Obama's meager record on the economy About Obama’s meager record defended mightily by talk show host Letterman.
In an interview with NBC News anchor Brian Williams, Letterman asked, “What more do we want this man [Obama] to do for us, honest to God?â€
Here’s how the folks at Commentary answered Letterman’s question:
For starters, something better than the weakest economic recovery in the modern era,
the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era,
the highest sustained unemployment rate since the Great Depression,
a housing crisis worse than the Great Depression,
unprecedented deficits and debt,
a standard of living that’s fallen longer and more steeply during the past three years than at any time since the government began recording it five decades ago,
a downgrade in the United States’ credit rating for the first time in history,
and a record number of people in poverty.
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None of this means anything to Letterman, the overpaid,ignoramus who pontificates nightly.
Individual conscience and service or a proletarian struggle? personal conscience of each individual What makes the individual matter?
For Obama it is the collective force that individuals can exert through mass action such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not the individual but the collectivity of individuals subsumed to some greater goal that causes important change according to Obama. Life is a proletarian struggle.
For Romney, “the call of service is one of the fundamental elements of our national character. It has motivated every great movement of conscience that this hopeful, fair-minded country of ours has ever seen.”
Recently, Gov. Romney told graduates of Liberty College that “the great drama is always personal, individual, unfolding in one’s own life… and that Men and women of every faith — and good people with none at all — sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.”
Life is politics says Obama. Obama tells college graduates at Banard College that the road ahead is a fairly grim proletarian struggle and that they need to be ready to occupy everything. Mass political action is the way to make significant change says Obama.
The contrasting world views of Romney and Obama as to how change occurs through individual actions could not be starker.
What say you as to why individuals matter?
DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
See Opinion piece in WSJ A Tale of Two Commencements below
“Two days after Mitt Romney delivered the commencement speech at Liberty University, the big evangelical Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell, Barack Obama tutored graduates at Barnard College, the intensely liberal all-women’s school adjacent to Columbia University. As you might guess, the wisdom these two political elders imparted to the Class of 2012 was not the same.
Of course the first purpose for both men was to turn young graduates into believers. Mr. Romney, a Mormon, needs to win over ambivalent evangelical voters. Mr. Obama, a liberal Democrat, expects to have the 22-year-old college graduate vote locked up—if they vote.
Yes, of course, they pandered.
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Columnist Daniel Henninger on what Mitt Romney and President Obama’s commencement speeches say about their world view. Photo: Associated Press
Barack Obama, by now a master at faux self-deflation, admitted he was pandering: “Now I recognize that’s a cheap applause line when you’re giving a commencement at Barnard.” (Laughter.) He had said the women of this generation will help lead the way. (Applause.)
Mitt Romney solved his more problematic pandering assignment by piling praise onto the university’s late founder, the Rev. Jerry Falwell—”a cheerful, confident champion for Christ.”
But even amid pandering one may find truths about candidates revealed, and so it was in New York City and Lynchburg, Va.
The world that Barack Obama conveyed to the women at Barnard is totally, overwhelmingly political. To be sure, there were references to parental joy at the success of children completing college, but virtually every thought in the Obama commencement address—on the accomplishments of the past or a graduate’s goals—was defined by political activity.
He said they are about to grapple with unique challenges, “like whether you’ll be able to earn equal pay for equal work” or “fully control decisions about your own health.”
Related Media
Read a transcript of Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Barnard College
Read a transcript of Mitt Romney’s commencement speech at Liberty University
The role of the citizen in “our democracy” began 225 years ago at the Convention in Philadelphia, which had “flaws,” to wit: “Questions of race and gender were unresolved.” Nonetheless, it “allowed for protest and movements.”
And so: “Don’t accept somebody else’s construction of the way things ought to be. It’s up to you to right wrongs. It’s up to you to point out injustice. It’s up to you to hold the system accountable and sometimes upend it entirely. It’s up to you to stand up and to be heard, to write and to lobby, to march, to organize, to vote.”
Mr. Obama described his own early job as a community organizer: “I wanted to do my part to shape a better world.” He cited the accomplishments of previous generations of young people who “stood up and sat in from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall.” This, Mr. Obama said, is how “we achieved” women’s rights, voting rights, workers’ rights and gay rights.
Barack Obama seems to inhabit a world of history and personal experience in which good people at every turn are held back by individuals or oppressive forces that one only overcomes by personal or public resistance.
Someone in high school told Labor Secretary Hilda Solis she wasn’t college material. Mr. Obama’s grandmother worked for a bank but hit the glass ceiling. And today there are “those who oppose change, those who benefit from an unjust status quo [and] have always bet on the public’s cynicism or the public’s complacency.” He predicts they will lose “this time as well.”
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The president giving remarks at Barnard College, May 14
Fair enough. That’s how the world works for Barack Obama, though it strikes me he is telling America’s 22-year-olds that the road ahead is a fairly grim proletarian struggle. Be ready to occupy everything. Where’s the joy in that?
There was less tooth and claw in the Romney speech at Liberty University. In a discussion of the uses of religious freedom, one passage in particular separated Mr. Romney from Barack Obama’s default to mass action. “The great drama of Christianity,” Gov. Romney said, “is not a crowd shot, following the movements of collectives or even nations. The drama is always personal, individual, unfolding in one’s own life.” Out of this, he said, “Men and women of every faith, and good people with none at all, sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.”
Progress, he argued, emerges through “conscience in action,” for him “the nation’s greatest force for good.” Mr. Romney referred several times to the idea of personal service. “The call to service,” he said “is one of the fundamental elements of our national character. It has motivated every great movement of conscience that this hopeful, fair-minded country of ours has ever seen.”
For Barack Obama, life is politics. For Mitt Romney, life includes politics; politics, he said, does not define us.
To wage a presidential campaign in our nonstop media age, the man who sees politics as a battering ram may have an edge. But Mitt Romney, with his politics of optimism and personal conscience, could be onto something that will serve him well.
In a big change, the state-run Keep Your Home California program will use federal money to reduce an eligible homeowner’s mortgage balance by up to $100,000 without requiring a matching reduction by the bank servicing the loan.
Many more underwater California homeowners will get principal reductions when the change takes effect in early June, but there’s a catch: The reduction is structured as a forgivable loan. If they sell their house within five years, any profit will go toward repaying the principal reduction. After five years, there is no repayment requirement. Under current rules, the loan is forgiven after three years.
Loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are potentially eligible for principal reduction under this program.
The money is coming from a $2 billion grant the state was awarded in 2010 from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund. The grant provides four types of assistance to low- and moderate-income homeowners who can document a financial hardship.
To qualify under the new rules, homeowners must use the home as their primary residence, owe more than it’s worth, fall below the income limit for their county, demonstrate a financial hardship and owe no more than $729,750 on a first mortgage originated on or before Jan. 1, 2010. (The previous cutoff date was Jan. 1, 2009.)
In San Francisco the household income limit is $121,900. For other counties see keepyourhomecalifornia.org/files/income.pdf.
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This is simply outrageous. If in San Francisco you make $121,901, you have the privilege and honor to pay taxes so the federal government can turn money over to the state government(forget all the carrying charges here and there) to give your neighbor who overextended himself or lied on his loan application a gift of $100,000. This is fair?
Obama supports gay marriage
“Whatever people think about this issue, we know it’s controversial, there’s no denying when a president speaks out for the first time like that, it is history,” co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” George Stephanopoulos said to Robin Roberts.
And let me tell you, George, I’m getting chills again,” “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts said about her interview with Obama.
“When you sit in that room and you hear him say those historic words. It was not lost on anyone in there right there. You never know what he’s going to say until you ask him,” she added.
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In another courageous move our president said that the states should decide about gay marriage, but he was for it. And if she doesn’t know what he’s going to say she need only read his old speeches which are endlessly repeated.
pot calls kettle black? Pot calls kettle black? One voice for Black America, Color of Change (COC), routinely smears individuals & groups as racist.
Latest organization COC smears is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC supports voter ID laws as do 70 percent of Americans.
Read below and let COC know what you think of their tactics. Contact form available at Color of Change.org
It takes one to know one? It takes a thief to catch a thief? Hold your arm out and point your index finger. Notice that your thumb points back at you.
COC, per information below, appears to be itself a racist organization that cries racism in the crowded marketplace. And recently a number of CEO’s of large U.S. corporations have ducked and run for cover. So far, Wal-Mart, Johnson & Jounson, AT&T and State Farm have resisted COC’s smear tactics. Caving in include Coca-Cola, Mars, Wendy’s and Kraft.
COC was started in 2005 by former White House aide Van Jones and MoveOn.org James Rucher. Van Jones is the aide who was fired by the White House. CRC wants quotas for government contracts, admission to college, and hiring. Read more below.
After targeting free market policies of ALEC who will be COC’s next target? It’s time to tell COC to stop their smear tactics. Tell Color of Change that 70% of Americans support voter ID laws because they prevent fraud.
COC can be found at Color of Change. org
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taken from Discover the Network.org
‘Founded in 2005, Color of Change (COC) is a nonprofit corporation and an Internet-based grassroots activist group. Van Jones and James Rucker (former director of MoveOn.org Political Action and co-founder of the Secretary of State Project) created COC to combat what they viewed as the systemic racism pervading America generally and conservatism in particular. COC’s mission is to “strengthen Black America’s political voiceâ€; “make government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans”; and “bring about positive political and social change for everyone.”
Toward these ends, the organization COC supports race- and gender-based preferences in government contracting, college admissions, and hiring/promotion policies. Further, COC favors the expansion of the welfare state and thus seeks to discredit initiatives that would restore limited government and rein in public expenditures.
‘From its inception, COC has aimed its criticisms chiefly at prominent conservative and Republican figures. In 2005, for instance, the organization attacked political theorist William Bennett for uttering “racist lies†and pushed to have him dismissed from his broadcasting positions with the Salem Radio Network and CNN.
‘That same year, COC depicted the federal government’s allegedly sluggish mobilization of post-Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts as symptomatic of America’s low regard for black people. “With no one to speak for them,” COC lamented, “hundreds of thousands of people—largely Black, poor, and elderly—were left behind to die.” To drive this point home, COC collaborated with MoveOn.org Civic Action to screen the Spike Lee film When the Levees Broke, which alleged that the federal government had dynamited Gulf-area levees in an effort to flood the black neighborhoods of New Orleans—a view popularized most famously by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Rap singer Kanye West, who cited the government’s inept response to Katrina as evidence that President “Bush does not care about black people,†had a connection to COC at that time: A now defunct website entitled “KayneWasRight.org†was linked back to ColorOfChange.org.
‘In January 2006, COC initiated a Senate letter-writing campaign to galvanize opposition to President Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito “has consistently demonstrated his hostility towards laws that ensure racial equality and protect the civil rights of Americans,†COC claimed. “If history is a guide, Alito’s presence on the Supreme Court will put some of our most basic civil rights protections in jeopardy.â€
‘During the 2008 presidential campaigns, COC was part of the progressive effort to associate the Republican ticket of McCain-Palin with racism. In an open letter which it disseminated widely, COC complained that the “hateful language” and “rhetoric” allegedly on display at Republican campaign events was taking on “an increasingly dangerous tone that seems to ignore the precarious state of our progress when it comes to race and ethnicity.” The organization charged, for instance, that attendees at such events had called for “violence against Sen. Obama, yelling ‘kill him!,’ ‘off with his head!,’ and ‘bomb Obama.’†Subsequent investigations, however, showed no evidence that these racial slurs and threats had ever been uttered.
‘In one of its longest-running initiatives, Color of Change has repeatedly smeared the Fox News Channel (FNC) as a disseminator of racism and bigotry. Beginning in March 2007, COC denounced the station for “consistently attack[ing] Black people, leaders, and cultural institutions.†The following year, COC tried to prevent Fox from co-hosting any of the presidential debates with the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. When Fox News’ Glenn Beck exposed the radical communist past of Van Jones in August 2009, eventually leading to Jones’ resignation from his White House post, COC began a letter-writing campaign to the CEOs of FNC advertisers, demanding that they pull their ads due to “Beck’s racially divisive rhetoric.†In September 2009, COC claimed victory, stating that its efforts had caused Beck to lose 50% of his advertising dollars.
‘In March 2010, COC began an aggressive effort to discredit the Tea Party movement’s “venomous rhetoric,” “racially inflammatory and violent outbursts,” “racially charged imagery,” and “paranoid conspiracy theories.” Said James Rucker: “Republican officials have contributed to this atmosphere with fear-mongering and coded racism, and they have actively courted this element of their party.â€
‘In the fall of 2011, COC helped launch a campaign threatening to boycott corporations that gave financial support to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an association that drafts pro-free-market, pro-limited-government legislation for state lawmakers across the U.S. Most notably, ALEC supports the enforcement of voter-ID laws, immigration laws, and Second Amendment rights. Joining COC in its crusade against ALEC were People for the American Way, the Center for Media and Democracy, the Arizona AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers, the Arizona Education Association, Progress Now, and Occupy Wall Street. The combined pressure of these organizations caused a number of companies to withdraw their support for ALEC. These included Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Intuit, Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, Arby’s, and Walgreens.
“In the spring of 2012, COC and its allies tried to exploit the racial overtones of the February 26, 2012 killing of black teenager Trayvon Martin, who had been shot by a “white Hispanic” claiming to have acted in self-defense as permitted under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Charging (incorrectly) that ALEC had drafted that particular law, COC demanded that AT&T—which was one of ALEC’s corporate board members—abandon the Council or be permanently branded as a racist entity with Trayvon Martin’s blood on its proverbial hands. Further, COC alleged that Florida police had deliberately sought to suppress evidence against Martin’s killer, and that law-enforcement’s decision not to incarcerate the gunman reflected “a pattern of failing to prosecute when the victim is Black.”
“COC’s executive director is Rashad Robinson, who is also affiliated with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Right to Vote Campaign. The latter is a national collaboration of eight civil-rights organizations—including the NAACP, People for the American Way, and the ACLU—that seek to combat “voter disenfranchisement” by lobbying for laws that would permit convicted felons, who are disproportionately African Americans, to vote in political elections.
Obama refers to Falkland Islands as off coast of India
Two wrongs make a right? No. The first wrong is Obama’s attempt — unsuccessful — to snub Britain and undermine U.S. ‘special relations’ with Britain. The second wrong is Obama’s reference to the Falkland Islands as the Maldives — which are 8,000+ miles away from Malavinas aka the Falkland Islands.
Venezuela continues to dispute Britain’s sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.
President Obama erred during a speech at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, when attempting to call the disputed archipelago by its Spanish name.
Instead of saying Malvinas, however, Mr Obama referred to the islands as the Maldives, a group of 26 atolls off that lie off the South coast of India.
The Maldives were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965 and the site of a UK airbase for nearly 20 years.
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It wasn’t Bush who apologized for not speaking Austrian, or thought there were 56 states or….
JAJ48@aol.com
bodyguards pay Biden to guardBiden charges govt Topsy turvy Obama government VP Joe Biden is paid by his bodyguards for the right to protect him. Joe Biden received $20,900 from Secret Service bodyguards in rental income and Biden reported $12,653
Vice President Joe Biden last year earned $20,900 in rental income from the Secret Service, which is paying him to host agents on his property so they can protect him.
Most high-profile people in need of protection pay people to keep them safe. Government officials are allowed to have taxpayers pick up the tab. Biden is unique in that he actually gets paid by his bodyguards for the right to protect him.
Biden’s tax records list rental income of $20,900 from a “cottage†on is property, which is reportedly being leased by the Secret Service and paid for at a rate that could earn him even more money next year.
Biden took deductions for mortgage interest and taxes that allowed him to report only $12,653 of the amount on his federal tax return.
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Send them home and let Biden stand guard. JAJ48@aol.com
7 years prison for 2 Tunesians for a nude cartoon of Prophet Mohammed More uproar by Islamists over a recent political cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
A cartoon, depicting the Prophet Mohammed nude, was posted on a Facebook page by two Tunesian youth from Mahdia. Both youth have been sentenced to seven years in prison for violation of morality.
Since the Islamist Ennaha party took charge in Tunesia trials for violation of morality have increased considerably.
The case has fuelled allegations that Tunesia’s new Islamist leaders are gagging free speech.
The two men had posted depictions of the prophet naked on the social networking site, the justice ministry said, inflaming sensitivities in a country where Muslim values have taken on a bigger role since a revolution last year.
A justice ministry spokesman said, “They were sentenced … to seven years in prison for violation of morality, and disturbing public order.
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Paul Ryan calls Obama’s bluff on cuts to the military.
Compare the blue military portion of federal budget with the green and red portions for entitlement costs.
The world is not a safer place. Yet, as though it were a safer place, Obama lowers the standards the military must meet. Akin to asking a marathon runner if he can run a 5 kilometer race the military dutifully yes they are prepared to run the race per Obama’s lower standards. They have no choice except to accept the standards of their Commander in Chief.
Obama claims fiscal responsibility as reason to slash military budget — which makes up only 1/5 of the budget. Entitlements – social security, medicare & medical – make up over 50% of the budget.
So, if you were looking at your family budget and want to rein in costs would you go for the ‘small fry’ or focus on the Big Expenses?
Maybe Obama figures he will be long gone and so what if the middle classes grandchildren are burdened with the BILLIONS that he has added to the deficit.
More info from the Heritage Foundation below:
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James Carafano
March 30, 2012
Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI) generated a few headlines defending his defense budget.
When pressed about why he wanted to invest more in the military than the Pentagon brass asked for, Ryan had an answer that raised eyebrows: “We don’t think the generals are giving us their true advice,†Ryan said at the National Journal Live Budget Policy summit, adding, “I think there’s a lot of budget smoke and mirrors in the Pentagon’s budget.â€
Ryan has good reason to be skeptical—not of the integrity of senior military leaders but of the budget that they are duty-bound to defend.
Just two years ago, the Obama Administration signed off on a Quadrennial Defense Review that required a substantially larger and more capable military. Now they are producing anemic budgets where 75 percent of the cuts, by the Secretary of Defense’s own admission, are reductions in military capability.
Has the world become dramatically safer in two years? Of course not. Obama’s defense cuts are driven by his strategy of slashing support for the military to pretend he is being fiscally responsible. The reality is that defense is less than one-fifth the federal budget, but the President slapped it with one-half of his proposed cuts.
Why is the brass signing off on this? Well, that’s their job. I know well how this works. I saw it first hand serving in the Pentagon. The Constitution establishes civilian supremacy over the military. The President is commander in chief. He defines strategic requirements, so the way he gets the military leaders to agree is simple: He just lowers the bar of expectations. He dumbs down the requirements.
So when Congress asks the brass, “Do you have enough?†They have no choice but to answer “yes.†It is like telling marathoner who has not had time to train that he only has to run a 5-K race. Sure, he’s ready—unless he actually has to run a marathon.
So we shouldn’t be surprised when the military rubber-stamps the President’s budget. Nor should we be surprised when Congress questions them. That is the job of the Congress. The Constitution charges Congress with raising and maintaining the Armed Forces.
Ryan has just called the President’s bluff. The generals and admirals are stuck in the middle.
If you don’t like what is going on in the Pentagon, blame the commander in chief, not the generals—after all, that is who they work for.
Posted in Protect America
party dress French Former IMF chief Strauss-Kahn pays to play at sex parties yet disclaims.
Strauss-Kahn was charged in France on Monday with “aggravated pimping” for his alleged participation in a prostitution ring, prosecutors said.
Strauss-Kahn was released under a 100,000-euro bail, according to prosecutors.
The prostitution probe, nicknamed the “Carlton Affair” by the French press, kicked off in October.
It centers around the city of Lille, where investigators began looking into claims that luxury hotels, including the Carlton, served as a base for a high-profile prostitution network.
In December, Strauss-Kahn’s attorney, Henri Leclerc, acknowledged in an interview with radio station Europe1 that his client attended sex parties, but said Strauss-Kahn was unaware the women in attendance were prostitutes.
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How do you say in French: What does money first, sex second mean? jaj48@AOL.COM
