus has played more golf this month than I have: I have created more jobs this month than he has," Azinger wrote.
Obama's advisers say he plans to outline a new jobs plan when he, and Congress, return to Washington. He's been pushing for weeks for new trade deals, a patent law overhaul and an extension of the payroll tax cut -- the president may build on those ideas next month, though he is expected to offset his proposals with further calls for deficit reduction.
But the president's critics say he's had an on-again-off-again commitment to job creation, repeatedly vowing to make it his top priority since 2009 before diverting to something else.
Azinger, winner of the 1993 PGA Championship, has branched out into business since his glory days on the tour. He's written books, one about his battle with cancer, and has developed a golf-oriented iPhone app.
Hannity....Goes after Goolsbee
It's nice to see a media person actually press a political figure to get some real answers...Goolsbee's nuts....hurricanes, earthquakes, arab spring...everything but the Obama policies....
Remember this Obama Promise???...Let's see how he Plans to Keep this One....
We all need to be watching to see how Obama plans to make good on this promise...My guess is he has NO INTENTION of trying to....
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Business Fights Back!
Business is pissed at Obama and Big Govenment he supports...and they should be...
Dozens of Business Leaders Back Starbucks CEO's Pledge to Halt Campaign Donations
Published August 25, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz told Fox News he wants to send a "powerful message" to Washington about frustration in the business world, announcing that more than 100 business leaders have endorsed his pledge to suspend campaign contributions until a long-term debt deal is reached.
Schultz first called for the cutoff about 10 days ago. Since then, a host of other CEOs have signed on, including AOL CEO Tim Armstrong; Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith; J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler; JC Penney CEO Myron Ullman; and Whole Foods Co-CEO Walter Robb.
The Starbucks chief told Fox News their message is simple: "Do your job and give us the America we deserve." He said uncertainty over the country's finances has spooked the private sector, and they want Washington to show "real leadership" by striking a significant deficit-reduction deal.
"We need a long-term debt-ceiling deal that ... doesn't put a Band-Aid on this, but removes the level of uncertainty and the fracturing of confidence," he said Wednesday. "This is a crisis in America. It's a crisis of leadership, and it's a crisis in the economy. And we must send a powerful message to Washington that we're not satisfied."
Schultz said the recent decision by Standard & Poor's to downgrade U.S. credit was the result of a lack of confidence in politicians' ability to get things done.
Schultz is also calling on businesses to inspire "confidence" in the economy by hiring more people "now" -- as opposed to waiting for another government stimulus program. He has launched a website and Facebook page describing the dual pledges and enlisting supporters.
If Schultz's donation-boycott appeal strikes a chord with enough business leaders, the pledge could make a dent.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, contributions from business political action committees totaled $334 million in the 2009-2010 cycle.
Individual donations from the business community approached $1 billion, split about evenly between the two parties.
Schultz said the contributions are "obscene" considering "there's 9 percent unemployment in America."
The Starbucks CEO wants a halt to donations for all members of Congress and the president. He describes the effort as non-partisan. Over the years, Schultz has been a prolific contributor mostly to Democratic candidates. In 2007, he donated to then-Sen. Barack Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, in the presidential race.
Dozens of Business Leaders Back Starbucks CEO's Pledge to Halt Campaign Donations
Published August 25, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz told Fox News he wants to send a "powerful message" to Washington about frustration in the business world, announcing that more than 100 business leaders have endorsed his pledge to suspend campaign contributions until a long-term debt deal is reached.
Schultz first called for the cutoff about 10 days ago. Since then, a host of other CEOs have signed on, including AOL CEO Tim Armstrong; Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith; J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler; JC Penney CEO Myron Ullman; and Whole Foods Co-CEO Walter Robb.
The Starbucks chief told Fox News their message is simple: "Do your job and give us the America we deserve." He said uncertainty over the country's finances has spooked the private sector, and they want Washington to show "real leadership" by striking a significant deficit-reduction deal.
"We need a long-term debt-ceiling deal that ... doesn't put a Band-Aid on this, but removes the level of uncertainty and the fracturing of confidence," he said Wednesday. "This is a crisis in America. It's a crisis of leadership, and it's a crisis in the economy. And we must send a powerful message to Washington that we're not satisfied."
Schultz said the recent decision by Standard & Poor's to downgrade U.S. credit was the result of a lack of confidence in politicians' ability to get things done.
Schultz is also calling on businesses to inspire "confidence" in the economy by hiring more people "now" -- as opposed to waiting for another government stimulus program. He has launched a website and Facebook page describing the dual pledges and enlisting supporters.
If Schultz's donation-boycott appeal strikes a chord with enough business leaders, the pledge could make a dent.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, contributions from business political action committees totaled $334 million in the 2009-2010 cycle.
Individual donations from the business community approached $1 billion, split about evenly between the two parties.
Schultz said the contributions are "obscene" considering "there's 9 percent unemployment in America."
The Starbucks CEO wants a halt to donations for all members of Congress and the president. He describes the effort as non-partisan. Over the years, Schultz has been a prolific contributor mostly to Democratic candidates. In 2007, he donated to then-Sen. Barack Obama, as well as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, in the presidential race.
Public Sector Unions are killing America!
This is much of what's wrong with our country....it's the public sector unions that have negotiated out of control pensions and benefits....and all this while the unions put together a super PAC to fight to keep these uncompetitive benefits...This is exactly why the actions by the Wisconsin Governor and the Republicans in that state were so important...The same exists at the federal level with out of control public sector unions, but this President will not address it....It's just one more reason for a much smaller govenment...
U.S. Cities Strangled by Cost of Ballooning Pensions
By Leah Krakinowski Published August 25, 2011
When Beverly Hills residents found out that many of their city’s 950 municipal and public safety employees were earning stunning salaries, 13 weeks of paid vacation, unlimited overtime and other tax-free retirement benefits, taxpayers were outraged and city officials rushed into closed-door sessions to figure out what to do.
These revelations, exposed through the efforts of the city’s hometown newspaper, The Beverly Hills Courier, unmasked an even deeper problem: many California cities, and likely other municipalities across the U.S., are being strangled by the cost of ballooning pension benefits they can no longer afford.
All this has taken place in the throes of a global recession that is clobbering federal, state and local tax revenues used to pay for public services and pensions, and against the backdrop of the nation’s private-sector workers, who are feeling the pain of reductions, or total losses of their pension funds. And, in many cases, their jobs.
“What we have now is a grab bag of incredible benefits for public employees that are totally detached from what’s been happening in the private sector, and it’s neither fair nor sustainable,” said John Mirisch, a first-term Beverly Hills council member elected in 2009. “When the city was rolling in dough, officials may have thought the salary and pension structure was sustainable, but certainly, it was not fair.”
A former statistician for the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS), the state’s pension fund, warned that by 2014, local governments could be paying 50 percent of a police officer’s salary, 40 percent of a firefighter’s salary and 25 percent of an employee’s salary for their pensions, according to a recent report by the California League of Cities, a statewide advocacy group.
Many cities will face 25 percent or more increases in pension contribution costs in the next three years and those rates are likely to remain high for the next 10 years or more, the report said.
“It was a perfect storm that spun out of control,” Mirisch said, referring to what he calls the “go-go years” of 15 percent returns on investments.
The current pension structure in the state took shape when stock market investments swelled in the early 2000s, and with it, the coffers of California’s public pension system.
In fact, the California League’s report cited that earnings were so high, employers were given a “rate holiday” for a number of years and did not have to make employer contributions into their respective pension systems.
Public employee organizations saw the huge returns on pension fund investments and figured that the bounty should be shared by all, the report indicated. So, they proposed – and were granted – a series of retirement benefit formula increases, including lowering the retirement age from 55 to 50 for police and fire.
In Beverly Hills, city employees do not contribute to their own retirement pensions; the city pays everything with half of that contribution being largely tax-free, according to the Beverly Hills Pension Task Force headed by City Treasurer Elliot Finkel, as reported in the Courier. The Task Force presented its findings at a recent city council meeting.
When a city employee retires, he or she is guaranteed a fixed amount that increases every year. If CalPERS funding falls short, taxpayers make up the difference.
“When taxpayers are paying the bill, it’s embarrassing institutionally, [especially when] they see the economy of the state, the news reports and plights of people,” says Thomas White, chairman of the Beverly Hills Municipal League, a citizens’ group. “Where is the cost-cutting, the effort to control expenses on a local level, and the control of how our city is managed?”
With revenue streams growing modestly or, in some cases, not at all, local taxpayers are crying foul and city officials are scrambling to figure out how they will continue to pay for a system that does not ask city employees to pitch in.
“Nobody expected this,” says Dan Carrigg, the California League of Cities’ legislative director. “Tough times in the last three to four years have forced cities to deal with the cost side of their ledgers, including employee costs and pensions.”
Carrigg said that many labor groups, now at the bargaining table with city agencies across the state, are agreeing to lower-tier pension benefits for new employees, wage cuts, and even layoffs among public safety employees – concessions they wouldn’t have agreed to several years ago.
After the city of Beverly Hills was forced to provide the “total cost to the city” for each employee as a result of three California Public Records Act demands and the threat of litigation by the Courier, the published reports kicked off a public firestorm. The salary and compensation information were prepared by the City of Beverly Hills and published by the Courier without editing or modification, said Clifton Smith Jr., the paper’s publisher.
“Until that point, the city published staff compensation exclusively by “salary,” which represents only about half what the City of Beverly Hills pays per employee,” he said. Added to that amount are: guaranteed overtime (city employment agreements with unionized workers includes “guaranteed” overtime), overtime, administrative leave, paid vacation, sick time off (paid if not used), 100 percent retirement contributions (the employee pays nothing), full health care, “9/80” days (every other Monday or Friday off), and legal holidays, he said. Exempt employees get the same amount of sick leave and vacation time, but receive administrative leave instead of overtime pay.
With a population of 34,000, Beverly Hills has one employee for every 34 residents, the highest ratio in California.
Earlier this year, citing a budget deficit, the city council sought to make a number of cuts, including eliminating a quarter of its business marketing budget, instituting fee increases for the use of city parks by organized sports, removing special police coverage from local schools, and reducing or eliminating the city's longstanding two-hour free parking.
“Relative to Los Angeles and Culver City, our tax base is three to four times greater, but the city government has spent money carelessly, said the Municipal League’s chairman, Thomas White. “It’s now time to be looking at the excessive cost of government.”
In a recent closed session, the council began discussing sustainable compensation and pension benefit options with the Beverly Hills Fire Department Association, Police Officers Association and Police Management Association, all of which are in the process of bargaining with the city. Their contracts are up in October. Contracts for the rest of the city’s unions will expire in October 2013.
“The ultimate responsibility rests with the city council to make necessary changes,” Mirisch said. “Who retires at 50 today? Isn’t 70 the new 50? That rhetorical question is indicative of what is wrong with our [pension] system today.”
U.S. Cities Strangled by Cost of Ballooning Pensions
By Leah Krakinowski Published August 25, 2011
When Beverly Hills residents found out that many of their city’s 950 municipal and public safety employees were earning stunning salaries, 13 weeks of paid vacation, unlimited overtime and other tax-free retirement benefits, taxpayers were outraged and city officials rushed into closed-door sessions to figure out what to do.
These revelations, exposed through the efforts of the city’s hometown newspaper, The Beverly Hills Courier, unmasked an even deeper problem: many California cities, and likely other municipalities across the U.S., are being strangled by the cost of ballooning pension benefits they can no longer afford.
All this has taken place in the throes of a global recession that is clobbering federal, state and local tax revenues used to pay for public services and pensions, and against the backdrop of the nation’s private-sector workers, who are feeling the pain of reductions, or total losses of their pension funds. And, in many cases, their jobs.
“What we have now is a grab bag of incredible benefits for public employees that are totally detached from what’s been happening in the private sector, and it’s neither fair nor sustainable,” said John Mirisch, a first-term Beverly Hills council member elected in 2009. “When the city was rolling in dough, officials may have thought the salary and pension structure was sustainable, but certainly, it was not fair.”
A former statistician for the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS), the state’s pension fund, warned that by 2014, local governments could be paying 50 percent of a police officer’s salary, 40 percent of a firefighter’s salary and 25 percent of an employee’s salary for their pensions, according to a recent report by the California League of Cities, a statewide advocacy group.
Many cities will face 25 percent or more increases in pension contribution costs in the next three years and those rates are likely to remain high for the next 10 years or more, the report said.
“It was a perfect storm that spun out of control,” Mirisch said, referring to what he calls the “go-go years” of 15 percent returns on investments.
The current pension structure in the state took shape when stock market investments swelled in the early 2000s, and with it, the coffers of California’s public pension system.
In fact, the California League’s report cited that earnings were so high, employers were given a “rate holiday” for a number of years and did not have to make employer contributions into their respective pension systems.
Public employee organizations saw the huge returns on pension fund investments and figured that the bounty should be shared by all, the report indicated. So, they proposed – and were granted – a series of retirement benefit formula increases, including lowering the retirement age from 55 to 50 for police and fire.
In Beverly Hills, city employees do not contribute to their own retirement pensions; the city pays everything with half of that contribution being largely tax-free, according to the Beverly Hills Pension Task Force headed by City Treasurer Elliot Finkel, as reported in the Courier. The Task Force presented its findings at a recent city council meeting.
When a city employee retires, he or she is guaranteed a fixed amount that increases every year. If CalPERS funding falls short, taxpayers make up the difference.
“When taxpayers are paying the bill, it’s embarrassing institutionally, [especially when] they see the economy of the state, the news reports and plights of people,” says Thomas White, chairman of the Beverly Hills Municipal League, a citizens’ group. “Where is the cost-cutting, the effort to control expenses on a local level, and the control of how our city is managed?”
With revenue streams growing modestly or, in some cases, not at all, local taxpayers are crying foul and city officials are scrambling to figure out how they will continue to pay for a system that does not ask city employees to pitch in.
“Nobody expected this,” says Dan Carrigg, the California League of Cities’ legislative director. “Tough times in the last three to four years have forced cities to deal with the cost side of their ledgers, including employee costs and pensions.”
Carrigg said that many labor groups, now at the bargaining table with city agencies across the state, are agreeing to lower-tier pension benefits for new employees, wage cuts, and even layoffs among public safety employees – concessions they wouldn’t have agreed to several years ago.
After the city of Beverly Hills was forced to provide the “total cost to the city” for each employee as a result of three California Public Records Act demands and the threat of litigation by the Courier, the published reports kicked off a public firestorm. The salary and compensation information were prepared by the City of Beverly Hills and published by the Courier without editing or modification, said Clifton Smith Jr., the paper’s publisher.
“Until that point, the city published staff compensation exclusively by “salary,” which represents only about half what the City of Beverly Hills pays per employee,” he said. Added to that amount are: guaranteed overtime (city employment agreements with unionized workers includes “guaranteed” overtime), overtime, administrative leave, paid vacation, sick time off (paid if not used), 100 percent retirement contributions (the employee pays nothing), full health care, “9/80” days (every other Monday or Friday off), and legal holidays, he said. Exempt employees get the same amount of sick leave and vacation time, but receive administrative leave instead of overtime pay.
With a population of 34,000, Beverly Hills has one employee for every 34 residents, the highest ratio in California.
Earlier this year, citing a budget deficit, the city council sought to make a number of cuts, including eliminating a quarter of its business marketing budget, instituting fee increases for the use of city parks by organized sports, removing special police coverage from local schools, and reducing or eliminating the city's longstanding two-hour free parking.
“Relative to Los Angeles and Culver City, our tax base is three to four times greater, but the city government has spent money carelessly, said the Municipal League’s chairman, Thomas White. “It’s now time to be looking at the excessive cost of government.”
In a recent closed session, the council began discussing sustainable compensation and pension benefit options with the Beverly Hills Fire Department Association, Police Officers Association and Police Management Association, all of which are in the process of bargaining with the city. Their contracts are up in October. Contracts for the rest of the city’s unions will expire in October 2013.
“The ultimate responsibility rests with the city council to make necessary changes,” Mirisch said. “Who retires at 50 today? Isn’t 70 the new 50? That rhetorical question is indicative of what is wrong with our [pension] system today.”
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
You have got to see this...If you watch NBC, ABC or CBS you never saw this...
If you watch NBC, CBS or ABC then you never saw this...
THIS is a real Commander in Chief....not one that gets a medal of honor winners background confused....not one that never served....
I'd take George W back in the White House in a minute...
THIS is a real Commander in Chief....not one that gets a medal of honor winners background confused....not one that never served....
I'd take George W back in the White House in a minute...
State Run NBC again not telling the truth just to make their liberal biased point....NBC just doesn't care about the truth...
Here's NBC lying again just to make their partisan viewpoint whether it's the truth or not....from this quote there is no mention of corporate tax rates...
Before playing a perfectly reasonable quote from Gov. Rick Perry where he praises the growth of civil rights in the United States over the decades and discusses the continuing promise of economic freedom for people of all races and ethnicities, NBC News anchor Chris Jansing claimed that Perry was comparing the civil rights struggles with corporate tax rates. But, that's not what Perry did at all. Here is the full quote from Perry. Do you see any mention of "corporate tax rates"?:
" America's gone a long way from the standpoint of civil rights and thank God we have. I mean, we've gone from a country that's made great strides in issues of civil rights. I think we all can be proud of that. And as we go forward, America needs to be about freedom. It needs to be about freedom from over taxation, freedom from over-litigation, freedom from over-regulation. And Americans, regardless of social and economic background is, they need to know that they can come to America and you got a chance to have any dream come true, because the economic climate is going to be improved."
Before playing a perfectly reasonable quote from Gov. Rick Perry where he praises the growth of civil rights in the United States over the decades and discusses the continuing promise of economic freedom for people of all races and ethnicities, NBC News anchor Chris Jansing claimed that Perry was comparing the civil rights struggles with corporate tax rates. But, that's not what Perry did at all. Here is the full quote from Perry. Do you see any mention of "corporate tax rates"?:
" America's gone a long way from the standpoint of civil rights and thank God we have. I mean, we've gone from a country that's made great strides in issues of civil rights. I think we all can be proud of that. And as we go forward, America needs to be about freedom. It needs to be about freedom from over taxation, freedom from over-litigation, freedom from over-regulation. And Americans, regardless of social and economic background is, they need to know that they can come to America and you got a chance to have any dream come true, because the economic climate is going to be improved."
Funny how those blazing Liberals have selective memory - Obama met with Gaddafi one month earlier than McCain did....
The selective memory of the die hard liberals..Obama met with Gaddafi one month before McCain did.....but to say that wouldn't allow them to make their biased point...MSNBC - State-Run Media
Breitbart.tv » Maddow and Letterman Mock McCain for Meeting Gaddafi in 2009, Ignore Obama Meeting Him Month Prior
Breitbart.tv » Maddow and Letterman Mock McCain for Meeting Gaddafi in 2009, Ignore Obama Meeting Him Month Prior
Obama calls HIMSELF "unpatriotic"
This was Obama when he was campaigning...and now that he's been in office for over 2 1/2 years he's not only done the same thing, but he's made it significantly worse....So I guess he's "unpatriotic"....
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Howard Dean would like Huntsman...He's really a Democrat ...
No doubt Howard Dean would like Huntsman...He's worse than a RINO, he's a Democrat in republican disguise....he's be out of the Republican race pretty soon so maybe the Dems can recruit him to run against Obama?
Howard Dean: ‘Huntsman is a great candidate for president but he is in the wrong party’
Published: Updated: 4:29 PM 08/23/2011 By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller
It’s not an endorsement that former Utah Gov. John Huntsman likely asked for, but his policy positions have won the support of Howard Dean.
On MSNBC’s Tuesday broadcast of “Morning Joe,” the former Democratic National Committee chairman and Vermont governor praised Huntsman, especially as he stacks up against other GOP contenders.
“Jacob [Weisberg, of Slate] wrote this was ‘the thinking man’s candidate,’” said Dean. “There aren’t any thinking people in the Republican Party. I’m serious. Name a few thoughtful policy analysts in the Republican Party — not Rick Perry, not Michele Bachmann. Look at all these people. Huntsman is the real deal.”
As for the others considered potential “thinking man’s” candidates, like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, they had flaws.
“The problem with Mitt Romney is, Mitt Romney is thoughtful and he is smart and he’s lived in the real world, but he’ll say roughly anything to get elected,” Dean alleged. “Newt is great. I like Newt a lot. He has a lot of interesting ideas. The trouble is that his own friends will tell you that he comes out with ten ideas a day and one of them makes sense. Is that the guy you want in the White House?”
Ultimately, Dean suggested Huntsman should be a Democrat.
“I learned that Jon Huntsman is a great candidate for president but he is in the wrong party,” Dean said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that from me.”
Howard Dean: ‘Huntsman is a great candidate for president but he is in the wrong party’
Published: Updated: 4:29 PM 08/23/2011 By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller
It’s not an endorsement that former Utah Gov. John Huntsman likely asked for, but his policy positions have won the support of Howard Dean.
On MSNBC’s Tuesday broadcast of “Morning Joe,” the former Democratic National Committee chairman and Vermont governor praised Huntsman, especially as he stacks up against other GOP contenders.
“Jacob [Weisberg, of Slate] wrote this was ‘the thinking man’s candidate,’” said Dean. “There aren’t any thinking people in the Republican Party. I’m serious. Name a few thoughtful policy analysts in the Republican Party — not Rick Perry, not Michele Bachmann. Look at all these people. Huntsman is the real deal.”
As for the others considered potential “thinking man’s” candidates, like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, they had flaws.
“The problem with Mitt Romney is, Mitt Romney is thoughtful and he is smart and he’s lived in the real world, but he’ll say roughly anything to get elected,” Dean alleged. “Newt is great. I like Newt a lot. He has a lot of interesting ideas. The trouble is that his own friends will tell you that he comes out with ten ideas a day and one of them makes sense. Is that the guy you want in the White House?”
Ultimately, Dean suggested Huntsman should be a Democrat.
“I learned that Jon Huntsman is a great candidate for president but he is in the wrong party,” Dean said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that from me.”
Damage Control over Biden's support for China's one child law....
Obama's out already trying to say Biden "misspoke"...that's the key phrase of this Administration and the Democrats....Biden and this Administration has no respect for life and that's obvious....and little respect for Human Rights around the world obviously...
Obama administration attempts to clarify Biden’s one-child policy comments
Published: Updated: 4:49 PM 08/23/2011 By Caroline May
In the wake of an onslaught of criticism for Vice President Joe Biden’s comments in China about “not second guessing” the country’s one-child policy, the Obama administration has issued a statement of clarification.
“The Obama Administration strongly opposes all aspects of China’s coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization,” Biden’s spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told The Daily Caller in an email. “The Vice President believes such practices are repugnant.”
Barkoff explained that Biden was attempting to critique the restrictive system with his comments.
“He also pointed out, in China, that the policy is, as a practical matter, unsustainable,” Barkoff added. “He was arguing against the One Child Policy to a Chinese audience. ”
Biden came under fire for comments he made during appearance at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, in which he said that he would “not second-guess” the nation’s one-child policy. That policy has resulted in sterilizations and abortions on a large scale.
Republicans and pro-life advocates hit Biden hard for his words. (RELATED: Romney expresses horror at one-child policy comments by Biden)
“China’s one child policy has led to the great human tragedy of forced abortions throughout China, and Vice President Biden’s refusal to ‘second-guess’ this horrendous policy demonstrates great moral indifference on the part of the Obama Administration,” said Rick Perry, the Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate. “Americans value life, and we deserve leaders who will stand up against such inhumanity, not cast a blind eye.”
House Speaker John Boehner and presidential candidate Mitt Romney also joined the chorus of opposition.
“I’m deeply troubled by the comments reportedly made by the Vice President yesterday regarding China’s reprehensible one-child policy, which has resulted in forced sterilizations and coerced abortions and should not be condoned by any American official,” said Boehner. “No government on Earth has the authority to place quotas on the value of innocent human life, or to treat life as an economic commodity that can be regulated and taken away on a whim by the state.”
“China’s one-child policy is gruesome and barbaric,” Romney said. “Vice President Biden’s acquiescence to such a policy should shock the conscience of every American.”
R
Obama administration attempts to clarify Biden’s one-child policy comments
Published: Updated: 4:49 PM 08/23/2011 By Caroline May
In the wake of an onslaught of criticism for Vice President Joe Biden’s comments in China about “not second guessing” the country’s one-child policy, the Obama administration has issued a statement of clarification.
“The Obama Administration strongly opposes all aspects of China’s coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization,” Biden’s spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told The Daily Caller in an email. “The Vice President believes such practices are repugnant.”
Barkoff explained that Biden was attempting to critique the restrictive system with his comments.
“He also pointed out, in China, that the policy is, as a practical matter, unsustainable,” Barkoff added. “He was arguing against the One Child Policy to a Chinese audience. ”
Biden came under fire for comments he made during appearance at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, in which he said that he would “not second-guess” the nation’s one-child policy. That policy has resulted in sterilizations and abortions on a large scale.
Republicans and pro-life advocates hit Biden hard for his words. (RELATED: Romney expresses horror at one-child policy comments by Biden)
“China’s one child policy has led to the great human tragedy of forced abortions throughout China, and Vice President Biden’s refusal to ‘second-guess’ this horrendous policy demonstrates great moral indifference on the part of the Obama Administration,” said Rick Perry, the Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate. “Americans value life, and we deserve leaders who will stand up against such inhumanity, not cast a blind eye.”
House Speaker John Boehner and presidential candidate Mitt Romney also joined the chorus of opposition.
“I’m deeply troubled by the comments reportedly made by the Vice President yesterday regarding China’s reprehensible one-child policy, which has resulted in forced sterilizations and coerced abortions and should not be condoned by any American official,” said Boehner. “No government on Earth has the authority to place quotas on the value of innocent human life, or to treat life as an economic commodity that can be regulated and taken away on a whim by the state.”
“China’s one-child policy is gruesome and barbaric,” Romney said. “Vice President Biden’s acquiescence to such a policy should shock the conscience of every American.”
R
Send Piers Morgan back to Great Britain!
Send Piers Morgan back to Great Britain so he can continue hacking phone lines...revoke his green card....
Obama Takes Quake Calls While on Golf Course
God forbid Obama should interupt his golf game for an earthquake....now worry he played on .....
Breitbart.tv » Obama Takes Quake Calls While on Golf Course
Breitbart.tv » Obama Takes Quake Calls While on Golf Course
Biden...the end of the worthless bookends we call our President and Vice President!
Biden is such an idiot....He has NO Right being the Vice President...and don't think this isn't the feeling of the whole Administration....Get Obama and Biden out of the White House or he will think he can start to get government into your personal life.
This Administration has NO respect for the right of life....
This Administration has NO respect for the right of life....
This is Leadership - President Obama on the Golf Course missing a putt after the earthquake...
What a Pathetic excuse for a President Obama is!
All Shook Up? Barack Obama missed golf putts after earthquake struck
By Toby Harnden US politics Last updated: August 23rd, 2011
The earthquake that originated here in Virginia was felt across the east coast of the United States, including the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, where Barack Obama is holidaying. The President was out playing golf at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs when the tremors were detected by some in the White House press pool.
So did the earth move for Obama? We don’t know yet. But shortly afterwards, the pool did get a rare opportunity to watch the President golfing (even since Michael Moore included footage of President George W. Bush golfing in his film Fahrenheit 911, White House occupants have been cautious about being observed playing).
Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, the White House pool print journalist, reported that shortly after the quake:
The pool was ushered onto the fairway of first hole, where the presidential party had already reached the putting green. The pool was kept several hundred feet away, well outside shouting distance.
The pool was, however, able to see the president putting moves, albeit from a distance.
From our vantage point, this is the play by play: He stepped up to his ball, which was several feet from the hole, and made two practice strokes. He missed the hole on his first putt, but got it close. He then tried to tap it in, but missed again. He appeared to pick up the ball to let the others in his party play through as he watched.
We don’t know whether missing putts is par for the course for Obama. But on this occasion he’s got a ready-made excuse. He can’t claim that the earthquake caused the ball the roll away from the hole but he could say that the tremors left him “All Shook Up”.
All Shook Up? Barack Obama missed golf putts after earthquake struck
By Toby Harnden US politics Last updated: August 23rd, 2011
The earthquake that originated here in Virginia was felt across the east coast of the United States, including the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, where Barack Obama is holidaying. The President was out playing golf at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs when the tremors were detected by some in the White House press pool.
So did the earth move for Obama? We don’t know yet. But shortly afterwards, the pool did get a rare opportunity to watch the President golfing (even since Michael Moore included footage of President George W. Bush golfing in his film Fahrenheit 911, White House occupants have been cautious about being observed playing).
Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, the White House pool print journalist, reported that shortly after the quake:
The pool was ushered onto the fairway of first hole, where the presidential party had already reached the putting green. The pool was kept several hundred feet away, well outside shouting distance.
The pool was, however, able to see the president putting moves, albeit from a distance.
From our vantage point, this is the play by play: He stepped up to his ball, which was several feet from the hole, and made two practice strokes. He missed the hole on his first putt, but got it close. He then tried to tap it in, but missed again. He appeared to pick up the ball to let the others in his party play through as he watched.
We don’t know whether missing putts is par for the course for Obama. But on this occasion he’s got a ready-made excuse. He can’t claim that the earthquake caused the ball the roll away from the hole but he could say that the tremors left him “All Shook Up”.
Monday, August 22, 2011
How True....
How True....Now we need to put him on permanent vacation by not reelecting Obama in November 2012....
Sunday, August 21, 2011
No one can sum it up better than Trump!
"Obama Care Explained"
Let me get this straight . . . ...
We're going to be "gifted" with a health care
plan we are forced to purchase and
fined if we don't,
Which purportedly covers at least
ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman
says he doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that didn't read it but
exempted themselves from it,
and signed by a President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who
didn't pay his taxes,
for which we'll be taxed for four years before any
benefits take effect,
by a government which has
already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general
who is obese,
and financed by a country that's broke!!!!!
'What the hell could
possibly go wrong?'
"Obama Care Explained"
Let me get this straight . . . ...
We're going to be "gifted" with a health care
plan we are forced to purchase and
fined if we don't,
Which purportedly covers at least
ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman
says he doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that didn't read it but
exempted themselves from it,
and signed by a President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who
didn't pay his taxes,
for which we'll be taxed for four years before any
benefits take effect,
by a government which has
already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general
who is obese,
and financed by a country that's broke!!!!!
'What the hell could
possibly go wrong?'
Obituary.....
Very Interesting...and it's very true that the 2012 elections REALLY MATTER!
Obituary-Very Interesting
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
The Obituary follows:
Born 1776, Died 2008 "It doesn't hurt to read this several times". Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Lawin St. Paul, Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase..
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years. If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.
If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.
This is truly scary! Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic. Someone should point this out to Obama. Of course we know he and too many others pay little attention to The Constitution. There couldn't be more at stake than on Nov 2012. If you are as concerned as I am please pass this along.
Can't happen here, Not in the USA . The people won't let it happen
....... WILL THEY?
Obituary-Very Interesting
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
The Obituary follows:
Born 1776, Died 2008 "It doesn't hurt to read this several times". Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Lawin St. Paul, Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase..
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years. If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.
If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.
This is truly scary! Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic. Someone should point this out to Obama. Of course we know he and too many others pay little attention to The Constitution. There couldn't be more at stake than on Nov 2012. If you are as concerned as I am please pass this along.
Can't happen here, Not in the USA . The people won't let it happen
....... WILL THEY?
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