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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 624 Registered: Mar-04 | Why are you even bothering with Perry? I think I should ask you that question Jan ? I have no special interest in Perry winning one way or another. I do want to see Obama and his crew leave after one term. The biggest advantage the Repubs have is "sitting" in the white house now, or should I say is about to go on vacation again. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16599 Registered: May-04 | . "By the way what good has the Dept of Education done overall ? I agree with giving control of Education back to the states. To infer that doing so would support segregation or any such thing could only be the product of a mind (wet brain) like Matthews." No one did that, you just made that crap up in your own mind. They are two separate issues joined together by Libertarian/TP thinking. If you want to complain, do so to Rand Paul who started the issue by wanting to be both a Libertarian and a Tea Party favorite. He and his father - the conservative "Republican" guy running (again) for President as a conservative Republican, you know - are the two most prominently linking the Civil Rights Act and states' rights which was the historical argument against the Civil Rights Act. Don't make up BS - particularly when you don't know what you're talking about - and then say someone else said it. That's why this thread is about facts, not BS, squiddy. That's why you don't belong here. "Look you want to bash Ron Paul go ahead. The guy has NO chance at getting the nomination. His social/foreign policy is NOT conservative at all. Please Jan don't bring up the civil rights act because it paints YOUR party in less than a positive light. You don't know very much about politics or history, do you? " Its worth remembering that the longest filibuster of the 1964 act was conducted by a still-sitting senator, Robert C. Byrd, who personally spoke against the legislation for 14 hours and 13 minutes on June 9 & 10, 1964. Heres an extract from my book, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Partys Buried Past, which was published last year." You wrote a book?!!! Oh, no, Bruce Bartlet wrote that book and you can't come up with a complete sentence or an informed thought on your own to save your life. "The biggest advantage the Repubs have is "sitting" in the white house now, or should I say is about to go on vacation again. The biggest advantage the Dems have is watching all the Republican clowns running for President pile into that Volkswagen Beetle. Quite a dog and pony show that. None of them seem to remember Reagan's eleventh commandment. You guys are screwed! . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16600 Registered: May-04 | . Q: Has President Obama taken more vacation time than his predecessors? A: According to one count, Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush spent more time on "vacation" during their first year than President Obama did. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton spent less time on "vacation." President Obama has spent all or part of 26 days "on vacation" during his first year as president President Reagan, in 1981, spent all or part of 42 days away from the White House "on vacation" ... President George W. Bush spent even more time away from the presidential mansion in the nations capital than Reagan. Of the 77 total "vacation" trips the former president made to his Texas ranch while in office, nine of them -" all or part of 69 days " - came during his first year as president in 2001, according to Knoller http://factcheck.org/2010/01/president-obamas-vacation-days/ The tall tales about Barack Obama keep getting taller everyday on Fox News. Tonight on The O'Reilly Factor guest Monica Crowley who claimed that, "Obama is taking a vacation every five minutes - Bush took two vacations a year in August and at Christmastime that was it." O'Reilly pointed out that people said the same the thing about Bush, and asked what the difference is between Bush and Obama, and Crowley told a boldfaced lie, "Obama is taking a vacation every five minutes. He's blowing off steam almost every day -.he is got partying going on. He's at the Nationals game. Bush took two vacations a year in August and at Christmastime that was " Crowley is lying. Bush spent 1,020 days of his presidency on vacation. To put this into context, John F. Kennedy spent fewer days in office, 1000, than George W. Bush spent on vacation. Bush spent 487 days at Camp David, 490 days at his Crawford ranch, and 43 days in Kennebunkport. George W. Bush spent 69 days in Crawford during his first year in office. In contrast, according to FactCheck.org, Obama spent all, or part of, 26 days of his first year in office on vacation. This was less than all three previous Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush, but more than the two previous Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-bush-vacation Please, squiddy, don't bring up the lies of the right wingnut talking heads. It doesn't reflect well on your party. http://mediamatters.org/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/reince-priebus/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rush-limbaugh/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/laura-ingraham/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/michael-savage/ And I bet you listen to all of those guys and gals. And we all remember the infamous, "Abortion services are '"well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does', which was spoken on the floor of the Senate but not meant to be factual; http://www.politifact.com/personalities/jon-kyl/ Facts, truth and civility have no purpose in "your party", do they, squiddy? You're being the typical right wing, "conservative" chump, squid. You allow the right wingnuts to distract you with all of this petty little sniping. It's a game of three card monte and you're the sucker; watching where the little ball might be while the game is to take you for all your worth. Wise up! There are important things to deal with and how many days Obama spends at Camp David isn't one of them. That's why this thread is not about all the crappy little BS stuff the right wing uses to keep the groundlings distracted - to keep you from realizing they have no plan other than the same plan that blew up in their face back in 2008. Grow up! Learn what's really going on in the world. You can't find a fact for the life of you, you can't source what you post and you pull from the dreggs of the wingnut barrell just to have some BS to post. You're wasting everyone's time. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16601 Registered: May-04 | . Campaign Dinner Address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, September 23, 1944. Washington, DC International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. The 'Fala' Address. WELL, here we are together again - after four years - and what years they have been! You know, I am actually four years older, which is a fact that seems to annoy some people. In fact, in the mathematical field there are millions of Americans who are more than eleven years older than when we started in to clear up the mess that was dumped in our laps in 1933. We all know that certain people who make it a practice to depreciate the accomplishments of labor - who even attack labor as unpatriotic - they keep this up usually for three years and six months in a row. But then, for some strange reason they change their tune- every four years- just before election day. When votes are at stake, they suddenly discover that they really love labor and that they are anxious to protect labor from its old friends. I got quite a laugh, for example - and I am sure that you did - when I read this plank in the Republican platform adopted at their National Convention in Chicago last July: "The Republican Party accepts the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act, the Wage and Hour Act, the Social Security Act and all other Federal statutes designed to promote and protect the welfare of American working men and women, and we promise a fair and just administration of these laws." You know, many of the Republican leaders and Congressmen and candidates, who shouted enthusiastic approval of that plank in that Convention Hall would not even recognize these progressive laws if they met them in broad daylight. Indeed, they have personally spent years of effort and energy - and much money - in fighting every one of those laws in the Congress, and in the press, and in the courts, ever since this Administration began to advocate them and enact them into legislation. That is a fair example of their insincerity and of their inconsistency. The whole purpose of Republican oratory these days seems to be to switch labels. The object is to persuade the American people that the Democratic Party was responsible for the 1929 crash and the depression, and that the Republican Party was responsible for all social progress under the New Deal. Now, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery - but I am afraid that in this case it is the most obvious common or garden variety of fraud. Of course, it is perfectly true that there are enlightened, liberal elements in the Republican Party, and they have fought hard and honorably to bring the Party up to date and to get it in step with the forward march of American progress. But these liberal elements were not able to drive the Old Guard Republicans from their entrenched positions. Can the Old Guard pass itself off as the New Deal? I think not. We have all seen many marvelous stunts in the circus but no performing elephant could turn a hand-spring without falling flat on his back. I need not recount to you the centuries of history which have been crowded into these four years since I saw you last. There were some - in the Congress and out - who raised their voices against our preparations for defense - before and after 1939 - objected to them, raised their voices against them as hysterical war mongering, who cried out against our help to the Allies as provocative and dangerous. We remember the voices. They would like to have us forget them now. But in 1940 and 1941- my, it seems a long time ago - they were loud voices. Happily they were a minority and - fortunately for ourselves, and for the world - they could not stop America. There are some politicians who kept their heads buried deep in the sand while the storms of Europe and Asia were headed Our way, who said that the lend-lease bill "would bring an end to free government in the United States," and who said, "only hysteria entertains the idea that Germany, Italy, or Japan contemplates war on us." These very men are now asking the American people to intrust to them the conduct of our foreign policy and our military policy. What the Republican leaders are now saying in effect is this: "Oh, just forget what we used to say, we have changed our minds now - we have been reading the public opinion polls about these things and now we know what the American people want." And they say: "Don't leave the task of making the peace to those old men who first urged it and who have already laid the foundations for it, and who have had to fight all of us inch by inch during the last five years to do it. Why, just turn it all over to us. We'll do it so skillfully - that we won't lose a single isolationist vote or a single isolationist campaign contribution." I think there is one thing that you know: I am too old for that. I cannot talk out of both sides of my mouth at the same time. The Government welcomes all sincere supporters of the cause of effective world collaboration in the making of a lasting peace. Millions of Republicans all over the Nation are with us - and have been with us - in our unshakable determination to build the solid structure of peace. And they too will resent this campaign talk by those who first woke up to the facts of international life a few short months ago when they began to study the polls of public opinion. Those who today have the military responsibility for waging this war in all parts of the globe are not helped by the statements of men who, without responsibility and without' the knowledge of the facts, lecture the Chiefs of Staff of the United States as to the best means of dividing our armed forces and our military resources between the Atlantic and Pacific, between the Army and the Navy, and among the commanding generals of the different theaters of war. And I may say that those commanding generals are making good in a big way. When I addressed you four years ago, I said, "I know that America will never be disappointed in its expectation that labor will always continue to do its share of the job we now face and do it patriotically and effectively and unselfishly." Today we know that America has not been disappointed. In his Order of the Day when the Allied armies first landed in Normandy two months ago, General Eisenhower said: "Our home fronts have given us overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war." The country knows that there is a breed of cats, luckily not too numerous, called labor-baiters. I know that there are labor baiters among the opposition who, instead of calling attention to the achievements of labor in this war, prefer to pick on the occasional strikes that have occurred - strikes that have been condemned by every responsible national labor leader. I ought to say, parenthetically, all but one. And that one labor leader, incidentally, is certainly not conspicuous among my supporters. Labor-baiters forget that at our peak American labor and management have turned out airplanes at the rate of 109,000 a year; tanks - 57,000 a year; combat vessels - 573 a year; landing vessels, to get the troops ashore - 31,000 a year; cargo ships - 19 million tons a year - and Henry Kaiser is here tonight, I am glad to say; and small arms ammunition- oh, I can't understand it, I don't believe you can either - 23 billion rounds a year. But a strike is news, and generally appears in shrieking headlines - and, of course, they say labor is always to blame. The fact is that since Pearl Harbor only one-tenth of one percent of man-hours have been lost by strikes. Can you beat that? But, you know, even those candidates who burst out in election-year affection for social legislation and for labor in general, still think that you ought to be good boys and stay out of politics. And above all, they hate to see any working man or woman contribute a dollar bill to any wicked political party. Of course, it is all right for large financiers and industrialists and monopolists to contribute tens of thousands of dollars - but their solicitude for that dollar which the men and women in the ranks of labor contribute is always very touching. They are, of course, perfectly willing to let you vote - unless you happen to be a soldier or a sailor overseas, or a merchant seaman carrying the munitions of war. In that case they have made it pretty hard for you to vote at all - for there are some political candidates who think that they may have a chance of election, if only the total vote is small enough. And while I am on the subject of voting, let me urge every American citizen - man and woman- to use your sacred privilege of voting, no matter which candidate you expect to support. Our millions of soldiers and sailors and merchant seamen have been handicapped or prevented from voting by those politicians and candidates who think that they stand to lose by such votes. You here at home have the freedom of the ballot. Irrespective of party, you should register and vote this November. I think that is a matter of plain good citizenship. Words come easily, but they do not change the record. You are, most of you, old enough to remember what things were like for labor in 1932. You remember the closed banks and the breadlines and the starvation wages; the foreclosures of homes and farms, and the bankruptcies of business; the "Hoovervilles," and the young men and women of the Nation facing a hopeless, jobless future; the closed factories and mines and mills; the ruined and abandoned farms; the stalled railroads and the empty docks; the blank despair of a whole Nation--and the utter impotence of the Federal Government. You remember the long, hard road, with its gains and its setbacks, which we have traveled together ever since those days. Now there are some politicians who do not remember that far back, and there are some who remember but find it convenient to forget. No, the record is not to be washed away that easily. The opposition in this year has already imported into this campaign a very interesting thing, because it is foreign. They have imported the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad. Remember, a number of years ago, there was a book, Mein Kampf, written by Hitler himself. The technique was all set out in Hitler's book - and it was copied by the aggressors of Italy and Japan. According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature would make it more credible - if only you keep repeating it over and over and over again. Well, let us take some simple illustrations that come to mind. For example, although I rubbed my eyes when I read it, we have been told that it was not a Republican depression, but a Democratic depression from which this Nation was saved in 1933 - that this Administration this one today - is responsible for all the suffering and misery that the history books and the American people have always thought had been brought about during the twelve ill-fated years when the Republican party was in power. Now, there is an old and somewhat lugubrious adage which says: "Never speak of rope in the house of a man who has been hanged." In the same way, if I were a Republican leader speaking to a mixed audience, the last word in the whole dictionary that I think I would use is that word "depression." You know, they pop up all the time. For another example, I learned - much to my amazement - that the policy of this Administration was to keep men in the Army when the war was over, because there might be no jobs for them in civil life. Well, the very day that this fantastic charge was first made, a formal plan for the method of speedy discharge from the Army had already been announced by the War Department - a plan based on the wishes of the soldiers themselves. This callous and brazen falsehood about demobilization did, of course, a very simple thing; it was an effort to stimulate fear among American mothers and wives and sweethearts. And, incidentally, it was hardly calculated to bolster the morale of our soldiers and sailors and airmen who are fighting our battles all over the world. But perhaps the most ridiculous of these campaign falsifications is the one that this Administration failed to prepare for the war that was coming. I doubt whether even Goebbels would have tried that one. For even he would never have dared hope that the voters of America had already forgotten that many of the Republican leaders in the Congress and outside the Congress tried to thwart and block nearly every attempt that this Administration made to warn our people and to arm our Nation. Some of them called our 50,000 airplane program fantastic. Many of those very same leaders who fought every defense measure that we proposed are still in control of the Republican party - look at their names - were in control of its National Convention in Chicago, and would be in control of the machinery of the Congress and of the Republican party, in the event of a Republican victory this fall. These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him - at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars- his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself - such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog. Well, I think we all recognize the old technique. The people of this country know the past too well to be deceived into forgetting. Too much is at stake to forget. There are tasks ahead of us which we must now complete with the same will and the same skill and intelligence and devotion that have already led us so far along the road to victory. There is the task of finishing victoriously this most terrible of all wars as speedily as possible and with the least cost in lives. There is the task of setting up international machinery to assure that the peace, once established, will not again be broken. And there is the task that we face here at home - the task of reconverting our economy from the purposes of war to the purposes of peace. These peace-building tasks were faced once before, nearly a generation ago. They were botched by a Republican administration. That must not happen this time. We will not let it happen this time. Fortunately, we do not begin from scratch. Much has been done. Much more is under way. The fruits of victory this time will not be apples sold on street corners. Many months ago, this Administration set up the necessary machinery for an orderly peacetime demobilization. The Congress has passed much more legislation continuing the agencies needed for demobilization - with additional powers to carry out their functions. I know that the American people - business and labor and agriculture - have the same will to do for peace what they have done for war. And I know that they can sustain a national income that will assure full production and full employment under our democratic system of private enterprise, with Government encouragement and aid whenever and wherever that is necessary. The keynote of all that we propose to do in reconversion can be found in the one word jobs. We shall lease or dispose of our Government-owned plants and facilities and our surplus war property and land, on the basis of how they can best be operated by private enterprise to give jobs to the greatest number. We shall follow a wage policy that will sustain the purchasing power of labor - for that means more production and more jobs. You and I know that the present policies on wages and prices were conceived to serve the needs of the great masses of the people. They stopped inflation. They kept prices on a relatively stable level. Through the demobilization period, policies will be carried out with the same objective in mind -to serve the needs of the great masses of the people. This is not the time in which men can be forgotten as they were in the Republican catastrophe that we inherited. The returning soldiers, the workers by their machines, the farmers in the field, the miners, the men and women in offices and shops, do not intend to be forgotten. No, they know that they are not surplus. Because they know that they are America. We must set targets and objectives for the future which will seem impossible - like the airplanes - to those who live in and are weighted down by the dead past. We are even now organizing the logistics of the peace, just as Marshall and King and Arnold, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Nimitz are organizing the logistics of this war. I think that the victory of the American people and their allies in this war will be far more than a victory against Fascism and reaction and the dead hand of despotism of the past. The victory of the American people and their allies in this war will be a victory for democracy. It will constitute such an affirmation of the strength and power and vitality of government by the people as history has never before witnessed. And so, my friends, we have had affirmation of the vitality of democratic government behind us, that demonstration of its resilience and its capacity for decision and for action - we have that knowledge of our own strength and power - we move forward with God's help to the greatest epoch of free achievement by free men that the world has ever known. Source: The Presidential Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944 . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 625 Registered: Mar-04 | Look Norma I want you to tell my why a news organization like MSNBC allows its hosts to accuse people of being racist without any proof. They actually go out of their way to construct video and in the case of the slobbering wet brain just throw anything out that comes into his mind. Why do you call this a mistake when it is intentional ? Is it that you agree with the tactics and are a tool or simply blind ? |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 626 Registered: Mar-04 | Although he had a lock on labor's vote, he expressed caution about public sector unions. In a little-known letter he wrote to the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees in 1937, Roosevelt reasoned: "... Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations ... The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for ... officials ... to bind the employer ... The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives ... "Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people ... This obligation is paramount ... A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent ... to prevent or obstruct ... Government ... Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government ... is unthinkable and intolerable." |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16602 Registered: May-04 | . "Look Norma I want you to tell my why a news organization like MSNBC allows its hosts to accuse people of being racist without any proof. They actually go out of their way to construct video and in the case of the slobbering wet brain just throw anything out that comes into his mind. Why do you call this a mistake when it is intentional ? Is it that you agree with the tactics and are a tool or simply blind ?" Screw off, squid! Learn to be civil or leave. How many times must this be repeated before you buy a vowel? . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 627 Registered: Mar-04 | Jan.... Barry O's ship is sinking and you have a seat on the deck... "Here we come to Barack's dilemma. The nation he leads is facing a deficit-debt crisis that comes of an inescapable truth: Whether we are talking about commitments to go to war to defend scores of nations or commitments to entitlement and Great Society programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, earned income tax credits, food stamps and Pell grants, we Americans have handed out promissory notes we no longer have the means to meet. We can no longer deliver what we have promised. We are running deficits of 10 percent of gross domestic product with a national debt over 100 percent. We are on the path that Italy is following, which is the path that Greece pursued. We are an overextended empire and commonwealth facing strategic and fiscal bankruptcy. If Obama is to lead the nation out of the crisis it confronts, he has to preside over a downsizing of the welfare-warfare state the same state that sustains his base. Not to worry, we are told. When the lazy days of summer are over, Obama will present Congress with his big plan for resurrecting the economy and ensuring the long-term solvency of the nation. Obama's September program indeed, any credible plan to revive the economy and bring our books into balance has to include a rollback of U.S. commitments at home and abroad. Yet, domestically, this cannot be done without reducing future Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, and cutting and capping the social programs of the Great Society. Moreover, half the nation cannot freeload forever, as is the case today, contributing nary a dime in federal income taxes. And such reforms must adversely impact most Obama's political and personal base. If he proposes new taxes, tea-party Republicans fix bayonets. If he proposes downsizing the government and cutting and capping social programs, his most loyal constituents rise up against him. Enjoy the Vineyard, Mr. President. " |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16603 Registered: May-04 | . Warren Buffett "should stop assuming the rich are all billionaires." "Is Warren Buffett a socialist?" http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-august-18-2011-anne-hathaway United States 64th among nations in "Income Equality" just above Uganda; 3':33". . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16604 Registered: May-04 | . At times coincidence is too strong to ignore ... "By the way what good has the Dept of Education done overall ? I agree with giving control of Education back to the states. To infer that doing so would support segregation or any such thing could only be the product of a mind (wet brain) like Matthews."; squiddy, just yesterday Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy RALEIGH, N.C. - The sprawling Wake County School District has long been a rarity. Some of its best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood. But over the past year, a new majority-Republican school board backed by national tea party conservatives has set the district on a strikingly different course. Pledging to "say no to the social engineers!" it has abolished the policy behind one of the nation's most celebrated integration efforts. And as the board moves toward a system in which students attend neighborhood schools, some members are embracing the provocative idea that concentrating poor children, who are usually minorities, in a few schools could have merits - logic that critics are blasting as a 21st-century case for segregation ... ... But critics accuse the new board of pursuing an ideological agenda aimed at nothing less than sounding the official death knell of government-sponsored integration in one of the last places to promote it. Without a diversity policy in place, they say, the county will inevitably slip into the pattern that defines most districts across the country, where schools in well-off neighborhoods are decent and those in poor, usually minority neighborhoods struggle ... ... School Board Chairman Ron Margiotta referred questions on the matter to the district's attorney, who declined to comment. Tedesco, who has emerged as the most vocal among the new majority on the nine-member board, said he and his colleagues are only seeking a simpler system in which children attend the schools closest to them. If the result is a handful of high-poverty schools, he said, perhaps that will better serve the most challenged students. "If we had a school that was, like, 80 percent high-poverty, the public would see the challenges, the need to make it successful," he said. "Right now, we have diluted the problem, so we can ignore it." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063. html . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16605 Registered: May-04 | . Making the poor's problems worse so that we "can see the challenges" ... http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/371414/january-18-2011/th e-word---disintegration . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16606 Registered: May-04 | . Warren Buffett says the super-rich pay lower tax rates than others http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/18/warren-buffett/wa rren-buffett-says-super-rich-pay-lower-taxes-oth/ . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16607 Registered: May-04 | . Bumper sticker; "They only call it 'class warfare' when we fight back." |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16608 Registered: May-04 | . squiddy, since you like to quote Bruce Bartlett rather than think for yourself, here's one you might like ... Former Treasury official Bruce Bartlett labeled newly-minted Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry "an idiot" Friday. Bartlett, who served at Treasury under former President George H.W. Bush and as a domestic policy adviser to the late President Ronald Reagan, delivered the choice words to the Texas Gov. in reference to his recent comments about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. "Rick Perry's an idiot, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that," Bartlett said Friday on CNN's "American Morning." http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61706.html . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 628 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy lady it isn't the vacation itself like Krauthammer said "Charles Krauthammer discusses the president's Martha's Vineyard vacation: "Choosing an exclusive enclave like the Vineyard after spending three days on the road railing against the rich and the wealthy and the millionaires and the billionaires and the corporate jet owners who vacation exactly in the same place and then spending 10 days in their company speaks of a kind of dissonance or hypocrisy." |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 629 Registered: Mar-04 | It is also known crazy lady that the Bush family and Perry don't see eye to eye. Let's talk about thinking for oneself. Your "attacks" on Perry started right around when the DNC's did.... Crazy lady you are simply a tool.. Democrat goooood Republickan....baaaaaaaaaad |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 630 Registered: Mar-04 | Selection bias at Politifact? Share69 posted at 9:30 am on February 10, 2011 by Ed Morrissey printer-friendly crazy lady I Know you shill for politifact.. For quite a while, a debate has simmered about whether PolitiFact operates from a political bias. The Pulitzer Prize-winning feature from the St. Petersburg Times in Florida rates the truthfulness of public statements by politicians and activists on a scale ranging from True to Pants On Fire. Republicans have complained for quite a while that PolitiFact aims more at the GOP, especially when PolitiFact named the allegation that ObamaCare was a government takeover of health care the Lie of the Year. Now, Eric Ostermeier at Smart Politics has published the results of a study he has made that shows Republicans getting much harsher treatment than Democrats over the last 13 months: PolitiFact assigns Pants on Fire or False ratings to 39 percent of Republican statements compared to just 12percent of Democrats since January 2010 But although PolitiFact provides a blueprint as to how statements are rated, it does not detail how statements are selected. For while there is no doubt members of both political parties make numerous factual as well as inaccurate statements and everything in between there remains a fundamental question of which statements (by which politicians) are targeted for analysis in the first place. A Smart Politics content analysis of more than 500 PolitiFact stories from January 2010 through January 2011 finds that current and former Republican officeholders have been assigned substantially harsher grades by the news organization than their Democratic counterparts. In total, 74 of the 98 statements by political figures judged false or pants on fire over the last 13 months were given to Republicans, or 76 percent, compared to just 22 statements for Democrats (22 percent). Ostermeier notes that the breakdown of statements reviewed is more or less evenly split, with 50.4% of the statements from Republican public officials, 47.2% from Democrats, and the small remainder from independents. But that s curious in itself, as Ostermeier later points out: What is particularly interesting about these findings is that the political party in control of the Presidency, the US Senate, and the US House during almost the entirety of the period under analysis was the Democrats, not the Republicans. To remind everyone, that control wasnt exactly an even split, either. Democrats had sixty percent of the Senate seats, and close to the same percentage in the House. A Democrat was in the White House. Republicans controlled nothing in Washington. What made Republicans so attractive to PolitiFact, especially if the oft-expressed purpose of the Fourth Estate is to hold government accountable? Ostermeier notes that Politifact itself has expressed a rather ad hoc approach to selection: When PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair was on C-SPANs Washington Journal in August of 2009, he explained how statements are picked: We choose to check things we are curious about. If we look at something and we think that an elected official or talk show host is wrong, then we will fact-check it. If that is the methodology, then why is it that PolitiFact takes Republicans to the woodshed much more frequently than Democrats? The answer to the overall question could still be that Republicans tell more Pants on Fire and False statements, and that Politifact is merely a disinterested referee. However, the numbers suggest that PolitiFact is more curious about Republican statements and less curious about Democratic statements, even when Democrats vastly outnumbered Republicans in the halls of power. And that certainly is curious. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16610 Registered: May-04 | . Awww, the Repubs are always being picked on ... how long are they going to play this song? Let's review the agreed upon facts ... You remember "facts", don't you, squiddy? They are what this thread is all about. FACT: PolitiFact assigns Pants on Fire or False ratings to 39 percent of Republican statements compared to just 12percent of Democrats since January 2010 FACT: In total, 74 of the 98 statements by political figures judged false or pants on fire over the last 13 months were given to Republicans, or 76 percent, compared to just 22 statements for Democrats (22 percent). FACT: Ostermeier notes that the breakdown of statements reviewed is more or less evenly split, with 50.4% of the statements from Republican public officials, 47.2% from Democrats, and the small remainder from independents. QUESTION: ... why is it that PolitiFact takes Republicans to the woodshed much more frequently than Democrats? LOGICAL ANSWER: ... Republicans tell more Pants on Fire and False statements, and (that) Politifact is merely a disinterested referee ... Pssst, squiddy, being a "disinterested referee" is what has won Politifact all the awards. Not everyone agress with Politifact 100% of the time but they have the awards to prove their position - or lack of one - on important political issues. I know, this "we are sooooooo picked on" routine is just another repub game to play along with the constant fear mongering and hate speech that rolls out of the repub talk machine. But after awhile it's pretty easy for any reasonable person to see you can't just go around claiming every news organization, every reporter or every blogger who disagrees with you is politically biased to lie and only you have the "real truth". You can, however, point out facts which will allow someone to make up their own mind about issues based upon those facts rather than relying on a handful of lies. That's what this thread is about, squiddy - facts and not your constant BS. This concept of "don't ever trust them, only trust us to tell you what you need to know" is basic to all propaganda. The "good cop/bad cop" scenario; except in the repub's case, only one side ever gets to be the "good cop". " ... Republicans tell more Pants on Fire and False statements ... " That's all you need to know, the rest of the article is BS meant to appeal to a non-thinker - i.e.; a Republican/conservative/TP mindless groundling who needs someone to tell them what to think rather than how to actually think through a thought more complex than "lame-stream media". Conservative media is a 24/7 game on mulitple outlets. Why? Because the conservative listeners need someone to constantly tell them what they should believe - what they should think and what they should repeat. Big difference between how the repub outlets operate and how the few "liberal" outlets go about their work. Even the so called "liberal" networks allow Repubs/TP's to express their views on air. FACT: If you have more opportunity to tell a lie - and you take the opportunity to tell a lie rather than tell the truth - then you will have more lies reported by a media watchdog such as Politifact. How many branches of government are in the hands of either party is completely inconsequential as any fifth grader could figure out. The number of individuals in all branches of government is not divided by 76 to 22 per cent! Is it? So claiming that accounts for any difference or any bias on Politifact's part is just plain BS, isn't it? Repubs get to talk on camera and on mic just as much - if not more - than do Dems. Repubs get to talk 24/7 on at least eight channels here in DFW. Where are the "liberal" outlets? Don't tell me, they're everywhere but where you listen,right? Let's bottom line this, the repubs just lie over three times as much as dems! That's the logic at work here. The resolution to the issue? The repubs should begin telling the truth. Because what your article hasn't pointed out are the differences between "pants on fire lies" and just lies that are juged to be "false". There's where the distinction between the two parties would be interesting. don't you think? Having watched Politifact for years, I think that would be a very interesting fact to know. Ya'know, squiddy, with the logic you display in your copy/pastes pulled from "your side", it's a wonder anyone ever lets you guys anywhere near a political office. If you didn't constantly rig elections and supress the vote turnout, I bet you'd never be elected to anything. Takeaway: " ... 74 of the 98 statements ... judged false or pants on fire over the last 13 months were given to Republicans, or 76 percent ... " You are being lied to on a constant schedule and you are too dumb to actually go check the facts for yourself. That's the point of this thread, squiddy, to check facts. The point is to not just swallow the sort of BS you want to believe because it's easier to just believe what you hear or read than it is to go check facts for yourself. You really thought that was good logic in that article, didn't you? You never even gave it a thought, did you? You still think it proves Politifact is not a disinterested referee, don't you? Even when it is pointed out to you just how wrong the ideas are and how weak the logic is, you still believe what you want to hear, don't you? I rest my case. . |
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Gold Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 2523 Registered: Oct-07 | Cmon' Jan, you don't really expect me to believe that 'I rest my case'!!! |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16613 Registered: May-04 | . Where ya' been, leo? Watching this and munchin' popcorn? What else is there to say when squiddy does my work for me? |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16614 Registered: May-04 | . Bank Of America Executive To Rick Perry: "We'll Help You Out" Spokesman Lawrence Di Rita to Ben Smith: "Bank of America does not endorse Presidential candidates. The reference was about following up on the substance of the speech about job creation and economic growth. Discussing policy issues that affect our company and our customers is something we do with policymakers of both parties routinely at the local, state, and Federal levels." GP8008 on Aug 19, 3:11 PM said: "The reference was about following up on the substance of the speech about job creation and economic growth"... really? BOA will help with job creation? Didn't they just announce 10,000 layoffs today? Benny Bernankee on Aug 19, 1:48 PM said: Governor Perry makes Bush Jr. look like Moses Maimonides. Does this ring a bell? He was head cheerleader and received Cs and Ds at Texas AM. Wanted to be a Vet but didn't have the grades. Got a D in economics. He did get a C in PE. Here is a guy that does not have the intellect to treat your dog but will be "running" the economy very soon. http://www.businessinsider.com/banker-to-rick-perry-im-from-bank-of-america-and- well-help-you-out-2011-8 . |
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Gold Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 2526 Registered: Oct-07 | Glad your sense of humous is intact. AND, as a matter of fact, I just DID have some popcorn! No Joke. I use a microwave popper with no oil....than real butter and Kosher salt. I'm sure the Nuke Bags are a Liberal Plot to pollute everyone with 'mystery oil' and premature artery and cholesterol problems. I was watching a special on Cheney. The guy creeps me out. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 632 Registered: Mar-04 | crazy woman in room 237... everything that goes against what you believe cannot be a lie. Checking "facts" isn't accomplished by citing biased sources. Democrate gooooooood ... repulikan baaaaaaaad... New repblikan very baaaaaaaad... Barry gooooooood. Study finds significant pro-Democrat bias by PolitiFact by In the news Tuesday, February 22. 2011 PolitiFact Biased Study finds significant pro Democrat bias by PolitiFact by Dan Lucas Study finds PolitiFact rates Republican statements false 3 times the rate of Democrats A February 2011 study published by the University of Minnesotas Smart Politics news site, a part of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, finds a significant bias on the part of PolitiFact in favor of statements made by Democrats: That means a supermajority of falsehoods documented by PolitiFact over the last year 76 percent were attributed to Republicans, with just 22 percent of such statements coming from Democrats. A glance at the most recent PolitiFact ratings by the Oregonian would definitely support findings of a pro-Democrat bias. The University of Minnesotas Smart Politics study especially calls out how statements are selected by PolitiFact there remains a fundamental question of which statements (by which politicians) are targeted for analysis in the first place. A Smart Politics content analysis of more than 500 PolitiFact stories from January 2010 through January 2011 finds that current and former Republican officeholders have been assigned substantially harsher grades by the news organization than their Democratic counterparts. Smart Politics is a non-partisan political news site authored and founded in 2006 by Dr. Eric Ostermeier, a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance (CSPG) at the University of Minnesotas Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 633 Registered: Mar-04 | Benny Bernankee on Aug 19, 1:48 PM said: Governor Perry makes Bush Jr. look like Moses Maimonides. Does this ring a bell? He was head cheerleader and received Cs and Ds at Texas AM. Wanted to be a Vet but didn't have the grades. Got a D in economics. He did get a C in PE. Here is a guy that does not have the intellect to treat your dog but will be "running" the economy very soon. Is it the presidents job to "run the economy", because I don't think it is. Barry may think it is his job to fundamentally transform the nation, but what can he point to as an accomplishment in almost 3 years in office ? He had both houses and a filibuster proof majority in the senate and what has he accomplished....? I know lets bash Perry, and the crazy woman in room 237 follows the party line like a drone should. As far as intellect goes, what makes Barry an intellectual giant ? What practical business experience has barry had, has he even managed a 7/11 ? What is barry's job history, what about his personal story that would encourage a young child to strive towards excellence. Grades....Barack Obama has not released transcripts for his grades from Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law. He has also not released his SAT and LSAT scores. No explanation has been offered for not releasing them. Per the Wall Street Journal September 11, 2008, "Obama's Lost Years," Obama graduated from Columbia University (to which he transferred after his first two years at Occidental College in California), with a degree in Political Science without honors, so had a GPA less than a 3.3. His roomate Sohale Siddiqi indicated Obama itially felt alienated, felt "very lost," and used drugs to get high, which could have led to low grades initially. So you follow the conga line of freaks at mslsd and simply attack the a presumptive republican candidate... The facts are that you simply are a tool. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16615 Registered: May-04 | . Squiddy, I understand this is how the repubs come up with these crazy *ssed ideas that get labeled as "Pants on Fire" lies but merely repeating a lie does not make it a true statement. I was told by one repub who wanted to argue this crap with me that repubs don't need facts, they simply find a good "story" and then pass it amongst themself. Any school age child knows what happens to a "good story" when it has been passed along between a dozen or more listeners. That probably accounts for why so many of the repub emails viewed by Politifact are labelled as "Pants on Fire" lies. "The University of Minnesotas Smart Politics study especially calls out how statements are selected by PolitiFact there remains a fundamental question of which statements (by which politicians) are targeted for analysis in the first place" "When PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair was on C-SPANs Washington Journal in August of 2009, he explained how statements are picked: We choose to check things we are curious about. If we look at something and we think that an elected official or talk show host is wrong, then we will fact-check it." I see, it's no longer an argument of how many branches of government the repubs control. Good! Obviously, that's a completely stupid way to make your case for Politifact's supposed bias. It is now a matter of how many times the repubs get called out on their statements? Is that the issue now? What will it be next? Fact: if you have proven to be the party with the preponderance of lies being told, it logically makes sense that you would also have the prepoderance of your statements being investigated for their veracity. Logic, squiddy, something you - and most repubs who just copy/paste from wingnut blogs - don't seem to possess or even comprehend. If any one individual is faced with the word of, say, a respected clergy member and the word of, say, Bernie Maddoff, which would you think the individual would take more time and effort to examine? Please, squiddy, your willing and clinging belief to these issues makes it apparent you are not the sort who should be trusted with sharp implements. Once again, squiddy, in your next post, you repeat items that are either pure reptition of haggard old repub attack lines or which have been admitted to by Obama himself in his books. "Obama hasn't released his transcripts" is just more BS cooked up by the loonytunes right. Trump made the loonytunes right shudder with excitement when he demanded O's birth records. He shot up to #1 in the polls. Obama released his birth records, shut down Trump and The Donald was dropped like a hot potato by the rightwingers as all of the good little wingnuts moved on to Herman Cain when he loudly attacked the President as not being really black enough. Now Cain is down in the polls. Next it was Bachman and now it's Perry. People discussing real issues - if there were ever any actually discussed by the repubs - are run out of the race or pull 69 votes in Ames. The rightwing hasn't proven it is capable of anything other than rushing to a loudmouth without facts but with a large voice. Still the right wingnuts cried foul over the birth records and wanted more. Idiots such as this will never be appeased. Since you bring this subject up at this time and, it should be pointed out, for no good reason, I can only assume you are also one of those idiots. Tit fot tat, W has still never released his Texas Air National Guard records to indicate when he was reporting for service and when he was not. W himself joked about being a "C" student. So, stick it up your @ss, squiddy. As I said, you are a supreme chump for allowing someone to distract you with irrelevant BS when there are issues of national and global importance which need serious attention. "Benny" made a joke. You know, a "joke"? Like the sort of "humor" Perry now says was his intent when he mentioned Texas seceding from the Union? When he mentioned it to TP's not once but twice! It was still just a "joke". You, on the other hand, see this as a serious issue which you will not let rest until you personally have seen Obama's transcripts. You are; first, unbelievably gullible and, second, no more capable of a logical thought process than any other repub hack who has wanted to "call me out" on a forum. Additionally, you have no more capacity to post facts and sources than any of them proved able. FACT: You produce BS and you cling to BS which makes you smell very much like BS. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16616 Registered: May-04 | . From the TP's new(est) vanguard ... You know, the "TP", the grassroots people (funded by large corporate money) who claim to revere the Founding Father's intent and hold to originalism in all Constitutional readings ... Seven ways Rick Perry wants to change the Constitution 1. Abolish lifetime tenure for federal judges by amending Article III, Section I of the Constitution. 2. Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote. 3. Scrap the federal income tax by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment. 4. End the direct election of senators by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment. 5. Require the federal government to balance its budget every year. 6. The federal Constitution should define marriage as between one man and one woman in all 50 states. 7. Abortion should be made illegal throughout the country. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/seven-ways-rick-perry-wants-change-constituti on-131634517.html You can decide just how Perry views the "original" intent of the Founding Fathers when he is, in several cases, advocating changes which go against what is in the original document. But, when his staff was asked about Perry's views on #4 on this list, they responded by saying this was a view which Perry held when he published his book "Fed Up". These are not necessarily to be taken as Perry's views today. That's what his staff said. The problem is Perry's book was just published last year. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16617 Registered: May-04 | . "By the way what good has the Dept of Education done overall ? I agree with giving control of Education back to the states" Of course you do, squiddy, of course you do. Because that's what you've been told you should think. And you have no capacity to actually think for yourself, do you? Did you bother to check what the dept. of Education has done? No, it's clear that you did not. Or you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. You just got yourself all into lemming mode and opposed the department just because. For one, the department promotes, organizes and, in part, funds programs such as "Common Core". DreamBox Learning K-3 Math aligns with the CCSSM in the areas of Counting and Cardinality; Comparing; Operations and Algebraic Thinking; and Number and Operations in Base Ten. The Common Core State Standards is a set of state-led mathematics and language arts education standards for grades K-12. Since its inception last year, 44 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. Virgin Islands have adopted Common Core State Standards for curriculum. "A major focus of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics is to guide students in their understanding of important topics related to number, which is a critical component of elementary school mathematics," said Dr. Francis (Skip) Fennell, Professor of Education at McDaniel College and Past President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. ; http://news.yahoo.com/dreambox-learning-puts-common-core-state-standards-alignment-120233705.html Common Core was implemented to ensure parents who were being transferred across the nation for whatever reason their children would receive the same core values in education across all state borders. One set of math skills would not exist in one state while another set of math skills would only exist in other more affluent states. Read about it, squiddy. "Race to the Top" is another Dept of Education program. A program implemented by the young Obama administration and intended to raise educational levels across the nation by introducing a comptetive advantage to highly talented school districts. The program worked with Federal administrations, state Governors and private groups to produce and administer programs aimed at helping children learn core values rather than being taught to pass a test. You might say the program was intended to help chiidren learn how to think rather than just respond to an input. Race to the Top prompted 48 states to adopt common standards for K-12. Adoption was accelerated by the August 1, 2010 deadline for adopting common standards, after which states would not receive points toward round 2 applications. In addition, the White House announced a $350 million federal grant funding the development of assessments aligned to the common standards. The common standards were developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers with funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and others ... ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_top Of course, this was viewed as a "Socialist" take over when it was introduced by Obama and several states did not participate in the program which, in the end, awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to the top schools. From the same source; In explaining why Texas would not be applying for Race to the Top funding, Governor Rick Perry stated, "we would be foolish and irresponsible to place our children's future in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in Washington." Also under the Dept's care is "No Chid Left Behind". You might remember this as W's signature program which was passed by a then fully Republican controlled Congress. Of course, being Republicans, Congress then refused to fully fund the NCLB act. They particularly didn't care for the part that came from Ted Kennedy. squiddy had suggested the Health Care Reform bill was somehow flawed since waivers were being dispensed. OK, here's a Republican created program, passed and signed into law by Republicans - not fully funded by Republicans - and administered by a Republican appointed Dept of Education official for the first eight years of its existence ... U.S. to grant waivers for No Child Left Behind; http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-to-grant-waivers-for-no-child-left-behind/2011/08/05/gIQA52ra1I_story.html These are just a few of the things the Dept. of Education implements, administers and oversees. There are numerous other programs which could have easily been found if someone had only looked before they dismissed the dept on orders from their superiors. squiddy, it's really quite possible that should you ever decide to do some research into the facts behind what you are being told, you might not be such a total waste of time. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 634 Registered: Mar-04 | "Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat." "Make the enemy live up to his/her own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity." "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage." "The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself." "In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt." "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it." (Think Gingrich, Lott and the success of name-calling used by the likes of Bill Clinton, Paul Begala, James Carville, Maxine Waters and others against conservatives and Republicans. Think of how Clinton "enemies" like Paula Jones or Linda Tripp were treated.) "One of the criteria for picking the target is the target's vulnerability ... the other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract." (Trent Lott comes to mind. Meanwhile, a former Klansman by the name of Sen. Robert Byrd got away with saying "n*gger" on Fox News at least three times, and he still maintains his Senate seat and power.) "The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength." For instance, Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof. These red-herring tactics work. I understand the playbook... |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 635 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy woman I understand you feel the need to support an ever enlarging federal government. You are a drone and you have been programmed. You see "facts" as you want to see them. " In1976 Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter promises to create a Department of Education, and he is endorsed by the National Education Association. This is first time that the NEA has endorsed a presidential candidate in more than a century of existence". Ahhh those unions you love at it again... Crazy woman since it's inception have According to the National Center for Education Statistics, DEs original budget, in 1980, was $13.1 billion (in 2007 dollars), and it employed 450 people. By 2000, it had increased to $34.1 billion, and by 2007 it had more than doubled to $73 billion. The budget request for fiscal 2011 is $77.8 billion, and the department employs 4,800. What crazy woman in room 237 have they done to improve American education in order to produce students who are competitive with their peers around the world.... How do American students compare to their peers in Europe and Asia ? The Dept of education has had 30 + years and did the results justify the creation of another bloated federal department ??? |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16620 Registered: May-04 | . "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it." (Think Gingrich, Lott and the success of name-calling used by the likes of Bill Clinton, Paul Begala, James Carville, Maxine Waters and others against conservatives and Republicans. Think of how Clinton "enemies" like Paula Jones or Linda Tripp were treated.)" What'd I say? The weak minded repubs want to constantly be the "picked upon" party. You are always told you are the underdog when it really comes down to you are just the one under the dog when it lifts its leg. You don't even see that as part of the brainwashing you've had, do you, squiddy? You aren't bright enough to see through the very rules the right uses to keep you in line and constantly p*ssed off at Democrats. It always amazed me that the repubs were so against Autocrats and Communism yet they employed the very tactics used by the worst of the Communist regimes to control their people. You are always picked on. You are always to be fearful. You must always have an "enemy" to rail against. You must never trust what anyone other than your leaders tell you. And you guys fall for that crap every time. Geez, it's like a social experiment watching the repub groundlings respond to input. ""The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength." For instance, Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof. These red-herring tactics work. I understand the playbook... " Which right wingnut blog did you copy/paste this from? Really, squiddy! What part of "you are a waste of everyone's time" are you incapable of understanding? "since it's inception have According to the National Center for Education Statistics, DEââ,¬â„¢s original budget, in 1980, was $13.1 billion (in 2007 dollars), and it employed 450 people. By 2000, it had increased to $34.1 billion, and by 2007 it had more than doubled to $73 billion. The budget request for fiscal 2011 is $77.8 billion, and the department employs 4,800. What crazy lady have they done to improve American education in to produce students who are competitive with their peers around the world.... How do American students compare to their peers in Europe and Asia crazy lady ? The Dept of education has had 30 + years and ???" I just love it when repub groundlings are so stupid they criticize the very government that was run for the most part by Republicans. Question, squiddy; over the last 30 years you mention, how many of those years have Repubs been in control of appointing Dept of Education administrators? That would be the President, squiddy, just to give you a clue. Hmmmmm, how many? It's especially good when they just do their little copy/paste BS and have no real ideas what they're talking about and can't even produce a readable sentence. It's even better when they are railling against the Dept of Education when they can't produce a readable sentence. ROTFLMAO!!! No doubt, when repubs get in power, they set about proving government cannot be effective under their control. Once again, squiddy, do your research and gather some facts. You are the one looking very stupid in the face of the real world and your lack of knowledge about it. Oh, and don't bother to come back with more c/p BS that you can't back up. As a matter of fact, don't bother to come back at all. You are a waste of time. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16621 Registered: May-04 | . Here you go! Don't expect Christie to be the "favored one" any longer. He's broken one of Rushbo's cardinal rules ... Christie: Climate change is real Chris Christie made clear he falls in the Jon Huntsman camp as opposed to the Rick Perry camp on the scientific-political issue of the week in the Republican primary: In vetoing a bill (S2946) that would have required New Jersey to stay in a regional program intended to curb greenhouse gases â€" a program Christie plans to leave by the end of the year â€" the governor said "climate change is real." He added that "human activity plays a role in these changes" and that climate change is "impacting our state."; http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61751.html Stray from the pack and the wolves will eat you alive. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 636 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy woman is it not true that only Republicans have put forth the idea of eliminating the Department of Education. The facts are that the Dept was created under Peanut with heavy lobbying by the ATF and the NEA. By the way you have yet to answer my question as to what % of political contributions by the ATF and NEA go to Dems ? Why is that Norma do you have to run to your source at the St. Petersburg times to give you the "facts". What a simpleton, all they need to do is put "fact" in the title and the crazy lady buys what they sell. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 637 Registered: Mar-04 | Jan when are you going to stop talking about Perry, global warming, the Dept of "education" and all the other things and get to Obama and his administrations performance ? What is the point of this Presidency and why is it in the best interests of the people to reelect this man ? I understand the motivation left wing drones like you,and the conga line of freaks at MSNBC have in his reelection. Lincoln, Truman, FDR, no he is Barry and he will never be a statesman; he is weak and has been a failure. What leadership he shows when he stammers, "we have had a run of bad luck".... Yea, it really kicked in on Nov 4 2008. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 638 Registered: Mar-04 | Barrys good work in the South side of Chicago. August 22, 2008 Obama's Education Track record in Chicago Barack Obama's record as leader of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) has come under scrutiny by, among others Steve Diamond, Tom Maguire, Stanley Kurtz and our own Tom Lifson . The CAC was a group formed in 1995 by former Weather Underground terrorist and current educational radical theorist Bill Ayers and Barack Obama, then an attorney at a politically connected law firm-Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Barack Obama was the founding chairman of the board and led the organization for 4 years. During his tenure, the CAC received $50 million dollars from the Annenberg Foundation and tens of millions of matching funds from local private and public dollars. This money was supposed to be spent improving the schools of Chicago. However, studies from the CAC itself, and confirmed by an analysis from the well-regarded Thomas B. Fordham Institute, show that the effort directed by Barack Obama led to no discernible improvement at all in the schools which were the beneficiaries of the funds nor in the ultimate intended beneficiaries, the students. Earlier in the year, the author of that study, Alexander Russo, wrote a column for Slate magazine taking another look at Barack Obama's performance as a school reformer. Given the current controversy over the Annenberg issue, Russo's report should be revisited. . One of the goals of Barack Obama was to devolve power over schools to local school councils (LSC) which were independent bodies made up of parents, teachers, and community members (ten in all) plus the principal. They were each dominated by 6 parents and were empowered to have a say over curriculum and also had the power to fire principals-an action that could be very disruptive to schools. Russo writes: Not surprisingly, the relationship has been extremely uneasy between the central board office (dominated by college-educated professionals) and individual school councils (dominated by minority parents, not all of them college-educated). In reality, Obama never really championed the local councils. He supported them behind the scenes and only eventually came out publicly on their behalf. When he did weigh in, he came down on the wrong side of the debate-against protecting principals from unwarranted dismissals and in favor of keeping councils independent, no matter what. In the end, the resolution of the conflict between the two sides didn't alleviate anyone's concerns. Instead, it prolonged a turf battle that seems to have dragged down academic progress in the years since. Obama's links to local school councils began more than 20 years ago, when they were first being created. His South Side community organizing group, the Developing Communities Project, supported the 1988 reform act that created the councils. A decade later, when Obama was a second-year state senator, he served on the board of several local education foundations that had supported the councils and chaired the board for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $50 million philanthropic effort that supported local control. Vallas felt that some effective principals were being let go because they were white or because of personal conflicts. He proposed giving himself the authority to review and approve most decisions to let principals go, styling the change as an "accountability" measure. Local-control advocates called it an attempt to "gut" local control. Russo noted that Obama was ideally positioned to have worked to reconcile the two "sides" in the conflict. He was friends with Arne Duncan and Paul Vallas-who was the superintendent of the school district and wanted to restrict the power of the local school councils to fire principals and worked to organize the school system to work more effectively. Where was Barack Obama during the controversy? He was AWOL. Still. For several months, Obama didn't indicate clearly where his sympathies lay. He didn't join with protesters and other legislators who swarmed public events denouncing the Vallas proposal. He didn't talk to the press about the importance of community engagement for schools or the unfairness of diminishing the influence of the 5,500 elected LSC members. Obama kept tabs on the negotiations through his staff, met occasionally with local-control advocates, and, according to those who were involved, sometimes provided ideas and advice in private. But that was about it. Some local advocates weren't even sure whether he would ultimately be on their side or not. And many worried that without someone like Obama to stop it, the Vallas juggernaut would overrun any opposition. Ultimately, Vallas lost the battle. Only after the battle was lost did Obama come out -- for the victors -- the local school councils. This would not be a Kennedy-like Profile in Courage moment. In being so late to the debate, however, Obama didn't really have to stand up to anyone -- not the groups he was affiliated with, not Vallas, not Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. He was just approving the final result. He remained loyal to his roots, but only when it was easy to do so. To some critics, this is exactly the problem. "Obama has no history of standing up to school interests or anyone else," says Dan Cronin, the Republican state senator who handled the 1999 legislation (and recalls little if any involvement from Obama). "If you look at his past record, there's nothing that's particularly bold or creative." Russo opines that Barack Obama would not be a leader in reforming our education system-given his sorrowful record in the City of Chicago. This is a conclusion that can certainly be drawn as well from an examination of how the funds raised for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge were apparently completely wasted. Given the roadblocks placed in the way of Stanley Kurtz in examining the records of the Annenberg Foundation, perhaps another source of information might be Alexander Russo who wrote the Fordham study that laid bare the failure of the Obama led Annenberg effort in Chicago and who seemingly is one writer who is not reluctant to scrutinize Barack Obama's record.. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16622 Registered: May-04 | . Gosh! is it any surprise I can tell exactly which sentences you wrote all by your lonesome and which you just copy/pasted from a wingnut blog? Which one did you get it from, "americanthinker" - cute title, sort of ironic, don't ya'think? plays to that other repub propoganda item that repubs are all about "thinking" - or "theobamafile"? That's you, squiddy, always thinkin' on your feet. Always throwin' more spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. Always following orders from above. You make this too easy, squiddy - and a complete waste of time. And, in case you hadn't noticed, Perry has been my "elected official" for the last sixteen years. I have the right to complain about him. You have the duty to look deeper into his record. Since we're on the subject of education, you might just look into Governor GoodHair's record on that subject and where Texas ranks when it comes to any aspect of the subject. Also check out how both Perry and Bush used their political office to reward their largest contributors with crony positions in education despite the fact they had no background in education. Shock and awe is how most would describe it. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16624 Registered: May-04 | . American Thinker (AT) is a conservative daily internet publication. According to it website, American Thinker presents a "thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans." There is ample evidence to support the notion that AT serves as part of the right wing's echo chamber. A good example of this can be found in a December 5th, 2007 piece on the National Intelligence Estimate report on the state of Iran's Nuclear weapon's program. Writer Ed Lasky first refers to an Editorial in the New York Sun inferring that the intelligence community is against President Bush. Lasky concludes that "the National Intelligence Estimate was cooked up by bureaucrats eager to embarrass George Bush and transform US policy towards Iran." To substantiate his argument he goes on to quote an editorial from the Wall Street Journal which avers the authors of the NIE study are: "former State Department officials with previous reputations that should lead one to doubt their conclusions. All three are ex-bureaucrats who, as is generally true of State Department types, favor endless rounds of negotiation and "diplomacy" and oppose confrontation. These three officials, according to the Wall Street Journal, have 'reputations as hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials'." This statement "Hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials", restated as fact in the AT article, is quoted and requoted by rightwing blogs and news sources throughout the media. Ultimately this type of statement winds up being echoed by mainstream pundits such as Rush Limbaugh. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Thinker Source Watch is another of those non-partisan, award winning websites the repubs hate. (What and who don't they hate? If you are not in lockstep with the propaganda machine, you are "baised" is the way the repubs see the world.) If you are for reasonable negotiations rather than blowing up the world, you are labelled "Hyper-Partisan" according to The American Thinker(?). I'll assume you can all figure out what "theobamafile" is up to. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 639 Registered: Mar-04 | Ok Crazy woman, but what exactly is inaccurate about the article. You have anything besides your warped opinion ? Perhaps the St. petersburg times has a counter article as to Barrys great work on the South side of Chicago ? Perhaps you can tell us all his great accomplishments in Chicago, and how he has improved the lives of those he represented ? Perhaps his great work in the Illinois senate , could you enlighten us as to his great work there ? How about his time at the Harvard law review, any paper(s) he wrote while there that are looked upon as significant in any way ? This is your candidate, and like a good democrat you will vote for him. Answer my question Norma, why is the point of this presidency and why is it in the best interests of America to re-elect this guy. His basic argument is that while things are really bad, they would be worse without him! Oh and spend a billion dollars smearing your opponent (while using the sycophants in the media and drones like you crazy woman), I mean he can't run on his record can he ? I assume you just won't answer my question on the % the NEA and ATF's political contributions which go to democrats, just the facts ... |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 640 Registered: Mar-04 | Reuters 2012 election | Obamanomics | US economy On Wednesday, Economic Forecaster-in-Chief Barack Obama said, I dont think were in danger of another recession. Shades of John McCains The fundamentals of our economy are strong. On Thursday, the stock market freaked out by Europes spiraling debt crisis and a shockingly weak Philadelphia Fed manufacturing report plunged 4.5 percent. In an unintentional rejoinder to Obama, investment bank Morgan Stanley opined that the United States was dangerously close to falling back into recession. When American presidents win reelection, they usually win by a heftier margin than the first time around. Narrower victories are rare, just three or four depending if youre looking at the electoral or popular vote. When voters break against an incumbent, its usually fatal for the guy in the Oval Office. And right now, things are breaking bad for Obama. Really bad. Gallup has been pegging his approval rating right around 40 percent, even sometimes dipping to 39 percent. Regarding the economy in particular, Obama registers just 26 percent approval, his lowest rating ever and way down from a high of 59 percent in February 2009. And it may be about to get a whole lot worse for the Obama 2012 campaign. The White Houses worst-case scenario for the economy on Election Day next year has become Wall Streets baseline scenario. After looking at a string of weak economic reports and Europes growing fear of debt meltdown and contagion, JPMorgan led by Obama pal Jamie Dimon has just come out with a politically poisonous forecast. The megabank now thinks the economy wont grow much faster over the next 12 months than it did during the first half of this year and thats assuming Europe doesnt go all pear shaped. It sees GDP growth at just 1.5 percent this year, 1.3 percent next year with unemployment at 9.5 percent heading into the final days of the election season. The risks of recession are clearly elevated, the bank said. Heres its reasoning: Consumer sentiment has tumbled and household wealth has deteriorated. Survey measures of capital spending intentions have moved lower and the housing market shows little sign of lifting. Small businesses, retailers, builders and manufacturers all report a weaker business environment. Global growth has disappointed and foreign growth forecasts have been taken lower. In response we are lowering our projection for growth, particularly in the quarters around the turn of the year. Team Obama had better permanently shelve any plans of running a Morning in America campaign. In fact, if a) the economic forecasts of Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are accurate, and b) voters behave as they usually do during bad economic times, then c) Barack Obama will be a one-term president. No president in the modern era has been reelected with the unemployment rate higher than 7.4 percent, much less two percentage points higher. But Obamas political folks are clever, far more than the guys who ran Jimmy Carters horrific 1980 campaign. And maybe the Republicans will nominate a candidate that scares Midwest suburbanites silly. Or perhaps Obamas plan for â€winning the future will imbue the gloomy American public with a a bit more hope that whatever Republicans offer. Perhaps. But if Obama wins four more years with this economy, it will be almost as historic as his win in 2008. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 641 Registered: Mar-04 | After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending, Pelosi said in her speech from the speakers podium.Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt. Sounded good at the time ... |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16627 Registered: May-04 | . "When American presidents win reelection, they usually win by a heftier margin than the first time around." It happened with W. He only won by one vote the first time. While you place "Reuters" at the top of your post, you still haven't actually sourced the material. I wouldn't either if I were pulling from the sources you prefer. Reuters is a news agency, not an editorial writer. Place "Reuters 2012 election | Obamanomics | US economy ...On Wednesday, Economic Forecaster-in-Chief Barack Obama said" in a search engine and it gets confused and doesn't return any results from Reuters. And it's highly unlikely an agency such as Reuters would make use of a right wingnut slur such as "Obamanomics". So, instead, let's just put "On Wednesday, Economic Forecaster-in-Chief Barack Obama said" in a search engine and see what comes up; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=On Wednesday Economic Forecaster-in-Chief Barack Obama said&type= WHY SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!! The most viewed site is "Michael Graham - Maestro of Conservative Controversy"; http://michaelgraham.com/archives/which-economic-forecaster-do-you-believe/ So, you continue to pull BS from BS far right wingnut territory and now you're trying to disguise it as mainstream press from Reuters?! squiddy, you are a deceptive little pr*ck. squiddy, you're a creep and a twerp. OK, you've managed to destroy the intent of this thread by being a jerk, a twerp and a plain old right wing idiot hack who can do nothing more than copy/paste from the far right world of hate. Hate for facts, hate for discourse, hate for everything that doesn't march lockstep with some perverse ideology none of you can actually explain other than it centers around hate for anyone who doesn't look, act, believe or want to be anything like you. There's nothing I can do to stop you from posting all the BS you find as far to the extreme right as you seem to always visit. You have no interest in facts or civility, you prefer distortions and hate. To me that says you have a very sick little head. One might even call you a stupid, @sshole big*t. You prefer to take down others in your posts which, I assume, somehow makes you feel very big - that's how most big*ts go about their day. In the end you are a very small, pathetic little thing. Unable to think for yourself, you rely on others to supply the words you can't produce on your own. Then you simply parrot them back as if that proves you know anything. When you get around to actually supplying facts and not trying to take down anyone with your far right wing BS, there might be a conversation here. As is, you're very unwelcome and very much to be ignored. http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=After years of historic deficits this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard&type= Oh, yeah, bite me. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 642 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy lady in room 237 I will ask you this again... Perhaps you can tell us all his great accomplishments in Chicago, and how he has improved the lives of those he represented ? Perhaps his great work in the Illinois senate , could you enlighten us as to his great work there ? How about his time at the Harvard law review, any paper(s) he wrote while there that are looked upon as significant in any way ? This is your candidate, and like a good democrat you will vote for him, because you lefties/freaks need him to advance the agenda. Answer my question Norma, why is the point of this presidency and why is it in the best interests of America to re-elect this guy. I assume you just won't answer my question on the % the NEA and ATF's political contributions which go to democrats, just the facts remember ?... What about Pelosi's statement, I think you can identify with her, with those eyes popping out like ping pong balls. Keep up the good fight quisling and get back in the conga line with the freaks at MSNBC. Democrat gooooood Republickan baaaaaaaaaaad repeat 100 times.. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16630 Registered: May-04 | . Huntsman: GOP can't become 'anti-science' party Texas Gov. Rick Perry's denial of global warming poses a "serious problem" for Republicans trying to take back the White House in 2012, presidential rival Jon Huntsman says. "The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party - the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012", the former Utah governor said in an interview aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week". "When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, with the National Academy of Science has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it", he said, "I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position"... When asked if Perry could defeat President Barack Obama should he win the nomination, Huntsman replied: "I think when you find yourself at an extreme end of the Republican Party, you make yourself unelectable." http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0811/Huntsman_GOP_cant_become_antisci ence_party.html . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 643 Registered: Mar-04 | 98% huh, I mean no wonder nobody takes this guy seriously (except for the conga line of freaks at MsNbC) he is a joke. Perhaps you can tell us all his great accomplishments in Chicago, and how he has improved the lives of those he represented ? Perhaps his great work in the Illinois senate , could you enlighten us as to his great work there ? How about his time at the Harvard law review, any paper(s) he wrote while there that are looked upon as significant in any way ? This is your candidate, and like a good democrat you will vote for him, because you lefties/freaks need him to advance the agenda. Answer my question Norma, why is the point of this presidency and why is it in the best interests of America to re-elect this guy. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 644 Registered: Mar-04 | Barack Obama's Accomplishments - Chicago Housing Belmont Club: Community Organizer Binyamin Appelbaum of the Boston Globe describes how Chicago proved that it is actually possible to build a perpetual motion ahem perpetual money machine. The formula is as follows: take one large batch of community activists, add programs to create massive amounts of low cost housing, add public subsidies and stand back! The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who cant afford to live anywhere else. But its not safe to live here. About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition. Its not only a tale of what Tony Rezko really did for a living, but what many of Obamas closest political and campaign associates do to this very day. Its a story with endless variations but one basic motif. Take a good cause, like providing low cost housing; persuade government to kick in money to subsidize it and turn the whole thing into a racket. Repeat as necessary. As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year. But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obamas former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable. Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obamas close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obamas constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted. And now these prodigies have a chance to succeed on an even larger scale. The Globe describes how the enviable successes of Chicago are now poised go national. Obama has continued to support increased subsidies as a presidential candidate, calling for the creation of an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which could distribute an estimated $500 million a year to developers. The money would be siphoned from the profits of two mortgage companies created and supervised by the federal government, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I will restore the federal governments commitment to low-income housing, Obama wrote last September in a letter to the Granite State Organizing Project, an umbrella group for several dozen New Hampshire religious, community, and political organizations. He added,Our nations low-income families are facing an affordable housing crisis, and it is our responsibility to ensure this crisis does not get worse by ineffective replacement of existing public-housing units. The names of those involved in the development projects are familiar with those who have been following the Senators career. The Davis law firm, the Woods Fund of Chicago, Valerie Jarrett, Habitat Co. But some people believe that the Senator must have been misled; that he was somehow blindsided and betrayed by people he trusted. The Globe article describes the mixed feelings among his supporters: some people in Chicagos poorest neighborhoods are torn between a natural inclination to support Obama and a concern about his relationships with the developers they hold responsible for Chicagos affordable housing failures. Some housing advocates worry that Obama has not learned from those failures. Im not against Barack Obama, said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident. What I am against is some of the people around him. Jamie Kalven, a longtime Chicago housing activist, put it this way: I hope there is not much predictive value in his history and in his involvement with that community. Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks famously answered, because thats where the money is. People who are disappointed to learn that community activists sometimes take advantage of the poor should ask themselves who else would they fleece? Next to an actual criminal background, the company of the professionally virtuous is often the most dangerous one to have. Maybe one of the reasons (fittingly remembered on the 4th of July) that a republican democracy works better, on average, than an aristocracy is that it makes no special assumptions about the virtue of the rulers. And maybe the best rule of thumb in politics, as distinct from the system of justice, is that every politician is assumed guilty until proven innocent. Maybe thats going too far. But as Ronald Reagan once said,trust, but verify. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 645 Registered: Mar-04 | Economist Jeffrey Sachs Hits Obama: "There's Never Been A Plan" Economist Jeffrey Sachs slammed President Obama on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Friday. "We're almost three years into this administration, and there's never been a plan. And that's what everybody feels. And the president didn't lead. He waited. The quintessential image, sadly, of an administration that I supported and hoped for much better, is the president waiting by the phone to hear what Congress calls to tell him. It doesn't work in this country that way. It's not a matter that it's August. It's a matter that it's August 2011. So we've been drifting for a very long time. And we've been drifting down. And we had a short-term plan that failed. A short-term stimulus that was supposed to get the economy back on track, but it failed. And now we have nothing behind it. And we have no agreements, and we have no leadership. And, frankly, I do think it's pretty odd the president's on vacation right now. Normally I wouldn't care about such things, but the world markets are in deep crisis. It's no joke. This isn't just an up-and-down little blip. This is a very serious situation." |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16631 Registered: May-04 | . The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative[1][2][3][4] opinion magazine[5] published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of neoconservatism" and as "the neo-con bible"; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard Rick Perry, Annotated http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/rick-perry-annotated_590440.html?nopager= 1 . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 646 Registered: Mar-04 | The presidential motorcade on Martha's Vineyard peeled out of Blue Heron Farms at 5:15 p.m. with the president and Valerie Jarrett in tow. After 10 minutes, we made an abrupt left turn on John Cottle Road -- an unpaved, deeply rutted eight-foot-wide private path hemmed in by ivy, scrub oak and big, scary boulders. After bottoming out four times -- we're talking two-foot holes in a sand-and-gravel road, along with one hairpin turn -- Obama and Jarrett arrived at West Tisbury home of their friends, Brian and Aileen Roberts, spokesman Josh Earnest informs us. It was 5:30 p.m. Roberts is chairman and CEO of Comcast. Comcast is the parent company of MsNbC (aka the barry obama channel)... Going to kiss the ring and perhaps suggest some talking points for the MsNbC primetime freakshow.. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16632 Registered: May-04 | . Steve Brill's Report Card on School Reform by Sara Mosle New York Times Book Review, August 21, 2011 Steven Brill is a graduate of Yale Law School and the founder of Court TV, and in his new book, "Class Warfare," he brings a sharp legal mind to the world of education reform. Like a dogged prosecutor, he mounts a zealous case against America's teachers' unions. From more than 200 interviews, he collects the testimony of idealistic educators, charter school founders, policy gurus, crusading school superintendents and billionaire philanthropists. Through their vivid vignettes, which he pieces together in short chapters with titles like " 'Colorado Says Half of You Won't Graduate' " and "A Shriek on Park Avenue," Brill conveys the epiphanies, setbacks and triumphs of a national reform movement ... ... Brill wants us to believe that unions are the primary — even sole — cause of failing public schools. But hard evidence for this is scarce. Many of the nation's worst-performing schools (according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress) are concentrated in Southern and Western right-to-work states, where public sector unions are weakest and collective bargaining enjoys little or no protection. Also, if unions are the primary cause of bad schools, why isn't labor's pernicious effect similarly felt in many middle class suburbs, like Pelham, N.Y., or Montclair, N.J., which have good schools - and strong unions? More problematic for Brill's thesis, charter schools, which are typically freed from union rules, haven't succeeded in the ways their champions once hoped. A small percentage are undeniably superb. But most are not. One particularly rigorous 2009 study, which surveyed approximately half of all charters nationwide and was financed by the pro-charter Walton Family and Michael and Susan Dell Foundations, found that more than 80 percent either do no better, or actually perform substantially worse, than traditional public schools, a dismal record. The study concluded that "tremendous variation in academic quality among charters is the norm, not the exception." Brill obliquely refers to such research in half a sentence. He then counters that other studies have shown better results for charters, without clearly indicating what these studies are or explaining why they should trump a comprehensive, national study. He then points to the "central evidentiary value" of the Knowledge is Power Program, KIPP, the chain of roughly 100 charter schools, founded by two Teach for America alumni, that has produced consistently high student test scores and become a media darling. Yet such exceptions to the rule still don't explain why, if unions are the crucial variable, a vast majority of charters haven't equally thrived. At the heart of Brill's book is a belief that "truly effective teaching" can "overcome student indifference, parental disengagement and poverty." For too long, Brill's reformers argue, union leaders have used such factors to excuse failing teachers protected by tenure. Certainly many adults, not just those in unions, have written off economically disadvantaged or minority students far too readily. Brill cites policy advocates who argue that students who have top quartile teachers several years in a row could (at least theoretically) make remarkable gains. Absent other proven criteria for determining the most effective teachers, these reformers conclude that schools should base hiring, firing and promotion decisions, at least in substantial part, on teachers' ability to generate year to year gains on their students' test scores ... Brill adeptly shows how ideas can become a movement. Many of his subjects met in Teach for America, went on to promote one another's hiring or research and are now being financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But what Brill regards as the groundswell of a welcome revolution begins to sound worryingly like an echo chamber, with everyone talking to the same few people and reading the same e-mail blasts. Thanks to these reformers' coordinated push, their agenda is now driving President Obama's "Race to the Top" initiative. As Brill reports, educators supporting different, equally plausible reforms were discouraged from competing for the contest's unprecedented $4.35 billion in funding. By design, judges could award points only to those proposals that advanced charters (despite their mixed record) and used student test scores to evaluate teacher performance (in a still unproven intervention). This unwillingness to entertain other reforms, I think, is partly what has animated some of the movement's critics, like the education historian Diane Ravitch, who recently reversed her longstanding support for high stakes testing and charters (and whom Brill dismisses in just four pages, much of which he devotes not to the substance of her arguments but to distracting questions about whether she has ever accepted speaking fees from unions). The problem isn't just that the hard evidence, looked at dispassionately, doesn't always support reformers' claims. It's that the insurgents are in danger of becoming the very thing they once (rightly) rose up against: subject to groupthink, reluctant to hear opposing views or to work with anyone perceived to be on the other side. At times, I couldn't help wishing Brill had concentrated less on his reformers' similarities than on their differences. According to him, Eli Broad, the billionaire philanthropist who has helped bankroll Teach for America, regards Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, with admirable pragmatism, as someone he can work with. Bill Gates decided not to back Michelle Rhee's reforms in Washington because he regarded her as too much of a "bomb thrower." Gates also expresses wise frustration that none of Brill's favorite data crunchers can actually explain what an effective teacher looks like. (Toward this end, Doug Lemov of the Uncommon Schools charter network has promisingly begun videotaping and analyzing top teachers to identify concrete tools educators can use to improve.) By book's end, even Brill begins to feel the cognitive dissonance. He quotes a KIPP founder who concedes that the program relies on superhuman talent that can never be duplicated in large numbers. And sure enough, an educator whom Brill has held up the entire book as a model of reform unexpectedly quits, citing burnout and an unsustainable workload at her Harlem charter. Then another reform minded teacher at the same school confesses she can't possibly keep up the pace. "This model just cannot scale," she declares flatly. After relentlessly criticizing Weingarten, Brill suddenly suggests, in a "Nixon to China" move, that she become New York's next schools chancellor. "The lesson," Brill belatedly discovers, is that reformers need to collaborate with unions, if only because they are "the organizational link to enable school improvement to expand beyond the ability of the extraordinary people to work extraordinary hours." But isn't this merely what the reform movement's more thoughtful critics have been saying all along? ... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/books/review/class-warfare-by-steven-brill-book-review.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1314032442-kDAkJZ/SMV4wYocy5ZTPrQ The film "Waiting for Superman" is certainly recommended to anyone interested in the fate of America's schools. I disagree with its conclusions and its basic premise - unless I completely missed the thrust of the fim maker's intent, and all criticism of the film suggests I did not - but it is well worth the time you'll spend looking at the problems many of today's parents and students face along with the all too often make shift and not-under-their-control solutions they find. Unfortuntely, IMO, the film makers did not go on to study a single student who did not win the numerous lotteries held for acceptance into a high scoring charter school. Once again, these students were written off as being inconsequential to the story line of school reform. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16633 Registered: May-04 | . Koch Responds to Buffett's Call for Tax Hikes "Much of what the government spends money on does more harm than good; this is particularly true over the past several years with the massive uncontrolled increase in government spending. I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington." Charles G. Koch, Chairman and CEO, Koch Industries, Inc.; http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/275099/koch-responds-buffetts-call-tax-hike s-daniel-foster# (National Review (NR) is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review) Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in an unnamed town (although when originally published in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 the town was called Mudfog and said to be within 75 miles north of London). Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother's death in childbirth and his father's unexplained absence, Oliver is meagrely provided for under the terms of the Poor Law, and spends the first nine years of his life at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Along with other juvenile offenders against the poor laws, Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of the orphan's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, a parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking oakum at the main workhouse (the same one where his mother worked before she died). Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes forward, bowl in hand, and makes his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. This conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will.... Theodore Roosevelt, Republican President, 1910 http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trspeeches.html http://www.usnews.com/mobile/blogs/john-farrell/2009/4/15/no-tea-party-protests- for-teddy-roosevelt-republican-champion-of-the-income-tax.html . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16634 Registered: May-04 | . That ol' liberal bias ... Scientists are "questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. "(It is) more and more being put into question." Rick Perry on Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 in a campaign stop in New Hampshire False http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/22/rick-perry/rick-p erry-says-more-and-more-scientists-are-quest/ Rep. Sean Duffy says small banks will have to spend 2.2 million labor hours to comply with Dodd-Frank financial reform law Mostly False http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/aug/22/sean-duffy/rep-sean-duffy-says-small-banks-will-have-spend-22/ Says that Wall Street hedge fund managers "pay a lower tax rate than does a sheet metal worker in Parma or a school teacher in Cleveland." Sherrod Brown on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011 in a television interview True http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2011/aug/22/sherrod-brown/sen-sherrod- brown-says-wall-street-hedge-fund-mana/ Repubs, two out of three "False". Hey, be happy it didn't hit 76%! . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 647 Registered: Mar-04 | Obama Is the Most Pro-Abortion Candidate Ever (Obama Believes in Infanticide.) CNSNews ^ | January 09, 2008 | Terence P. Jeffrey Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 9:58:12 PM by Anti-Hillary Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever. He is so pro-abortion that he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede -- as he explained in a cold-blooded speech on the Illinois Senate floor -- that these babies, fully outside their mothers' wombs, with their hearts beating and lungs heaving, were in fact "persons." "Persons," of course, are guaranteed equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. In 2004, U.S. Senate-candidate Obama mischaracterized his opposition to this legislation. Now, as a presidential frontrunner, he should be held accountable for what he actually said and did about the Born Alive Infants Bill. State and federal versions of this bill became an issue earlier this decade because of "induced labor abortion." This is usually performed on a baby with Down's Syndrome or another problem discovered on the cusp of viability. A doctor medicates the mother to cause premature labor. Babies surviving labor are left untreated to die. Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., testified in the U.S. Congress in 2000 and 2001 about how "induced labor abortions" were handled at her hospital. "One night," she said in testimony entered into the Congressional Record, "a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have the time to hold him. I couldn't bear the thought of this suffering child lying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived." In 2001, Illinois state Sen. Patrick O'Malley introduced three bills to help such babies. One required a second physician to be present at the abortion to determine if a surviving baby was viable. Another gave the parents or a public guardian the right to sue to protect the baby's rights. A third, almost identical to the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act President Bush signed in 2002, simply said a "h@mo sapiens" wholly emerged from his mother with a "beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles" should be treated as a "'person,' 'human being,' 'child' and 'individual.'" Stanek testified about these bills in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, where Obama served. She told me this week he was "unfazed" by her story of holding the baby who survived an induced labor abortion. On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted "present" on each, effectively the same as a "no." "Number one," said Obama, explaining his reluctance to protect born infants, "whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child, a 9-month old -- child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it -- it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute." That June, the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (although it failed to become law that year). Pro-abortion Democrats supported it because this language was added: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species h@mo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this section." Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer explained that with this language the "amendment certainly does not attack Roe v. Wade." On July 18, 2002, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid called for the bill to be approved by unanimous consent. It was. That same year, the Illinois version of the bill came up again. Obama voted "no." In 2003, Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services committee. The Born Alive Infant bill, now sponsored by Sen. Richard Winkel, was referred to this committee. Winkel also sponsored an amendment to make the Illinois bill identical to the federal law, adding -- word for word -- the language Barbara Boxer said protected Roe v. Wade. Obama still held the bill hostage in his committee, never calling a vote so it could be sent to the full senate. A year later, when Republican U.S. senate candidate Alan Keyes challenged Obama in a debate for his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Bill, Obama said: "At the federal level there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe v. Wade. I would have voted for that bill." In fact, Obama had personally killed exactly that bill. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 648 Registered: Mar-04 | Study finds significant pro-Democrat bias by PolitiFact by In the news Tuesday, February 22. 2011 PolitiFact Biased Study finds significant pro Democrat bias by PolitiFact by Dan Lucas Study finds PolitiFact rates Republican statements false 3 times the rate of Democrats A February 2011 study published by the University of Minnesotas Smart Politics news site, a part of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, finds a significant bias on the part of PolitiFact in favor of statements made by Democrats: That means a supermajority of falsehoods documented by PolitiFact over the last year 76 percent were attributed to Republicans, with just 22 percent of such statements coming from Democrats. A glance at the most recent PolitiFact ratings by the Oregonian would definitely support findings of a pro-Democrat bias. The University of Minnesotas Smart Politics study especially calls outhow statements are selected by PolitiFact:there remains a fundamental question of which statements (by which politicians) are targeted for analysis in the first place. A Smart Politics content analysis of more than 500 PolitiFact stories from January 2010 through January 2011 finds that current and former Republican officeholders have been assigned substantially harsher grades by the news organization than their Democratic counterparts. Smart Politics is a non-partisan political news site authored and founded in 2006 by Dr. Eric Ostermeier, a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance (CSPG) at the University of Minnesotas Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 649 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy lady in room 237 I will ask you this again... Perhaps you can tell us all his great accomplishments in Chicago, and how he has improved the lives of those he represented ? Perhaps his great work in the Illinois senate , could you enlighten us as to his great work there ? How about his time at the Harvard law review, any paper(s) he wrote while there that are looked upon as significant in any way ? This is your candidate, and like a good democrat you will vote for him, because you lefties/freaks need him to advance the agenda. Answer my question Norma, why is the point of this presidency and why is it in the best interests of America to re-elect this guy. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16635 Registered: May-04 | . Anyone happen to watch C-Span this morning? Well, before you watch the video - it only takes three minutes - here's a list of the recess apointments W made while Congress was away; http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Recess_appointments_made_by_President _George_W._Bush These appointments include: John R. Bolton as U.N. Ambassador in August 2005, after having been blocked by the Senate. Bolton was Bush's 106th recess appointment Alice S. Fisher to head the Criminal Division in the Department of Justice, after the "nomination stalled over tactics at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval facility." Floyd Hall to be a Member of the AMTRAK Reform Board, January 4, 2006. This is the second time that Hall was appointed in a recess appointment Charles W. Pickering, Sr. to Federal Appeals Court January 17, 2004, from which he had been blocked twice by the Senate. Anthony J. Principi as chairman of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, as well as eight members of the Commission, April 1, 2005. William H. Pryor, Jr. to 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals February 20, 2004, "in the face of a Democratic filibuster of the nomination." Enrique J. Sosa to be a Member of the AMTRAK Reform Board, January 4, 2006. This is the second time that Sosa was appointed in a recess appointment. Hold on one more minute, here's the bottom line on what you're going to see: House Republicans working to prevent recess appointments by Obama By presiding over a ridiculously short House session, Rep. Jeff Denham is helping his fellow Republicans block President Obama from making appointments while Congress is in recess.; http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2015985253_congressrecess23.ht ml?syndication=rss and; House ploy will avert Obama appointments WASHINGTON â€" Freshman Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., will briefly sit in a very special chair today for a several-minute skirmish in a long-running war. By presiding over a ridiculously short House session, Denham is helping his fellow Republicans block President Barack Obama from making appointments while Congress is in recess. It's a bipartisan tactic, as are the recess appointments it's designed to frustrate. "Stopping the president from bypassing the constitutional screening process and making a unilateral appointment is one way that I can ensure . . . accountability to the people of California," Denham said Monday. To do so, Denham will gavel in a new House session at 10 a.m. For the moment, he will be called House speaker pro tempore. Because he probably will be the only House member in the chamber, Denham will recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The House chaplain will say a short prayer. A brief announcement may be made. Then Denham will bang the gavel bringing the session to an end. Just by holding the session, Congress isn't considered to be in recess. No recess means no recess appointments. Denham was on the East Coast on Monday, making the quick trip to Capitol Hill relatively painless. By this afternoon, he's scheduled to be flying west so he can throw out the first pitch at a 7:05 p.m. Modesto Nuts baseball game. http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_18736417?source=rss Anyone care to guess who is financing the plane trips between Washington and California? Tea Party Ugly: House Blocks Obama Appointments Through 2012 The ugly abuse Republicans have visited on Barack Obama's appointees and nominees has been far worse than mere cowboy-threats. Indeed, Bernanke's own January 2010 reconfirmation tribulation was far from pretty. Exceptionally well-qualified Obama nominees have been Senate slandered, held, blocked and filibustered for months and years at a time. Obama's economic policy and regulatory nominees have been specially targeted for partisan abuse. Now, 77 House Tea Party freshmen have made good on threats to escalate appointment obstruction for the rest of 2011 and through 2012 ... Confirmation abuse has kept high-level economic offices, with functions critical to our economy's recovery, vacant for months and even years. Vacancies remain at the Federal Reserve, Comptroller of the Currency, Consumer Financial Protection, Housing Finance, FDIC, OMB, Commerce, Treasury, et al. ... The House is presently attempting to block President Obama's recess appointments by withholding adjournment consent from the Senate, thus keeping both chambers in pro forma sessions. Not only does the House usurp the Senate's exclusive constitutional role in the appointment process, it does so for the express purpose of blocking the Executive appointment prerogative. The 77 House (Tea Party) freshmen publicly pledge to block all Obama recess appointments until Obama leaves the White House ... Led by Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La), the Tea Party freshmen also pushed (patently unconstitutional) legislation through the House to curtail the salary payments of certain Obama recess appointees ... Presidential Recess Records From George Washington forward, the other 43 presidents have used recess appointment authority to keep federal offices filled. Ronald Reagan recess commissioned 240 federal officials, George H.W. Bush (one term) 74, Bill Clinton 139 (including one judge), and George W. Bush 171 (including two judges). Obama has thus far has recess commissioned only 28. As detailed in my recent Connecticut Law Tribune opinion, Executive authority to make recess appointments; the fulsome authority of those officials with recess commissions; and even the validity of re-recess appointments are all well established in law and practice ... Victor WilliamsClinical Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America School of Law http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-williams/obama-appointments-tea-party_b_932 120.html And, finally, here's the video. It will take less time to watch than it did for you to read this post ... http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/301183-1 This is done every three days during the five week Congressional vacation. Your government not at work. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16636 Registered: May-04 | . The fall of Tripoli is a foreign policy triumph for which President Barack Obama won’t hold a ticker-tape parade: no flight suit, no chest-thumping, no â€Mission Accomplished†banner. But the low-profile, inexpensive ouster of Col. Muammar Qadhafi marks an important milestone for the administration, foreign policy analysts say â€" perhaps the most concrete evidence that the more modest American foreign policy approach that has become Obama’s hallmark and perhaps his biggest area of contrast with his more interventionist predecessor might actually work. One anonymous Obama adviser labeled the Libya strategy â€leading from behind†in an interview with the New Yorker earlier this year, a slogan that has turned into a bludgeon for Republican critics to use to assail Obama’s leadership or lack thereof. But the scenes of celebration in Tripoli make it difficult â€" if not impossible, as supportive statements by Sens.John McCain and Lindsey Graham demonstrated Monday â€" to argue with Obama’s methods. And at a moment of fiscal obsession, Qadhafi was deposed on the cheap: the most recent figures, from earlier this summer, showed just $1.1 billion in American outlays on the mission, a virtual rounding error at the Pentagon and the equivalent of a few days of involvement in Afghanistan. U.S. warplanes flew just 16 percent of the aerial sorties over the country, according to figures compiled by the Atlantic Council of the United States. Obama described the U.S. as a â€friend and a partner†to the Libyan rebels who were consolidating their gains Monday, and addressed himself to the Libyan people. â€Your courage and character have been unbreakable in the face of a tyrant,†he said. The seizure of control in Tripoli by rebel forces is not just a rare bit of good news for a White House that has tried to weather a bruising summer â€" it is vindication for an important set of ideas that Obama espoused as a candidate: that the United States can still lead while talking and walking more softly and letting allies, particularly the Europeans, take the starring role. â€We need to give the Obama administration credit for finding a way, taking the long view, resisting the pressure to do too much to soon, resisting the old approaches which would have had the U.S. far more involved than it could have or should have been and really blazing a trail for the future of U.S. foreign policy,†said David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration national security official ...; http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61849.html?wpisrc=nl_fix . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16637 Registered: May-04 | . How impure ideology gets in the way of the truth .. or, How to hear facts which say you are wrong but still insist you are right just because ... Factor Panelists Dispute Bill O'Reilly's Claim That Obama Is Bad For The Economy by Frances Martel | 8:45 am, August 23rd, 2011 Bill O'Reilly came back from vacation just as President Obama began his - and the inevitable criticism over going on vacation followed. But O'Reilly didn't mind it; in fact, he argued that getting the President away from the stock market could only help. His panel, however - economist Ben Stein and businessman Wayne Rogers - differed strongly, the former arguing the President was a positive influence on the economy, and the latter denying the President had much influence at all. O'Reilly prompted the panel asking whether everything he said in the "Talking Points Memo" (mostly, that the President letting the market settle itself without him giving a speech for a few days would be good) was true. "Absolutely not", piped up Stein, instead offering, "almost every part of it is wrong." Stein countered that he believed the President to be a positive influence on the economy, agreeing only with O'Reilly's approval of the vacation, as "he works very hard and deserves a vacation." Rogers didn't come to O'Reilly's defense, either, but for different reasons: the President, he argued, "is a neutral force". "I don't think he's much of a force at all." Rogers' argument was that any president, not just President Obama, would have trouble influencing the economy, because "the ability to make law is in the Congress's, not the president's, hands." O'Reilly then argued against both of them, making the observation that "every time he goes on television and talks about the economy - the stock market drops 200 to 300 points every time he shows up." He could barely finish the sentence amid protests from both Stein and Rogers that "that has nothing to do with it," until O'Reilly shifted gears to the national debt and, subsequently, the taxation issue. O'Reilly and Stein then sparred for some time on whether taxing millionaires was useful to reduce the deficit, with Stein even arguing that a wealth tax independent of the income tax would be a good solution. He further contended that "there's no correlation between tax rates on millionaires and the growth of the economy - or between raising taxes and revenue." O'Reilly dismissed these arguments at face value, challenging Stein to explain how there wasn't a relationship between business owners not having enough money to create more jobs and them having to pay more of that money in taxes. The segment via Fox News below: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/factor-panel-strongly-disagrees-with-oreilly-claim-th at-obama-is-bad-for-the-economy/ The comments beneath the video are priceless. One ideology shouting at another. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16638 Registered: May-04 | . The Rich Can Afford to Pay More Taxes By BRUCE BARTLETT ... As one can see, the revenue potential depends critically on what baseline is assumed. That is because the top tax rate is already scheduled to rise to 39.6 percent on incomes over $380,000 in 2013. Moreover, dividends on corporate stock would go back to being taxed as ordinary income. And capital gains would go back to being taxed at a maximum rate of 20 percent. The larger question is how much the well-to-do should pay. According to the Internal Revenue Service, in 2008, those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution, with incomes over $380,000, had an effective tax rate of 23.3 percent. In 1986, a year when the real gross domestic product grew a healthy 3.5 percent, their effective tax rate was 33.1 percent. It has been much lower every year since. If this group were still paying 33.1 percent, federal revenue would have been more than $166 billion higher in 2008 alone. That would be enough to reduce the budget deficit by about 10 percent this year. If the top 1 percent of taxpayers had continued to pay the same effective tax rate they paid in 1986 every year from 1987 to 2008, the federal debt today would be $1.7 trillion lower. Of course, these are not hard numbers. If the effective tax rate had stayed at 33.1 percent on the top 1 percent of taxpayers all these years, their behavior would undoubtedly have changed. And it probably would have been impractical to maintain a higher rate on just the top 1 percent of taxpayers without having had higher rates on many of those below that percentile. But it does show the order of magnitude of how much revenue has been sacrificed from tax cuts on those with very high incomes. Some will argue that those tax cuts bought higher economic growth, but that is very doubtful. Growth was stronger in the 1990s when the relative revenue loss was small and was dismal during the George W. Bush administration, when two thirds of the aggregate revenue loss occurred. It is not class warfare to suggest that the richest 1 percent of people in society pay one third of their income to the federal government, as they did under Ronald Reagan. Keep in mind that dividends were taxable as ordinary income every year of his administration, and in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 he supported taxing capital gains as ordinary income as well. Higher effective tax rates on the rich could even be achieved without raising the top tax rate bracket to 50 percent, as it was under President Reagan. There are many tax preferences that largely benefit the well-to-do that could be scaled back to avoid raising marginal rates. The important thing is for people to accept that we can no longer afford such low effective tax rates on those with the greatest capacity to pay at a time when total revenues as a percentage of G.D.P. are at their lowest level in 60 years and we are facing a debt crisis. The issue is not whether the rich should pay more, but how best to accomplish it. Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/what-the-rich-can-afford-in-income- tax/?ref=business . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16639 Registered: May-04 | . I've often heard Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and the second string hacks etc. claim the financial collapse was the result of "those people buying houses they couldn't afford." Of course, we all understand who "those people" are in this code. And the message of their unadulterated greed and desire to take what is not their's while doing no work is plain to anyone listening. But, of course, those are all lies that play to dumbed down ideology and full bore big*try in between commercials for buying gold. Finger-Pointing in the Fog By GRETCHEN MORGENSON Published: August 20, 2011 UNEARTHING the story of the financial crisis is like conducting an archaeological dig. New shards keep emerging from the dust. Here's an interesting find. The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Stifel Financial, a regional brokerage firm in St. Louis, accusing it of fraud in connection with complex debt securities it recommended to five Wisconsin school districts in 2006. Rather than settle with the commission, as many firms do, Stifel is defending the matter. The S.E.C. sued Stifel on Aug. 10 because the firm advised the school districts to buy the three ill fated securities, which the regulator said were unsuitably risky for unsophisticated investors. David W. Noack, the firm's sales representative, misled school district officials when he told them that the deals, involving corporate bonds and rated AA-minus, were nearly as safe as United States Treasuries, the S.E.C. said. The Wisconsin school districts lost tens of millions of dollars on a $200 million investment, most of which was borrowed. Stifel earned $1.6 million in commissions. But it did not create the securities - and this is where the case gets murky and interesting. Royal Bank of Canada built the failed investments, using parameters set out by Stifel and secretly profiting on the deal, Stifel said. The S.E.C. has not sued the bank. In a lawsuit against Royal Bank of Canada, Stifel points to internal bank documents indicating a $5.4 million profit on two of the Wisconsin deals. Stifel also maintains that Royal Bank of Canada hid these and the third deal's profits and had undisclosed conflicts as the deals' originator. As such, RBC failed to abide by the contract with the school districts requiring "complete expense and fee transparency and disclosure," Stifel said. Kevin Foster, a Royal Bank of Canada spokesman, called Stifel's allegations meritless and said the firm was trying to deflect blame to others for its central role in the troubled investments. "We never misrepresented our estimated profit to Stifel or the districts," Mr. Foster said in a statement. "Stifel's math is flat out wrong and based on erroneous assumptions. The transactions were not profitable to RBC." Stifel and a lawyer for Mr. Noack declined to comment. Here's a short history of the transactions. In 2005, the school districts faced $400 million in unfunded health care and other non-pension guarantees for retired workers. Mr. Noack had been financial adviser to the districts for decades; he suggested they borrow money and invest in securities rated AA-minus that would generate more in yield than they had to pay in interest. This becomes maddeningly complex: The bank from which the school districts borrowed - Depfa, of Ireland - told Stifel that it preferred collateralized debt obligations as the securities against which it would lend money to the districts. Stifel asked for proposals from banks. Royal Bank of Canada won the assignment and began to construct synthetic collateralized debt obligations linked to about 100 corporate bonds. It worked with ACA Management and UBS to select the underlying portfolios. Depfa lent the money to the districts on a "nonrecourse" basis, meaning that the districts would not have to repay the loan if the securities bought with the borrowed funds defaulted. This arrangement, Stifel argues, shows that Depfa, a sophisticated institution, believed that the investment was not high risk. Under the deal's terms, Depfa could seize the collateral if the security's asset values fell to 95 cents on the dollar and did not return to $1.01 within 30 days. It didn't take long for the deals to go south, and for the school districts to lose their $37 million investment. Depfa seized the underlying collateral supporting its $163 million loan. Lawsuits began flying. Once again, we see the same toxic ingredients that have appeared repeatedly in the aftermath of the crisis: collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, ruinous leverage, an overreliance on credit ratings, greed and extreme naivete. But the case raises questions about a largely unexplored part of the collateralized debt obligation mania - whether Wall Street firms putting together these deals knew how to game the ratings agency models and profited by selecting debt issues to suit their purposes . If, for example, a firm was designing an instrument to be used to bet against the underlying collateral - Goldman Sachs's famous Abacus deal was created so the hedge fund manager John Paulson could short risky mortgages - a firm could assign debt issues to the deal that carried overly optimistic or misplaced ratings. Later, when reality intervened and the ratings were cut, those betting against the underlying collateral would prosper. Because ratings agencies were slow to recognize the severe deterioration in mortgages in 2006 and 2007, taking advantage of this tardiness turned out to be highly profitable to those taking a negative view. The Royal Bank of Canada concoctions were not created for the purpose of betting against them. And they contained corporate issues which the ratings agencies have historically been better at assessing. Nevertheless, in its lawsuit, Stifel accuses the bank of increasing its profits by gaming the model used by Standard & Poor's, the ratings agency on the deal. "RBC understood the mathematical models used by S.& P. to assign ratings on synthetic C.D.O.'s," the firm maintained. "Armed with this information, RBC constructed the reference portfolios with the objective of maximizing its profits while technically achieving the AA-minus rating from S.& P." Stifel was heavily involved in these deals, to be sure. And this is the only suit brought against Royal Bank of Canada for C.D.O.'s that it created, said Mark Kirsch, co-chairman of litigation practice at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, who represents the bank. But there appears to be plenty of blame to go around, as has been typical throughout the crisis. The S.E.C. said its investigation is continuing. It would do well to examine closely any allegations of gaming ratings agency models. In the meantime, the Wisconsin Circuit Court in Milwaukee will decide whether Stifel will be held liable for the school districts' losses. Who will prevail in Stifel's battle with the S.E.C. remains to be seen. This much, however, is clear: Lawsuits filed against institutions involved in the credit mania continue to reveal much about practices that led to titanic losses in this crisis. Because we still don't know the whole story of this mess, even four years after it erupted, how these lawsuits play out will help determine whether such an episode ever happens again. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/business/5-wisconsin-school-districts-and-3-il l-fated-securities.html?_r=1&ref=fairgame . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 651 Registered: Mar-04 | Top of the Ticket Political commentary from Andrew Malcolm New national debt data: It's growing about $3 million a minute, even during his vacation August 23, 2011 | 5:32 am increase text size decrease text size 97 879 Obama Reid Pelosi happy, file Swallow all liquids in your mouth before reading any further. Updated numbers for the national debt are just out: It's now $14,639,000,000,000. When Barack Obama took the oath of office twice on Jan. 20, 2009, CBS' amazing number cruncher Mark Knoller reports, the national debt was $10,626,000,000,000. That means the debt that our federal government owes a whole lot of somebodies including China has increased $4,247,000,000,000 in just 945 days. That's the fastest increase under any president ever. Remember the day the Democrat promised to close the embarrassing Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility within one year? That day the national debt increased $4,247,000,000. And each day since that the facility hasn't been closed. Same for the day in 2009 when Obama flew all the way out to Denver to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill that was going to hold national unemployment beneath 8% instead of the 9.1% we got today anyway? Another $4,247,000,000 that day. And every day since, even Obama golfing and vacation days. Same sum for the day Obama flew Air Force One nearly four hours roundtrip to Columbus, Ohio for a 10-minute speech about how well the stimulus was working in the politically crucial Buckeye state. Ohio's unemployment rate just jumped to 9% from 8.8% anyway.Obama stops his tour bus to Eat some Ice Cream in Iowa 8-16-11 Or last week's three-day Midwestern tour in the president's new $1.1 million Death Star bus? National debt went up $16,988,000,000 while he rode around speaking and buying ice cream cones. Numbers with that many digits are hard to grasp, even for a Harvard head. So, let's put it another way: One billion seconds ago Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his two terms and George W. Bush's baseball collection was still on the shelves in the Austin governor's office. The nation's debt increased $4.9 trillion under President Bush too, btw. But it took him 2,648 days to do it. Obama will surpass that sum during this term. Now, how to portray a trillion, or 1,000 billions. One trillion seconds ago much of North America was still covered by ice sheets hundreds of feet thick. And the land was dotted by only a few dozen Starbuck's. Obama is saying yes, we can get control of the national debt. But ominously every time he says that he adds that trillions of dollars in infrastructure repairs are badly needed across the country. And with interest rates so low, according to the thinking on Obama's planet, now is an excellent time to borrow even more money. So, it looks like not too long before Americans learn what comes after 1,000 trillions. It's quadrillion. But for Bernanke's sake, please don't tell anyone in Washington. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16643 Registered: May-04 | . Fox & Friends Hosts Author For Segment On How "The Left" Is Indoctrinating Kids; (video) http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108240005 Texas School Board Set to Vote Textbook Revisions AUSTIN, Tex. - After facing months of protest, conservative members of the Texas Board of Education were expected Thursday night to vote to teach schoolchildren a version of American history that emphasizes the roles of capitalist enterprise, the military, Christianity and modern Republican political figures ... By sheer force of its population size, Texas has long held outsize influence on national textbook publishers, some of whom sent curriculum writers to take notes in the boardroom ... Last year, conservatives on the board changed the state science curriculum to undermine the teaching of evolution, cell formation and the Big Bang. While many of the changes to the science curriculum used coded language to advance conservative principles, some additions to the history standards were more overtly political. Board members planned to add language requiring high school students of the civil rights movement to "describe the role of individuals such as governors George Wallace, Orval Faubus, and Lester Maddox and groups, including the Congressional bloc of southern Democrats, that sought to maintain the status quo." In another passage, the board would require students to explain the roles of "Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association" ... At one point, for example, Ms. Lowe silenced a question about the word "justice," ruling it irrelevant to the matter at hand, which at the moment was whether first graders should learn the importance of "respectfully" holding public officials to account or just holding public officials to account. In last-minute amendments, some board members demonstrated the extent of their ambition to influence the classroom, proposing amendments that resembled lesson plans. Barbara Cargill, a Republican from suburban Houston, successfully campaigned for a reference in the curriculum to the singer Julius Lorenzo Cobb Bledsoe, arguing, "How could any of us forget his rendition of 'Old Man River' in Showboat?" ... As positions hardened on both sides, opponents of the changes sought to blunt their impact on children in the rest of the country. Legislators in California have drafted a bill requiring that state's board to scrutinize new textbooks for evidence of the Texas influence. ; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/education/21textbooks.html Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change AUSTIN, Tex. - After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers' commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light ... In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin's theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state. Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120 page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers. "We are adding balance," said Dr. Don McLeroy, the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. "History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left." Battles over what to put in science and history books have taken place for years in the 20 states where state boards must adopt textbooks, most notably in California and Texas. But rarely in recent history has a group of conservative board members left such a mark on a social studies curriculum. Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state's large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don't exist." "They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians," she said. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world" ... "I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state," said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. "I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution." They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association." Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported ... Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study "the unintended consequences" of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism. Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include "how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government." The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States. Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons "the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others." It was defeated on a party line vote. After the vote, Ms. Knight said, "The social conservatives have p*rverted accurate history to fulfill their own agenda." In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word "capitalism" throughout their texts with the "free-enterprise system." "Let's face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation," said one conservative member, Terri Leo. "You know, 'capitalist pig!' " In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of "the importance of personal responsibility for life choices" in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, s*xuality, drug use and eating disorders. "The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything," Ms. Cargill said. Even the course on world history did not escape the board's scalpel. Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term "separation between church and state.")" "The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based," Ms. Dunbar said.}; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html Due to its size Texas school books are generally adopted without question by as many as twenty other states. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16644 Registered: May-04 | . The (Texas) Tribune Texas School Books Monday, April 12, 2010 Lynn Ashby Dear Texas School Teacher, You have ben waiting in great antisipation - some would say angished fear - for your new tectsbooks as approved by us here at the Texas State School Board Comitee. Well, here they ar. Tell us if you don't like the emprovments and end-of-chaptor questions so well know who to far. Thank, Texas State School Board Comitee. HISTORY: Columbus landed in America to: (a) get away from the reign in Spain. (b) bring the One True Religion to the heathens by massacring all non-believers, turning the rest into slaves, stealing their gold and spreading deadly diseases throughout the New World. © find a new route to India, but got lost. India had no idea how lucky it was. (d) Keep from falling off the edge. True or false: The Founding Fathers have been wrongly portrayed in paintings and movies as wearing knee pants, silk stockings and black loafers with silver buckles. Ditto for lace collars and ponytails. Fact or rumor: Thomas Jefferson was not an Enlightenment thinker who changed the world, but he did wear all of the above. The War of Jenkin's Ear was not covered by health insurance because Jenkin's was such a deadbeat and a drain on society that he refused to pay a 38 percent increase in his premiums. GOVERNMENT: Which one of these is NOT a freedom guaranteed by the Constitution: Religion, press, speech, right to assemble, cable TV. (Extra credit is given for naming any freedom which should be abolished.) Finish this sentence: The Second Amendment is the most important of all because: (Grade points reduced for mention of Starbucks.) Barack Obama is: (a) the first line of the "Macarena." (b) Kenyan for "show me the birth certificate." © a one-term president. True or true? Texas can secede from the Union any time it wishes. Who said: "Give me liberty or give me a break." "We distort, you deride." "You lie!" "Honk if you want a theocracy." Gov. Rick Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas' history. Who was the longest serving inmate on Death Row? Hint: Not if Gov. Perry had his way. The State School Board is: (a) wise (b) brilliant © charming (d) all of the above. MATH: If an Amtrak train leaves Dallas at noon heading for Houston on the same track that an Amtrak train leaves Houston heading for Dallas, how long would it take for everyone to realize mass transit is a commie plot? When are 59 votes fewer than 41 votes? Write a 500 word essay on: Taxes should only be levied to run basic governmental functions such as chain gangs, SWAT teams and death panels. If one black helicopter costs $4 million, how many can be bought by cutting Medicaid in half? Minimum wage - Class warfare at its worst or an impediment to the free market? If a plaintiff's attorney squeezes $250,000 in damages from a good, solid God-fearing company that makes diapers which occasionally burst into flame, how much will an equally veracious, greedy attorney wring from an upstanding, talented physician who mistakenly amputates the wrong leg? GEOGRAPHY: Texas is surrounded on all sides by jealous people who want to come here. In 500 words, describe the solution. Hint: Unattributed quotes about land mines, pit bulls and F-16s are not considered plagiarism. Which of these is NOT a national park but should be: Mt. Olympia Snowe, Forrest Gump, Tiger Woods. (This is a trick question. The correct name is Eldrick Tont Woods.) SCIENCE: Charles Darwin should be: (a) studied with doubt. (b) not studied. © sentenced to eternal damnation. Name the Biblical chapter and verse where this appears: "God created the Earth in seven days, 10,000 years ago, more or less." Should sex education be taught in Texas public schools or should our students continue to learn it by circumventing the Parental Control block on the Internet? Draw a wheel (it's sort of round, isn't it?) List three reasons it should be outlawed. Earth, wind and fire are: (a) a musical group. (b) underwritten by AIG. © still not proven. SOCIAL STUDIES: "Fair and Balanced" is: (a) slogan of a GOP subsidiary. (b) tattooed on Sarah Palin's ankle. © a law firm. Newt Gingrich: (a) is an amphibian of the Salamandridae family. (b) stole Christmas. © will explain in his autobiography why he was thrown out as Speaker and fined $300,000 for misleading a committee investigating him. (d) Our next president and none too soon. Name three myths on this list: The Easter Bunny. Global warming. The separation of church and state. A poll by Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. shows that Tea Party members are "less educated...an the average Joe and Jane Six Pack." This proves "Quinnipiac" is Algonquian for: (a) village idiot (b) morally challenged © He Who Hits the Six-packs. Well, teachers, that abot does it. We hope you like theze emprovements. Or else. Your State School Board Comitee. http://ourtribune.com/article.php?id=9770 . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16645 Registered: May-04 | . Promises about Katrina on The Obameter http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/subjects/katrina/ |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16647 Registered: May-04 | . New GOP Strategy Involves Reelecting Obama, Making His Life Even More Miserable GOP leaders say "messing with the president's head" must be their one and only priority in 2012 and beyond. WASHINGTONâ€"Calling a GOP victory in the 2012 presidential election antithetical to the party platform, top Republicans revealed a new long-term political strategy Tuesday: reelecting Barack Obama and making his life even more of a living hell than it already is. "For three years, the Republican Party has coalesced around the single goal of making President Obama's every waking moment sheer and utter torture," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. "But we can't continue to do that if he's not in office." "If we are going to make the president a haggard shell of a human being by the time he leaves the White House, we need four more years of never compromising, four more years of miring every piece of legislation in unnecessary procedural muck, four more years of pretending we want to work with the president and then walking away from the table at the last second," McConnell added. "Four more years! Four more years! Obama 2012!" According to GOP sources, the decision to cede the 2012 election to Obama came after rank-and-file Republicans agreed that grinding the president down to nothing and pushing him to the brink of insanity was far more in line with the Republican Party's core principles than actually controlling the White House, making laws, or governing the country. Republican officials said that because they won't be burdened with a time consuming presidential campaign, they can start looking beyond the 2012 general election and begin developing a four-pronged attack designed to ruin the president emotionally, physically, personally, and professionally. Moreover, giving the president a second term in office would reportedly allow GOP lawmakers to build on the mental distress they've already caused him. "If you look at what we've accomplished as a party in the last four yearsâ€"making President Obama lose his temper on multiple occasions and even causing him to storm out of a meeting in frustrationâ€"it doesn't make sense for us to throw all that away, not when we could do so much more," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said. "If by being impossible to work with we are able to make the president physically shake with frustration during every single meeting, give him the nervous tick of mumbling angrily under his breath, tarnish his entire legacy, and in the process completely destroy his faith in humanity, then we've succeeded as lawmakers." "If you thought this debt ceiling thing was bad, wait till you see how unbearable we are when it comes time for the Bush tax cuts to expire," Cantor added. "We are going to pummel this man over and over and over until he regrets ever getting into politics." In order to make the president's next four years the worst of his life, GOP legislators are reportedly working on a new "Destroy Every Fiber of Barack Obama's Being" initiative, a plan that includes benchmarks such as making Obama look 10 years older than he is just six months into his second term; ruining his marriage before the 2014 midterm elections; and, by the time he leaves office, making him break down in front of the entire nation and say the words "I give up. Just please stop." "If Barack Obama doesn't go to bed fuming with deep primal rage every single night, then we haven't done our job," said House Speaker John Boehner, who later called the residual effect of getting to watch Obama's supporters become more and more disillusioned with their country as their president's posture deteriorates, his face becomes exceedingly gaunt, and his once booming voice turn shaky and unconfident "definitely a plus." "Mark my words: The Republican Party is committed to giving the American people a president who has a chronically bleeding gastric ulcer that makes it almost impossible for him to stand up." "To be honest, I'm glad we're pulling out of this election, because I really don't know what we would focus on if we won," Boehner added. "Health care?" While a major party forgoing a presidential campaign is considered unorthodox, Beltway insiders were not surprised by the Republican announcement, saying the GOP was simply playing to its strength. "Making Barack Obama's life a waking nightmare is what we do best," Republican strategist Todd Harris said. "It's also just smart politics. After all, getting the man reelected and watching him wither away to nothing before our very eyes will fire up the base more than any of the current Republican presidential candidates will." 21113/,http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-gop-strategy-involves-reelecting-oba ma-making,21113/ . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 652 Registered: Mar-04 | Recently released documents disclosed by the Obama Justice Department only after a court battle reveal that the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice is engaging in politicized hiring in the career civil service ranks. Typical Washington behavior, you say? Except the hiring in question is nearly unprecedented in scope and significantly eclipses anything the Bush administration was even accused of doing. And the evidence of the current political activity is far less impeachable than what was behind the libelous attacks leveled at officials from the Bush years. For nearly a year, the Civil Rights Division rebuffed Pajamas Medias Freedom of Information Act request for the resumes of attorneys hired into the Division during the tenure of Eric Holder. PJM was finally forced to file a federal lawsuit earlier this year. Only then did Justice relent and turn over the documents. The result leaves little wonder why PJMs request was met with such intense resistance. The Departments political leadership clearly recognized that the resumes of these new attorneys would expose the hypocrisy of the Obama administrations polemical attacks on the Bush administration for supposedly engaging in politicized hiring and that everyone would see just how militantly partisan the Obama Civil Rights Division truly is. Holders year-long delay before producing these documents particularly when compared to the almost-instantaneous turnaround by the Bush administration of a virtually identical request by the Boston Globe back in 2006 also shows how deep politics now runs in the Department. As Richard Pollock of Pajamas Media observed in an article, none of this should surprise anyone even remotely familiar with Holders highly partisan nature. Indeed, Holder boasted to the American Constitution Society (an organization started as a liberal counterweight to the Federalist Society) back in June 2008 that the Obama Justice Department was going to be looking for people who share our values, and that a substantial number of those people would probably be members of the American Constitution Society. The hiring records from Holders initial thirty months in office underscore how serious he was about this mission. This is the first in a series of articles by Pajamas Media about the Civil Rights Divisions hiring practices since President Obama took office. These accounts will put to the test Holders repeated (and all-too-rarely scrutinized) statement that ideological considerations play no role in the hiring of career attorneys in his Department a test that the Departments practices clearly fail. The evidence will demonstrate that, in contrast to the Bush administrations Civil Rights Division which hired individuals from across the political spectrum there has been nary a token conservative welcomed into the Division under Holder. More than that, though, this series will show that the ranks of new civil servants arriving in Holders civil rights shop in protected civil service slots are some of the most strident ideologues in Washington. But dont just take my word for it. Let the resumes speak for themselves. We start today with the Civil Rights Divisions Voting Section. This Section is responsible for enforcing, among other things, all aspects of the Voting Rights Act. This includes reviewing redistricting and other pre-clearance submissions under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act that covered jurisdictions throughout the country must submit to the Justice Department for approval. Redistricting maps, voter ID statutes, citizenship verification laws, and a host of other politically contentious election issues rest in the hands of these Voting Section bureaucrats. Long a refuge of partisan activists and ideological crusaders, the Section has been filling its ranks over the last 30 months with like-minded liberals ready to do the bidding of left-wing advocacy organizations. Sixteen attorneys have come on board in this hiring binge. Who are these new radicals? Bryan Sells: Mr. Sells was recently hired as one of the Voting Sections new deputy chiefs. He comes to the Department from the ACLUs Voting Rights Project, where he worked for nearly 10 years as a Senior Staff Counsel. During his tenure, his organization strongly opposed all voter ID laws, and challenged the right of states to verify the U.S. citizenship of individuals seeking to register to vote. He also characterized state felon disenfranchisement laws which are expressly authorized in the Constitution as a slap in the face to democracy, and consistently took the most aggressive (and generally legally unsupportable) positions on redistricting cases throughout the country. Meredith Bell-Platts: The other new deputy chief hired by the Voting Section, Meredith Bell-Platts, also comes from the ACLUs Voting Rights Project, where she, too, spent nearly 10 years. Much of her time there was devoted to blasting voter ID requirements, which she claimed were motivated by people who do not want to see blacks vote (an issue on which she consistently lost in court). Before arriving at the ACLU, Ms. Bell-Platts was a founding member of the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, a publication whose stated mission is to explore the impact of gender, se#uality, and race on both the theory and practice of law and thereby â€complement[] a long tradition of feminist scholarship and advocacy at the [Georgetown] Law Center. Anna Baldwin: While all of the new trial attorneys hired into the Voting Section have streaks of radicalism, few can match Ms. Baldwin. A financial contributor to the Obama presidential campaign, she clerked for two liberal Clinton appointees on the federal bench and then worked briefly at Jenner & Block (a D.C. law firm which has been a major feeder of Democratic political appointees to the Obama administration), where she primarily pursued liberal positions in pro bono litigation. During law school, she interned at the International Labor Rights Fund and Womens Agenda for Change. Prior to that, Baldwin served for three years as field coordinator for Equality Florida, where she coordinated lobbying and state legislative policy work on behalf of Floridas g#y,l#sbian, bise#ual, and tran$gender communities. Meanwhile, in her undergraduate days at Harvard, she was a member of the Qu#er Resistance Front and was frequently covered in the Harvard Crimson for her radical antics. A review of these campus newspaper articles suggests that Ms. Baldwin will have to work very hard to separate her activist politics from her role as an apolitical civil servant. Then again, if she takes her cues from most of her Voting Section colleagues, she wont even need to attempt such separation. As the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case showed, partisanship and law enforcement are one and the same in Holders Civil Rights Division. Risa Berkower: Ms. Berkower was hired into the Voting Section following a clerkship with U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney, a liberal jurist who President Obama recently nominated to the Second Circuit and whose brother is the former state chairman of the Connecticut Democratic Party. During law school at Fordham, she interned in the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights, a notorious hotbed of left-wing activity. She also worked on the Student Hurricane Network with members of the NAACP LDF, the Advancement Project, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. It was in her undergraduate days at Yale, though, that she really let her left-wing political colors shine. While on the Yale College Council, she wrote an editorial advocating support of unionization of Yale graduate students and advocated neutrality in card-check reform (which has become a major Obama initiative as a sop to organized labor). It is quite ironic that a lawyer who refused to oppose the effort by unions to get rid of the secret ballot, a fundamental mainstay of our democracy, is now charged with protecting voting rights. All of the leadership positions on Berkowers resume were conspicuously redacted by the Obama administration in its FOIA response to PJM. And lest you think she abandoned her radical ways since arriving in the Civil Rights Division, Ms. Berkower is the same Voting Section attorney who negotiated the outlandish consent decree with the state of Rhode Island earlier this year in a case under Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act which, as Christian Adams detailed extensively, ignored the requirements of federal law and represented a gross abuse of federal authority. Daniel Freeman: Mr. Freeman comes to the Voting Section following a fellowship at the New York Civil Liberties Union. He previously interned at the ACLU, where he assisted the organization with its efforts to attack the Bush administrations national security policies. He also helped to challenge the state secrets privilege and to support the rights of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay during an internship at Human Rights First. On his resume, Freeman proudly notes his membership in the liberal American Constitution Society, as well as his service as co-chair of the Yale Law School Democrats. Of course, being a member of the American Constitution Society does not bar you from federal employment. Yet the Bush administration was castigated for hiring lawyers who were members of the Federalist Society. Incidentally, Mr. Freeman is helping lead the Voting Sections review of redistricting submissions from the state of Alabama. Jenigh Garrett: Ms. Garrett worked for approximately five years as an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), where she worked on voting-related litigation. She co-drafted the NAACP LDFs amicus brief in Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections, claiming that voter ID laws are unconstitutional (a position the Supreme Court rejected in an opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens). Garrett also was a member of the organizations litigation team in Hayden v. Paterson, arguing that felon disenfranchisement laws violate the Voting Rights Act (a position the Second Circuit rejected). She is a member of the American Constitution Society and recently gave a presentation at Yale Law School on The Future of Black Legal Scholarship and Activism. Although DOJs FOIA shop notably redacted her other activities on her resume, perhaps legislators in Virginia can ask her about them: she is the redistricting point of contact for the Commonwealth. Abel Gomez: Mr. Gomez initially came to the Voting Section in the waning days of the Clinton administration as part of a wave of hiring engineered by former Acting Assistant Attorney General Bill Yeomans. The intent: stack the Civil Rights Division with left-wing activists before President Bush took office. Gomez had previously served for six years as a public defender in Tallahassee, Florida. In 2007, he left the Civil Rights Division to join another component of the Department of Justice, but was eager to rejoin the Voting Section once Obama and Holder were in charge. In addition to his voting work, FEC records reveal that he is a significant financial contributor to the â€G@y and L#sbian Victory Fund and to organizations opposing Californias Proposition 8 (Marriage Protection Act). Bradley Heard: Before joining the Voting Section, Mr. Heard worked for a number of years at the Advancement Project, a radical left-wing voting organization. The Advancement Project has worked closely with the ACLU, NAACP LDF, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and other liberal advocates to oppose voter ID statutes, felon disenfranchisement laws, and citizenship verification regulations, and to take myriad other militant positions on state and federal voting rights laws. Mr. Heard fit right in at the Advancement Project, having previously founded the Georgia Voter Empowerment Project, which describes its mission as increasing the civic participation levels of progressive-minded Georgians. Amusingly, before moving to Washington, Mr. Heard had a nasty breakup with his plaintiffs civil rights firm in Atlanta. He commenced litigation against his partners, who in turn claimed he was engaging in misconduct. Heard then sought criminal arrest warrants against his former partners, charging that they had engaged in false voter registration and voting by an unqualified elector, both felonies. The court declined to issue the warrants. South Carolina officials can ask Mr. Heard about these events during his review of the states redistricting submission; after all, he is the point of contact for the Voting Section. Michelle McLeod: Ms. McLeod has overcome substantial adversity in her personal life, and her story is an admirable one in many respects. But her liberal bona fides are equally genuine, and likely represent the primary reason why she was hired into the Voting Section under Eric Holders regime. Ms. McLeod came straight to the Justice Department after her graduation from law school at the University of Maryland, where she worked as a research assistant to Professor Sherrilyn Ifill, a radical academic whose writings and media appearances on voting rights and race issues take her well out of the mainstream. Ms. McLeod also worked in the law schools Post-Conviction Appellate Advocacy Clinic, assisting convicted felons with their direct appeals and habeas corpus challenges. As an undergraduate at East Carolina University, she interned for the SEIU Locals New York Civic Participation Project, where she wrote articles favorable to labor unions. She also interned for the National Employment Law Project, drafting pro-union articles and other publications relating to workers rights. She is now one of the Voting Sections points of contact for redistricting in Mississippi. Catherine Meza. Ms. Meza, who contributed $450 to Barack Obamas presidential campaign before getting hired by the Voting Section, has a rich history of liberal advocacy. During law school at Berkeley, she interned for (i) the NAACP LDF, where she worked on voting rights and economic justice issues, (ii) Bay Area Legal Aid, (iii) the ACLU of Northern California, (iv) the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), (v) Centro Legal de la Raza, and (vi) the East Bay Community Law Center Workers Rights Clinic. She also worked as a legislative intern for Democratic Rep. (now Sen.) Robert Menendez of New Jersey as part of a fellowship with the liberal National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. On her resume, Meza proudly proclaims her membership in the American Constitution Society and her role as an Advisory Board Member of the Thelton Henderson Center for Social Justice. Talk about filling the whole bingo card! Meanwhile, while working a brief stint at the Fried Frank law firm after law graduation, she assisted on a pro bono case seeking to preserve the confidentiality of ID cards issued to illegal aliens by the city of New Haven, Connecticut, an effort to help illegal aliens avoid being prosecuted for violating federal law. She also helped draft a report for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in which she suggested that the U.S. governments programs and policies continue to perpetuate segregation and concentrate poverty in communities of color. Kelli Reynolds: Ms. Reynolds arrived in the Voting Section having worked for several years as the Senior Redistricting Counsel and Assistant General Counsel at the NAACP. While there, she managed the organizations National Redistricting Project, no doubt working closely with many of her now-colleagues in the Voting Section. She also boasts on her resume of her membership in the American Trial Lawyers Association (or, as that plaintiffs lawyers group now likes to euphemistically refer to itself, the American Association for Justice. Elise Shore. Ms. Shore came to the Voting Section by way of the â€Southern Coalition for Social Justice, where she worked as a legal consultant focusing on voting rights, immigrant rights, and other civil rights and social justice issues. The far left-wing positions of this group are nicely summarized on its website. Ms. Shore also made a $1,000 contribution to Barack Obamas presidential campaign. Before joining the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, she worked for more than two years as a Regional Counsel for MALDEF. There, she was an outspoken critic of Georgias voter ID law and well as its proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration (which, incidentally, have been found to be non-discriminatory by a federal court) and described how heartened she was that the Civil Rights Division had objected to the registration law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. But her joy must have been fleeting: the Division later capitulated and withdrew its objection after Georgia filed a federal declaratory judgment action. It will be interesting to see if Shore can put her politics to the side in her role as the Voting Section's point of contact for all redistricting submissions in the state of Florida. Jaye Sitton: Ms. Sitton first joined the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration, but left immediately before President Bush took office in order to become an international human rights lawyer. (This desire not to serve in a Republican administration seems to be a recurring theme among many of the individuals hired into the career ranks of the Division during the Clinton years.) Before recently returning to work as an attorney the Voting Section, she volunteered to work in North Carolina for Barack Obamas 2008 presidential campaign. Sitton is a member of the Inters@x Society of North America, an organization devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female. She also taught a course on se#uality, se#ual orientation, gender, and the law at the College of William and Mary Law School, and wrote a law review article titled (De)Constructing Se#: Transgenderism, Interse#uality, Gender Identity and the Law for the William and Mary Law Journal. Sharyn Tejani: Ms. Tejani is another activist who has come to the Voting Section to masquerade as a career civil servant. She also first joined the Civil Rights Division during the Clinton administration but left within two months of President Bush taking office. Her resume boasts of her work defending affirmative-action programs, i.e., racial quotas, during that earlier stint of employment. She recently returned, however, after having worked as a Senior Policy Counsel for the National Partnership for Women and Families, a left-wing organization that advocates greater abortion rights and is deeply involved in judicial nomination battles in favor of liberal candidates and in opposition to conservative candidates. Prior to that, Tejani served for more than three years as an advisor to one of the Democratic commissioners on the EEOC, and for three additional years as the Legal Director of the Feminist Majority Foundation. In her writings, she has advocated for the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require equal pay for men and women even when there are legitimate work- and experience-related reasons for those pay disparities. She also wrote an article for Ms. Magazine sharply criticizing any efforts by the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to modify Title IX regulations to stop the discrimination that has occurred against mens sport programs. Justin Weinstein-Tull: Mr. Weinstein-Tull, a $250 contributor to President Obamas 2008 campaign, was hired into the Voting Section following a clerkship for Judge Sidney Thomas, one of the most liberal judges on the Ninth Circuit. One can see why Judge Thomas was eager to have him in chambers. Indeed, Mr. Weinstein-Tull interned with the ACLU of Southern California, worked as a research associate at the liberal Urban Institute, and served as a fellow at the Congressional Hunger Center. He also wrote a law review article for the University of Virginia Law Review in which he criticized the Supreme Courts decision in Gonzales v. Carhart affirming the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 as a setback to a womans right to choose abortion. Mr. Weinstein-Tull will now be one of the Voting Sections points of contact for redistricting submissions from the state of North Carolina. Elizabeth Westfall: Last, but certainly not least, is Ms. Westfall. According to the Federal Election Commission website, she contributed nearly $7,000 to Barack Obamas 2008 presidential election campaign, contributed another $4,400 to Hillary Clintons 2008 presidential campaign, contributed $2,000 to Wesley Clarks presidential campaign in 2004, contributed $3,000 to John Kerrys presidential campaign and compliance fund in 2004, contributed $500 to former Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschles PAC in 2004, and contributed $2,000 to Hillary Clintons U.S. Senate campaign in 2000. In addition to this incredible funding of Democratic candidates, Westfall worked for six years at the far-left Advancement Project, directing its Voter Protection Program and managing its litigation and advocacy activities. She also previously served as a staff attorney at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in its Fair Housing Group, and worked on the Hill as a legislative assistant to then-Congressman Bill Richardson (D-NM). On Westfalls self-drafted Harvard alumni biography, she notes that she has testified before the U.S. Congress about supposed barriers to voter registration, warranted purging of the voter rolls, and voter caging. While those subjects may sound benign, in fact, the Advancement Project and the Lawyers Committee claim that common-sense reforms like voter ID or requiring proof of citizenship are barriers to voting and registration and that removing voters who have moved or otherwise become ineligible to vote is unwarranted purging. Vote caging, an imaginary crime the Left dreamed up several years ago, faults any efforts by private parties to challenge the eligibility of voters when first-class mail sent to their registration addresses is returned by the U.S. Postal Service as undeliverable because they no longer live there. This despite the fact that federal law specifically authorizes election officials to use the USPS for that very purpose. Just the kind of neutral, detached attorney a state wants reviewing its redistricting submissions and applying the heavy hand of the federal government in voting rights enforcement actions. Californias redistricting submission will be in the hands of Ms. Westfall. These 16 new attorneys, liberal partisans one and all, now join the career civil service ranks of an already heavily politicized Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division. Supervision, meanwhile, comes from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, whose public pronouncements about her refusal to apply the voting rights laws in an even-handed and race-neutral format are now infamous. The likelihood of the federal voting-rights laws being enforced in a fair and neutral fashion by this group of radicals is incredibly slim. Eric Holder clearly recognizes, as Ronald Reagan astutely observed, that personnel is policy, and Holder and his staff are doing everything in their power to ensure that the policies and legal positions advanced by the Civil Rights Division bureaucracy are in line with those of the Obama administration. The real scandal, however, is the utter disregard by the so-called mainstream media and DOJ Inspector Generals Office of the blatant politicization of the hiring process in the Obama Civil Rights Division. I previously wrote about the absurdity of the attacks on Bush civil rights officials who were unfairly pilloried for supposedly hiring on the basis of political affiliation. I pointed out how the IGs Office and the former Civil Rights Division attorney who spearheaded the Office of Professional Responsibility joint review glibly ignored all evidence that did not fit their biased narrative. A blind eye was turned towards the numerous liberal attorneys who were hired and promoted in the Voting Section during the Bush years. Now, though, with the Obama Civil Rights Division virtually devoid of conservative hires, the press has gone silent and DOJs internal watchdogs have expressed nothing but indifference. This is particularly ironic given that almost all of these hires previously worked at organizations labeled as liberal by the joint OIG/OPR report attacking the Bush administration. So by the OIG/OPRs own prior standards, the Obama administration has hired individuals exclusively from only one side of the political aisle. Once again, the one-way ratchet. No apology will be forthcoming to the Bush Justice Department officials who were subjected to outrageous and unwarranted attacks, of course. But at least the public record is being fleshed out. Perhaps the Inspector Generals Office will redeem itself as a credible organization in its new probe of the Voting Sections activities over the last 20 years. Whatever happens inside DOJ, though, at least the public is now aware that the almost daily rhetoric about neutrality that emanate from Eric Holder and his civil rights chief, Thomas Perez, is belied by their hiring decisions. From the racially motivated dismissal of the New Black Panther Party lawsuit, to the partisan Section 5 objection to the change to nonpartisan elections in Kinston, N.C., on the offensive and patronizing grounds that blacks are not smart enough to know who to vote for without a party label next to the candidates name, to the baseless objection to Georgias citizenship verification requirements (later withdrawn by the Voting Section in the face of a federal lawsuit), to the dilatory and inept efforts to protect the voting rights of active military personnel, to the complete and total paucity of enforcement of Section 8 of the NVRA (requiring that voting rolls be purged of dead and ineligible voters), Eric Holders tenure has been distinguished by weighty evidence of partisan and ideological decision-making. It seems that enforcement activity is governed predominantly by political, not legal, factors. And with the new radical ideologues in the Voting Section, it is difficult to imagine the situation improving any time soon. Americans deserve much better from their Department of Justice. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 653 Registered: Mar-04 | I do enjoy the onion... |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16649 Registered: May-04 | . Poll: 51% still blame George W. Bush for economy ... While Republicans have pushed to cast the sputtering economy as Obama's fault, Americans place their blame elsewhere. Fifty-one percent say that George W. Bush is most to blame for the down economy, while 31 percent say it's Obama. At the same time, 44 percent of Americans say that "a lot" or "most" of the blame should be put on the shoulders of congressional Republicans, while 36 percent say the same of congressional Democrats. Still, Obama's reelection prospects have stayed constant in the poll. In June, 48 percent of those surveyed said they thought he deserves a second term. Now, 47 percent say the same. Nonetheless, other ratings for the president have sputtered this summer. Fifty-one percent of Americans say he's a strong leader, down from 60 percent in June and 65 percent in early may following the killing of Osama bin Laden ... http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62038.html . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 654 Registered: Mar-04 | By MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN The rising impatience with the leadership of President Obama was epitomized on Aug. 8 in the middle of one of the now-habitual Wall Street roller coasters. His speech on the economy was 53 minutes late. What showed on TV screens was an empty White House podium, an image suggestive of the absence of leadership. When the president did speak, the best he could come up with was "We've always been and always will be a triple-A country." The market's response was a Bronx cheer, a drop of another 300 points. Mr. Obama seems unable to get a firm grip on the toughest issue facing his presidency and the countryâ€"the economy. He now asserts he is going to "pivot" to jobs. Now we pivot to jobs? When there are already 25 million Americans who are either unemployed or cannot find full-time work? Does this president not appreciate what is going on? Fewer Americans are working full-time today than when Mr. Obama took office. We have lost over 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone, and long-term unemployment is at a post-World War II high. The public's faith in his ability to deal with the economy has plunged. As Doyle McManus of the L.A. Times put it, "Can this president persuade voters to let him keep his job when so many have lost theirs?" Even Jimmy Carter didn't plumb the depths of national dissatisfaction revealed in the stunning Gallup poll taken Aug. 11-13. The president's approval rating was only 39% with a mere 26% approving of his handling of the economy. Meanwhile, everyone in the business world is pleading for some kind of adult supervision to build a national platform for sustained growth that includes a long-term fiscal plan that addresses our ballooning debt. They are desperate for strong leadership and feel that all we are getting out of Washington is a lot of noise as Democrats and Republicans blame one another. Since the president is the one who represents all of America and all Americans, the buck stops with him rather than with the Congress. It is the president's job to offer a coherent program for the twin threats of a static economy and an unsustainable explosion of our debts and deficits. But the only core issue on which he took a clear position in the recent debt-ceiling negotiations was that it would have to include new taxes on the wealthyâ€"and he didn't even hold to that. He made the politically tested and calculated statement that if you raise taxes on billionaires and millionaires you could solve the problem. This is not so. Even for those who support higher taxes on the wealthy, as I do, we must remember that we have an income tax system in which fully half the "taxpayers" pay no tax at all, and in which the variety of loopholes cries out for a real reform of the tax code. Even if the government instituted a 100% tax on both corporate profits and personal incomes above $250,000 per year, it would yield enough revenue to run the government for only six months. Why? Because under Mr. Obama's presidency, government spending has swelled to 24% of GDP from 18%. We need real reform of the tax code in which everyone is asked to make some contribution, however small. Hardly anyone on either side of the aisle has a good word to say for the present hodgepodge of selective punishment of the middle classâ€"replete with exceptions, loopholes, and special allowances. Worse, there are no serious proposals being canvassed among the White House, the Congress and the Treasury. Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission appointed by the president in 2010 to devise a plan for dealing with the fiscal crisis, put it well: "It is one that is completely predictable and from which there is no escape." The president said he would stand by his commission, but as of today he's remained silent on its many proposals, seemingly unable to speak honestly on the subject. Everyone recognizes that as populations age, the ratio of worker-to-retiree dependency plummets. Remember that the first baby boomers statistically retired on Jan. 1 of this year. There are now 79 million more of them to be supported in their retirement and with their medical requirements. This has obvious implications for our debts and deficits. How are we to meet this obligation in the face of long-term deficits that stem from approximately $60 trillion of unfunded entitlement liabilities? It is no surprise that many have begun to doubt the president's leadership qualities. J.P. Morgan calls it the "competency crisis." The president is not seen fighting for his own concrete goals, nor finding the right allies, especially leaders of business big or small. Instead, his latent hostility to the business community has provoked a mutual response of disrespect. This is lamentable given the unique role that small business especially plays in creating jobs. The president appears to consider himself immune from error and asserts the fault always lies elsewhereâ€"be it in the opposition in Congress or the Japanese tsunami or in the failure of his audience to fully understand the wisdom and benefits of his proposals. But in politics, the failure of communication is invariably the fault of the communicator. Many voters who supported him are no longer elated by the historic novelty of his candidacy and presidency. They hoped for a president who would be effective. Remember "Yes We Can"? Now many of his sharpest critics are his former supporters. Witness Bill Broyles, a one-time admirer who recently wrote in Newsweek that "Americans aren't inspired by well-meaning weakness." The president who first inspired with great speeches on red and blue America now seems to lack the ability to communicate any sense of resolve for a program, or any realization of the urgency of what might befall us. The teleprompter he almost always uses symbolizes and compounds his emotional distance from his audience. We lack a coherent and muscular economic strategy, as Mr. Obama and his staff seem almost completely focused on his re-election. He should be spending most of his time on the nitty-gritty of the job instead of on fund raisers, bus tours and visits to diners, which essentially are in service of his political interests. Increasingly his solutions seem to boil down to Vote for Me. Clearly the president will have to raise his game to win a second term, especially if the Republicans find a real candidate. Will voters be willing to give him another four years? Like many Americans who supported him, I long for a triple-A president to run a triple-A country. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16652 Registered: May-04 | . Rick Perry says Texas added 21,000 doctors because of tort reform Ask any Republican candidate about reducing the cost of health care and part of the answer is likely to include rewriting the rules for medical malpractice. In 2003, Texas lawmakers passed a package of changes to malpractice law, plus the state added a few more through a referendum known as Proposition 12. These turned the state into a beacon of hope among tort reformers and Texas Gov. Rick Perry talks proudly of the good the changes have done. When he was asked about medical malpractice at the Politics and Eggs Breakfast in Bedford, N.H., on Aug. 17, 2011, he had some precise numbers at his fingertips. "I’ll tell you what one of the results was," he said. "This last year, 21,000 more physicians practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued. Some 30 counties that didn’t have an emergency room doc have one today. Counties along the Rio Grande, where women were having to travel for miles and miles outside of the county to see an ob-gyn, for prenatal care and now they have that care." For this fact-check, we're examining his claim that that the state gained 21,000 doctors because of tort reform. First, we found the number is wrong. Perry’s campaign relies on data from the Texas Medical Association, a physician trade group, which counts the number of medical licenses issued in Texas. The problem is, not everyone with such a license practices in Texas. The Texas Medical Board issues licenses and tracks whether those doctors actually work in the state. According to their numbers, between 2003 and 2011, the accurate increase is 12,788. That’s about 8,000 doctors fewer than the governor’s claim. Still, thousands of additional physicians is nothing to sneeze at, and the next question is, can credit be put at the feet of tort reform? Not much. By far, the biggest driver is population growth. From 2002 to 2010, the population of Texas grew by 20 percent. At the same time, the number of doctors went up 24 percent. Jon Opelt, executive director of Texas Alliance for Patient Access, a group that supports tort reform and is funded by health care providers, sent us some analysis he had done that filtered out the population effect. Opelt said the higher rate for doctors -- 24 percent -- translates into an additional 1,608 physicians thanks to tort reform. At least, that’s what he said when we first spoke to him. Later, after we showed him that the growth of doctors increased at a faster rate in the pre-reform years, Opelt sent us new numbers, saying tort reform brought 5,000 more doctors to the state and the ratio of doctors to residents has never been better. (We found those numbers to be a stretch: The upward revision comes from including administrators, teachers and other licensed doctors who don’t actually treat patients.) In any event, from the pro-reform vantage point, the most accurate figure is 5,000 -- a far cry from 21,000. But the case for Perry’s statement gets even shakier when you review numbers prior to the new malpractice rules. It turns out that in the nine years before tort reform, the number of doctors grew twice as fast as the population. So Texas did a pretty good job attracting doctors before the law changed. Tom Banning, chief executive officer of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, said that back in the early 1990’s the state began passing laws that made it physician-friendly. Among them, a prompt-pay rule to "to ensure that insurers pay physicians promptly and correctly," Banning said, "which creates a very good environment for practices." Banning said tort reform was more good news for doctors, a sentiment borne out by opinion surveys from the state’s medical association. But he acknowledges that population growth is the biggest force behind the growing ranks of doctors. "It’s like the Willie Sutton rule," Banning said, referring to the famous bank robber. "Go where the money is. From a doctor’s standpoint, you go where the patients are." Especially patients who can pay. Banning and other observers in Texas note that most of the new doctors are clustered in the affluent, fast growing suburbs around the state’s biggest cities. This puts a damper on one of Perry’s additional points, that tort reform opens the doors for physicians to practice in the state’s most rural counties. The results here are mixed. The governor is right about emergency room doctors. The state has 60 percent more of them then it did in 2003 and tort reform likely played a major role, experts told us. ER doctors got more protections from tort reform than just about any other medical specialty. But Perry also boasted that rural counties were getting specialists in obstetrics and gynecology that they never had before. The reality here is murkier. A report from the Texas Alliance for Patient Access says 14 counties (of 254 total) gained an ob-gyn. We looked at one community along the Rio Grande, Starr County, and found that yes, four years after tort reform, they got one. But the situation has flipped back and forth, and as of May 2011, Starr County had no ob-gyn specialist. Our ruling There is no question that tort reform drove down medical malpractice insurance premiums and reduced the number of malpractice suits. And there is no question that most health care providers like the change and say it’s a factor that leads them to practice in the state. But the wholesale transformation that Perry describes is not backed up by the numbers. Perry said Texas has 21,000 more doctors thanks to tort reform. That’s flat out wrong. Texas has only about 13,000 more doctors in the state and the historic trends suggest that population growth was the driving factor. We rate his statement False. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/25/rick-perry/rick-p erry-says-texas-added-21000-doctors-because-/ The promise made to the public when tort reform was on the ballot was the lowering of private insurance premiums for individuals. Quite the contrary, there has been a rise in the cost of insurance overall in Texas. Caps were palced on personal injury awards - the repubs hate personal injury lawyers because they generally contribute to the dems - and a victim of malpractice can now only recover a top award of $250k even if the injury results in life long damage and care. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 656 Registered: Mar-04 | "PolitiFact's decree is part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies, misinformation and "facts," rather than differences of world view or principles. PolitiFact wants to define for everyone else what qualifies as a "fact," though in political debates the facts are often legitimately in dispute." "PolitiFact is run by the St. Petersburg Times and has marketed itself to other news organizations on the pretense of impartiality. Like other "fact checking" enterprises, its animating conceit is that opinions are what ideologues have, when in reality PolitiFact's curators also have political views and values that influence their judgments about facts and who is right in any debate. " Just something to consider. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 657 Registered: Mar-04 | PolitiFact Proves Yet Again It Is a Left Wing Attack Machine With Nonpartisan Veneer Politifacs fact is nothing more than their left-wing hypothesis disconnected from and ignoring every data point that doesnt help them make their case. As a general rule of thumb I heard somewhere, fact checkers dont check facts. Fact checkers exist to put an objective, nonpartisan veneer on whatever some reporter wants to say. And when fact checkers take it upon themselves to be arbiters of truth, they use their own biases. One of the worse is Politifact, which the media now hides behind routinely to give cover to a left-of-center spin on truth. There is an egregious example today over the number of doctors in Texas and whether tort reform mattered. According to Politifact, tort reform did not impact the number of doctors in Texas. There is no question that tort reform drove down medical malpractice insurance premiums and reduced the number of malpractice suits. And there is no question that most health care providers like the change and say its a factor that leads them to practice in the state. But the wholesale transformation that Perry describes is not backed up by the numbers. Perry said Texas has 21,000 more doctors thanks to tort reform. Thats flat out wrong. Texas has only about 13,000 more doctors in the state and the historic trends suggest that population growth was the driving factor. We rate his statement False. Politifact chose to rely on many sources that could be considered left-leaning, some with real axes to grind with Rick Perry over budget cuts. Politifact also ignored that, well, doctors retire and also the number of out of state medical licenses are down, while Texas originated medical licenses are up. Oh, and there is one left leaning source the Politifact chose to ignore entirely the New York Times.Contrary to Politifact, back in 2007, the New York Times titled an article, More Doctors in Texas After Malpractice Caps. It went on to report In Texas, it can be a long wait for a doctor: up to six months. That is not for an appointment. That is the time it can take the Texas Medical Board to process applications to practice. Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas. The influx, raising the states abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical boards offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count. How convenient Politifact chose to ignore an article written in a year when Rick Perry was not running for office and opponents had no axe to grind to hurt his political electability. Its not just the New York Times Politifact chose to ignore. How about the Houston Chronicle. Dozens of Texas ER doctors swarmed Capitol Hill this week to tell lawmakers that the Lone Star State has just the prescription for what ails a health-care industry burdened by runaway costs: limiting big-bucks lawsuits against physicians. Thats what Texas did in 2003, when the Legislature placed a cap on the so-called noneconomic damages that can be awarded in medical liability cases. The reforms supporters say it protects doctors from frivolous lawsuits that ultimately drive up insurance premiums and also makes the state an enormously popular destination for doctors, a key selling point as experts warn the nation may need 150,000 more physicians to treat the newly insured once the federal health-care law takes effect. Or what about the Wall Street Journal where Joe Nixon the Texas Public Policy Foundation noted,Over the past three years, some 7,000 M.D.s have flooded into Texas, many from Tennessee. Or what about the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, one of the independent doctors groups Politifact chose to ignore. Along with an influx of carriers is a dramatic increase in the number of physician license requests, including a record number from out-of-state doctors. The Texas Medical Board received 4,026 new physician license applications in fiscal 2006, which ran from Sept. 1, 2005 to Aug. 31, 2006. In 2001, the Board received only 2,446 applications. The numbers for half of 2007 have already nearly surpassed those for all of 2001reaching 2,423 as of March with more than 2,700 licenses pending. Out of the new licenses granted in 2006, 42 percent went to out-of-state physicians, 31 percent went to Texas physicians and 27 percent went to international physicians, according to statistics from TMAs Medical Education Division. Oh, and then of course there is the Texas Medical Associations own graph, which paints the detail in striking terms: TAPA Newly Lic TexPhysician But, you know, its all population growth according to Politifact. If we are to believe them, then they ought to go through other states that saw population growth like Texas and did not enact and do not have Texas style tort reform. Im not actually sure such a place exists. Until it does, Politifacts fact is nothing more than their left-wing hypothesis disconnected from and ignoring every data point that doesnt help them make their case. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16653 Registered: May-04 | . "PolitiFact wants to define for everyone else what qualifies as a "fact," though in political debates the facts are often legitimately in dispute." FACT: Rick Perry says Texas added 21,000 doctors because of tort reform FACT: The Texas Medical Board issues licenses and tracks whether those doctors actually work in the state. According to their numbers, between 2003 and 2011, the accurate increase is 12,788. That's about 8,000 doctors fewer than the governor's claim. ... Still, thousands of additional physicians is nothing to sneeze at, and the next question is, can credit be put at the feet of tort reform? Not much. By far, the biggest driver is population growth. From 2002 to 2010, the population of Texas grew by 20 percent. At the same time, the number of doctors went up 24 percent. FACT: Jon Opelt, executive director of Texas Alliance for Patient Access, a group that supports tort reform - (Read as "right leaning") - and is funded by health care providers, sent us some analysis he had done that filtered out the population effect. Opelt said the higher rate for doctors -- 24 percent -- translates into an additional 1,608 physicians thanks to tort reform. FACT: ... Opelt sent us new numbers, saying tort reform brought 5,000 more doctors to the state and the ratio of doctors to residents has never been better. (We found those numbers to be a stretch: The upward revision comes from including administrators, teachers and other licensed doctors who don't actually treat patients.) In any event, from the pro-reform vantage point, the most accurate figure is 5,000 -- a far cry from 21,000. FACT: Tom Banning, chief executive officer of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, said that back in the early 1990's the state began passing laws that made it physician-friendly. Among them, a prompt-pay rule to "to ensure that insurers pay physicians promptly and correctly," Banning said, "which creates a very good environment for practices." Banning said tort reform was more good news for doctors, a sentiment borne out by opinion surveys from the state's medical association. But he acknowledges that population growth is the biggest force behind the growing ranks of doctors. "It's like the Willie Sutton rule," Banning said, referring to the famous bank robber. "Go where the money is. From a doctor's standpoint, you go where the patients are." FACT: Banning and other observers in Texas note that most of the new doctors are clustered in the affluent, fast growing suburbs around the state's biggest cities. FACT: Perry said Texas has 21,000 more doctors thanks to tort reform. That's flat out wrong. Texas has only about 13,000 more doctors in the state and the historic trends suggest that population growth was the driving factor. We rate his statement False. FACT: The influx, raising the states abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical boards offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count. FACT: Or what about the Wall Street Journal (Read as "right leaning") where Joe Nixon the Texas Public Policy Foundation (Read as ... well, .. just read for yourself; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=Texas%20Public%20Policy% 20Foundation&type=) noted,Over the past three years, some 7,000 M.D.s have flooded into Texas, many from Tennessee. Absurdity: Politifacs fact is nothing more than their left-wing hypothesis disconnected from and ignoring every data point that doesnt help them make their case. Absurdity: ... when fact checkers take it upon themselves to be arbiters of truth, they use their own biases. Absurdity: Politifact chose to rely on many sources that could be considered left-leaning, some with real axes to grind with Rick Perry over budget cuts. (Did someone mention "budget cuts"? Why would a doctor be upset over "budget cuts"? ) Absurdity: Politifact also ignored that, well, doctors retire ... (since Nov. 2003? 8,000 of them?) Absurdity: How convenient Politifact chose to ignore an article written in a year when Rick Perry was not running for office and opponents had no axe to grind to hurt his political electability. Absurdity: The reforms supporters (Read as "right leaning") say it protects doctors from frivolous lawsuits Absurdity: Or what about the Texas Academy of Family Physicians (This group is associated with Baylor Hospitals - yeah, they're left leaning like Karl Rove is left leaning. ), one of the independent doctors groups Politifact chose to ignore. Absurdity: Along with an influx of carriers is a dramatic increase in the number of physician license requests, including a record number from out-of-state doctors. The Texas Medical Board received 4,026 new physician license applications in fiscal 2006, which ran from Sept. 1, 2005 to Aug. 31, 2006. In 2001, the Board received only 2,446 applications. The numbers for half of 2007 have already nearly surpassed those for all of 2001reaching 2,423 as of March with more than 2,700 licenses pending. (Hmmmm, still doesn't add up to 21,000, does it?) Absurdity: Out of the new licenses granted in 2006, 42 percent went to out-of-state physicians, 31 percent went to Texas physicians and 27 percent went to international physicians, according to statistics from TMAs Medical Education Division (How do you get to 21,000 from 42 percent?) Absurdity: If we are to believe them, then they ought to go through other states that saw population growth like Texas and did not enact and do not have Texas style tort reform. Im not actually sure such a place exists. Until it does, Politifacts fact is nothing more than their left-wing hypothesis disconnected from and ignoring every data point that doesnt help them make their case. How do you get to 21,00 from any of that? FACT: You don't. Accuse the "enemy" of being "left wing" and "biased" but offer no proof. Use right leaning sources for your ... uh, ... "evidence" but accuse your enemy of only using left leaning sources even when they are using right leaning sources. Confuse the befuddled and gullible right wingnut reader with numbers which have nothing to do with the facts at hand, like "42%". Accuse the enemy of avoiding ceratin sources which you claim disprove their findings even when the source said nothing about the "evidence" you present. And, above all else, reiterate the opinion your enemey is left leaning and playing with a biased deck of cards depsite the fact you have proven absolutely nothing regarding the case they made. Sounds alot like, " 'The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.' For instance, Democrats imply conservatives are racists or that Republicans want to kill senior citizens by limiting the growth of the Medicare system, they imply Republicans want to deny kids lunch money without offering real proof." Make an accusation the enemy will "imply" something without offering any proof but offer no proof yourself that what you claim is actually true - or that you understand what your enemy has "implied". Once again, squiddy, excellent work proving nothing other than the fact you are a right wingnut hack incapable of sorting through information, logical thought processing or finding anything more than right wingnut garbage to post. But, as you've said ... "Sounded good at the time ... " "PolitiFact Proves Yet Again It Is a Left Wing Attack Machine With Nonpartisan Veneer"; http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/08/26/politifact-proves-yet-again-it-is-a-lef t-wing-attack-machine-with-nonpartisan-veneer/ "Red State", eh, squiddy? Good job! Really, really good job!!! . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16654 Registered: May-04 | . More guns for more kids ... With My Rifle By My Side: A Second Amendment Lesson (Kim Simac); http://www.amazon.com/My-Rifle-Side-Second-Amendment/dp/0982707444 Wow! What century was this author born in? This book gave me the shivers. My husband owns guns and he hunts, but I would never share this book with our two sons or grandchildren. I have no words to express my uneasiness with this book.; http://www.amazon.com/My-Rifle-Side-Second-Amendment/product-reviews/0982707444/ Kim Simac was a Republican candidate for District 12 of the Wisconsin State Senate, in the recall election against incumbent Sen. Jim Holperin. She defeated Robert Lussow in the primary on July 19, but lost to Holperin in the recall on August 16. Simac is a Tea Party leader and President of the Northwoods Patriots. She was endorsed by the NRA. She lost the special election 55 to 45 percent. http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Kim_Simac Shame on that ol' left leaning ballotpedia for not reversing and "correcting" the actual voting percentages and declaring Simac the winner. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16656 Registered: May-04 | . It's the Inequality, Stupid Eleven charts that explain everything that's wrong with America. How Rich Are the Superrich?A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph # . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 658 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy lady in room 237 you have to take off your blinders.... "PolitiFact's decree is part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies, misinformation and "facts," rather than differences of world view or principles. PolitiFact wants to define for everyone else what qualifies as a "fact," though in political debates the facts are often legitimately in dispute." "PolitiFact is run by the St. Petersburg Times and has marketed itself to other news organizations on the pretense of impartiality. Like other "fact checking" enterprises, its animating conceit is that opinions are what ideologues have, when in reality PolitiFact's curators also have political views and values that influence their judgments about facts and who is right in any debate. " Just something to consider. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 659 Registered: Mar-04 | By STEPHEN MOORE If you really want to light the fuse of a liberal Democrat, compare Barack Obama's economic performance after 30 months in office with that of Ronald Reagan. It's not at all flattering for Mr. Obama. The two presidents have a lot in common. Both inherited an American economy in collapse. And both applied daring, expensive remedies. Mr. Reagan passed the biggest tax cut ever, combined with an agenda of deregulation, monetary restraint and spending controls. Mr. Obama, of course, has given us a $1 trillion spending stimulus. By the end of the summer of Reagan's third year in office, the economy was soaring. The GDP growth rate was 5% and racing toward 7%, even 8% growth. In 1983 and '84 output was growing so fast the biggest worry was that the economy would "overheat." In the summer of 2011 we have an economy limping along at barely 1% growth and by some indications headed toward a "double-dip" recession. By the end of Reagan's first term, it was Morning in America. Today there is gloomy talk of America in its twilight. My purpose here is not more Reagan idolatry, but to point out an incontrovertible truth: One program for recovery worked, and the other hasn't. The Reagan philosophy was to incentivize productionâ€"i.e., the "supply side" of the economyâ€"by lowering restraints on business expansion and investment. This was done by slashing marginal income tax rates, eliminating regulatory high hurdles, and reining in inflation with a tighter monetary policy. The Keynesians in the early 1980s assured us that the Reagan expansion would not and could not happen. Rapid growth with new jobs and falling rates of inflation (to 4% in 1983 from 13% in 1980) is an impossibility in Keynesian textbooks. If you increase demand, prices go up. If you increase supplyâ€"as Reagan didâ€"prices go down. The Godfather of the neo-Keynesians, Paul Samuelson, was the lead critic of the supposed follies of Reaganomics. He wrote in a 1980 Newsweek column that to slay the inflation monster would take "five to ten years of austerity," with unemployment of 8% or 9% and real output of "barely 1 or 2 percent." Reaganomics was routinely ridiculed in the media, especially in the 1982 recession. That was the year MIT economist Lester Thurow famously said, "The engines of economic growth have shut down here and across the globe, and they are likely to stay that way for years to come." The economy would soon take flight for more than 80 consecutive months. Then the Reagan critics declared what they once thought couldn't work was actually a textbook Keynesian expansion fueled by budget deficits of $200 billion a year, or about 4%-5% of GDP. Robert Reich, now at the University of California, Berkeley, explained that "The recession of 1981-82 was so severe that the bounce back has been vigorous." Paul Krugman wrote in 2004 that the Reagan boom was really nothing special because: "You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump." Mr. Krugman was, for once, at least partly right. How could Reagan not look good after four years of Jimmy Carter's economic malpractice? Fast-forward to today. Mr. Obama is running deficits of $1.3 trillion, or 8%-9% of GDP. If the Reagan deficits powered the '80s expansion, the Obama deficitsâ€"twice as largeâ€"should have the U.S. sprinting at Olympic speed. The left has now embraced a new theory to explain why the Obama spending hasn't worked. The answer is contained in the book "This Time Is Different," by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. Published in 2009, the book examines centuries of recessions and depressions world-wide. The authors conclude that it takes nations much longerâ€"six years or moreâ€"to recover from financial crises and the popping of asset bubbles than from typical recessions. In any case, what Reagan inherited was arguably a more severe financial crisis than what was dropped in Mr. Obama's lap. You don't believe it? From 1967 to 1982 stocks lost two-thirds of their value relative to inflation, according to a new report from Laffer Associates. That mass liquidation of wealth was a first-rate financial calamity. And tell me that 20% mortgage interest rates, as we saw in the 1970s, aren't indicative of a monetary-policy meltdown. There is something that is genuinely different this time. It isn't the nature of the crisis Mr. Obama inherited, but the nature of his policy prescriptions. Reagan applied tax cuts and other policies that, yes, took the deficit to unchartered peacetime highs. But that borrowing financed a remarkable and prolonged economic expansion and a victory against the Evil Empire in the Cold War. What exactly have Mr. Obama's deficits gotten us? |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 660 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy woman in room 237 I will continue to ask you this.... What is the point of this Presidency and why is it in the best interests of the people to reelect this man ? The people Norma, not simply the left wing drones like you and the freak show at MsNbc (barry obama channel). |
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Gold Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 2541 Registered: Oct-07 | Your tax dollars at work:: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576530520471223268.html |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16658 Registered: May-04 | . "PolitiFact wants to define for everyone else what qualifies as a "fact," though in political debates the facts are often legitimately in dispute." Look, squiddy, I realize just plain common sense isn't your strong suite but facts and opinions are two different things. Nowhere in anyone's calculations - including the bizzare math of Red State's 42% - are numbers which add up to 21,000 physicians coming to Texas since 2004. Those are what the normal world calls "FACTS". Therefore, if no one can show where Texas gained the number of physicians Perry claimns, there is no "opinion" involved. The fact is no one can prove Perry's claim. Now take off your aluminum hat and think reeeeeeeal hard on this, squiddy. I know it's near impossible for you to actually think rather than just accept the BS you're hoping some wingnut hack will feed you. But this is pretty simple math, 5,000 and 8,000 - the top numbers anyone (even the right wing partisans who support Perry) can come up with - are not equal to 21,000. Your repub candidate lied - again! Just chalk that up to 76% of repub comments being either false or PANTS ON FIRE and stop with the Politifact bashing when your guys can't even come up with a logical sentence. Or explain to me how you get to 21,000 from 42%. . Ye, we have more physicians in Texas since 2004. We have more everything in Texas since 2004. Most especially people without insurance and people living beneath the poverty line. The promise to the people was tort reform would lower insurance premiums. If that was the actual result, it would be reasonable to think we would have more people with insurance rather than without. Yes, we have more physicians - and more people. The end result of tort reform in Texas was we got more doctors to come here because they knew they couldn't be put out of business for cutting off the wrong leg or flat out killing you. How comforting is that? . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16659 Registered: May-04 | . Absurdity: "If you really want to light the fuse of a liberal Democrat, compare Barack Obama's economic performance after 30 months in office with that of Ronald Reagan. It's not at all flattering for Mr. Obama." Wall Street Journal (Read as far right leaning Rupert Murdoch stooge); http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904875404576530412322260784.html Why not compare Reagan's performance to that of Bozo the Clown? The economic situations of the two Presidents isn't remotely the same. You know that, don't you, squiddy? That's why the last few years have been called "The Great Recession". That's why they've compared this to the Great Depression and not to the coming of Reagan. How do you guys keep coming up with this crap? . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16660 Registered: May-04 | . leo, don't tell me now you're in favor of the destruction of the rain forests?! It must have been a slow news day for the WSJ. Most of that story is rehashed from other articles which have appeared over the last few years - mostly in the guitar press. It's a bit difficult to imagine a company like Gibson trying to get away with importing prohibited woods but the problem has existed for the last several decades. Small luthiers building a few instruments a year have continually tried to skirt the regulations due to the mythical abilities of certain endangered species of wood in the tone of a guitar. The same has happened with various species of animals and birds. Some smuggler will put them inside the tire of a car hoping to get across the border. Can you imagine a few hundred mile ride inside a tire? With guitar woods though it's more like stealing the Mona Lisa and keeping it in a sealed vault since no one should know you actually have the real thing. It would be difficult to play such a guitar in public since woods are easily identifiable as to place of origin. If you actually took the time to read the article, leo, you would have seen this is international enforcement done under international agreements and not just the US taxpayer's money. What? you'd do away with Customs agents too? I don't think even Ron Paul would agree with that tactic. It is worth noting IMO just how few high end instrument builders have devoted even a small portion of their lines to the use of sustainable woods. Martin - who has probably been building with rosewood longer than any other company - is the only major builder to do so on a large scale project; http://www.dig-itmag.com/features/wildgardens_story/326_0_8_0/ and - A Word About CF Martin Company's Commitment to Sustainable Wood for Ecological Purposes: C. F. Martin formalized its long-standing ecological policy in 1990. This program embraced the judicious and responsible use of traditional natural materials and encouraged the introduction of sustainable-yield, alternative wood species. Martin's consumer focus group research has led to the introduction and wide-spread acceptance of guitars utilizing structurally sound woods with natural cosmetic characteristics formerly considered unacceptable. Martin has also developed numerous sustainable-yield, alternative wood guitars for industry-wide exhibitions intended to educate our consumers and provide direction for the company and industry. The company recognizes CITES as the governing authority on endangered species and closely follows their directives. Martin has recently begun exploring the viability of utilizing Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certifiable wood sources and supports the introduction of FSC guitar models as soon as commercially feasible. The Solid Cherry Wood in this guitar is a part of the commitment to using wood that is sustainable to make some of the finest guitars in the world. You will be amazed at the sound and beauty of a wood that is so easily sustainable. http://www.oklahomavintageguitar.com/maswacsuwogu.html So, leo, just why are you for the destruction of the environment? . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16661 Registered: May-04 | . How the GOP candidates fare on the Truth-O-Meter By Bill Adair Published on Friday, August 26th, 2011 at 2:26 p.m. Share this article: Michele Bachmann's report card (this one is from our iPhone/iPad app) shows that two thirds of her ratings have been False or Pants on Fire. The 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa is a year away, but the campaign for president is in full swing and most of the candidates have accumulated substantial records on our Truth-O-Meter. Here's how they have fared: Rick Perry has more Truth-O-Meter ratings than any other GOP candidate - 71. As governor of Texas, he frequently gets checked by our colleagues at PolitiFact Texas. Perry's record leans toward the False end of the scale - more Falses and Pants on Fires (25) than Trues and Mostly Trues (17). Mitt Romney has been checked 59 times, many during the 2008 campaign. His record is mixed: 17 True, 10 Mostly True, 11 Half True, seven Mostly False, nine False and five Pants on Fire. Michele Bachmann's PolitiFact report card prompts the most discussion of any of the candidates we check because she has a large number False and Pants on Fire ratings. They account for two thirds of all the Bachmann claims we've checked. She's been checked 30 times and earned 13 False and seven Pants on Fire ratings.. Ron Paul's record is the the opposite of Bachmann's because he typically earns Trues (six) or Mostly Trues (six). They account for two thirds of his 19 Truth-O-Meter ratings. Paul has earned three Falses and one Pants on Fire. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/aug/26/gop-candidates-polit ifact-truth-o-meter/ . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16662 Registered: May-04 | . FactChecking Iowa Debate FactChecking Iowa Debate GOP presidential hopefuls make some false and misleading statements about Obama -- and each other. August 12, 2011 Summary Republican presidential candidates squared off in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 11, offering claims, criticism and arguments. We found some false and misleading statements among them: Herman Cain denied ever saying that communities have the right to ban mosques. But he did, in fact, say that. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made the misleading claim that his state's "unemployment was below the federal level three of the four years I was in office." Yes, but the state rate was lower than the national rate before he took office and higher when he left. Romney also falsely suggested President Obama has never held a job, saying: "I think in order to create jobs, it's helpful to have had a job." Michele Bachmann wrongly said that raising the debt ceiling gave Obama a "blank check." But the set amount of money will be used to pay obligations Congress has authorized. Ron Paul said the CIA told him that there is "no evidence" Iran is "working on" a nuclear weapon. There's no solid proof, but the International Atomic Energy Agency says there are "possible military dimensions" to Iran's nuclear program. Bachmann also said that Tim Pawlenty "wanted" to institute an individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance in Minnesota. Pawlenty said he was "open to" the idea, but that's not the same as wanting to do it. Newt Gingrich said that one of the moderators was "handpicking" quotes "that fit your premise." But the Fox News anchor quoted Gingrich's comments on Libya accurately. Rick Santorum exaggerated a bit in saying the U.S. borrows "42 cents of every dollar." The figure is currently 37 cents. http://factcheck.org/2011/08/factchecking-iowa-debate/ . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 661 Registered: Mar-04 | "TheTruthfulness website called FactCheck.org is itself decidedly BIASED toward the LEFT as the discussion that follows points out. The ANNENBERG Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania is the organization behind the FactCheck.org website that is being consulted OFTEN by voters and media personalities alike to help them form opinions on the truthfulness of the claims being made by the McCain and Obama political ads as well as statements made on the Campaign Trail and in Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Ph.D. is the Director of the ANNENBERG Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which is the organization BEHIND the FactCheck.org truthfulness website. Dr. Jamieson's newest book entitled Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment is a MAJOR HIT PIECE against the Conservative voices in the media on television, radio, and in print. View the books Table of Contents: http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/echochamber/ " It's ok Norma, you can cite all the "fact" and "truth" you want to ...So the strategy is (and you follow the conga line of freaks) to destroy the competition. Why not tout what Barry has done not only in the 2 1/2 years in the oval office but his vast accomplishments while in Chicago ? Have you dug up any of his legal writings while he was at Harvard or perhaps some writing from his time at Columbia or Occidental college, because certainly a mind that brilliant would have some sort of paper trail... There must be a good reason as to why you will vote for him again besides the fact that you are a lemming. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 662 Registered: Mar-04 | Economy in U.S. Expands at 1% Annual Pace, Less Than Economists Estimated Aug 26, 2011 3:28 PM CT Economy in U.S. Expanded at 1% Annual Pace in Second Quarter. Second-Quarter GDP Grew at 1% Annual Rate Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy grew less than previously estimated in the second quarter, capping the weakest six months of the recovery that began in mid 2009. Gross domestic product climbed at a 1 percent annual rate from April through June, down from a 1.3 percent prior estimate,revised Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 1.1 percent increase.(Source: Bloomberg)The U.S. economy expanded less than previously estimated in the second quarter, underscoring the weakness that has prompted the Federal Reserve to mark down its growth forecasts. Gross domestic product climbed at a 1 percent annual rate from April through June, down from a 1.3 percent prior estimate, revised Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, speaking today at a conference in Wyoming, said the central bank still has tools to spur the economy without signaling whether policy makers are likely to deploy them. Another report showed consumer sentiment this month fell to the lowest level since November 2008 amid financial-market turmoil and political wrangling over the budget deficit. The consumer is clearly unnerved, said John Herrmann, senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets LLC in Boston. With growth so tepid and the economy so fragile, any kind of shock could tip us over into a double-dip recession.Stocks erased early losses after Bernankes comments. The Standard & Poors 500 Index, which broke a four-week losing streak, rose 1.5 percent to 1,176.8 at the 4 p.m. in New York. Treasury securities also climbed, sending the yield on the benchmark 10-year note down to 2.19 percent from 2.23 percent late yesterday. The median forecast of 81 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 1.1 percent increase in GDP. Estimates ranged from 0.3 percent to 1.6 percent. Recovery Weakens Combined with the 0.4 percent annual rate of growth in the first three months of the year, the past two quarters were the weakest of the recovery that began in mid 2009. At $13.26 trillion, GDP has yet to surpass the pre-recession peak. The report also contained some positive news as corporate profits grew and wages and salaries were revised up at the start of the year to show the biggest gain in more than four years.The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment measure fell to 55.7 this month from 63.7 in July, pointing to little pickup in the biggest part of the economy. Consumers dont look like theyre in much of a mood to buy, said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact & Opinion Economics in New York. The economy continues weaker than we thought. It looks like its losing momentum. Consumer spending, about 70 percent of the economy, grew at a 0.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the smallest gain in more than a year. Nonetheless, the reading was revised up from the 0.1 percent previously estimated, reflecting more outlays for financial services, insurance and health care, todays GDP report showed. Cutting Forecasts Economists have cut growth forecasts as the S&P 500 slumped 18 percent between April 29 and Aug. 8, following S&Ps downgrade of U.S. debt amid wrangling over deficit-cutting measures and on rising concerns of a euro zone default. HS Global Insight Inc., a Lexington, Massachusetts-based research firm, this week raised the odds of a recession to around 40 percent from a prior 20 percent to 25 percent probability. It cut its growth forecast for 2011 to 1.6 percent from 2.5 percent, adding that a double-dip downturn is still not the most likely scenario.It appears that the U.S. economy is losing further momentum, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) said Aug. 19. While several indicators for July were surprisingly strong, economist Zach Pandl wrote that timelier survey-based data have turned down sharply, and weakness in the hard statistics seems likely to follow.No Pickup Seen Goldman Sachs cut its GDP forecast to 1 percent in the third quarter and 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, both from prior 2 percent estimates. The banks economists said on Aug. 5 that they saw a one-in-three chance of another recession. Lack of jobs is discouraging shoppers. Payrolls grew by about 95,000 in August, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed so far by Bloomberg before the Sept. 2 jobs report. That would compare with 117,000 in July which brought the average gain over the past three months to 111,000. Employment gains averaged 204,000 in the first four months of the year. Although important problems certainly exist, the growth fundamentals of the United States do not appear to have been permanently altered by the shocks of the past four years, Bernanke said in prepared comments at Jackson Hole symposium hosted by the Kansas City Fed. The Federal Reserve has a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus, he said. Falling Sales Lowes Cos., the second-largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, said profit in its fiscal 2011 will be less than it previously projected as sales drop at stores open more than a year. The company also announced it would close seven under- performing stores. Recent headlines regarding slowing growth and the U.S. credit rating downgrade underscore the continued weakness in the U.S. economy, Robert A. Niblock, chairman and president, said on an Aug. 15 conference call. The volume of negative news and the unsettling impact on equity markets is having a significant effect on an already fragile consumer mindset.Wages and salaries climbed by $101.2 billion from January through March, the biggest increase since the last three months of 2006 and up from a prior estimate of $82.8 billion, todays GDP report showed. Todays report also offered a first look at profits. Earnings climbed 3 percent from the prior quarter, after rising 1 percent in the prior period. They climbed 8.3 percent from the same time last year. Inventories, Exports The cut in second-quarter growth reflected a smaller increase in inventories and fewer exports. Inventories subtracted 0.2 percentage point from growth last quarter, instead of adding 0.2 point. Fewer exports also meant trade added 0.1 point to GDP rather than 0.6 percentage point. The bigger increase in consumer spending and more business investment prevented growth from being revised down even more. The economy last quarter was also hurt by a drop in government spending as state and local agencies tried to close budget gaps. As Carville said "It's the economy stupid". But what else can Barry and his Quislings do but attack his rivals.... what a statesman.. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16663 Registered: May-04 | . ROTFLMAO!!! Crimeny, squid! How 'tupid are you? You pull this crap from the far right wingnut tree ... TheTruthfulness website called FactCheck.org is itself decidedly BIASED toward the LEFT ... ", and, "PolitiFact Proves Yet Again It Is a Left Wing Attack Machine With Nonpartisan Veneer" ... And then you have the compete ignorance of reality to post this?!!! "...So the strategy is (and you follow the conga line of freaks) to destroy the competition." squiddy, forcrissake! "If A equals B and B equals C then ... " is something we all should have learned in middle school. When exactly did complete ignorance of everything become the trademark of the repubs? Look ... For those who are uncertain about "opinion" vs "fact" or "what I want to believe despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary or no evidence what so ever being offered to support my utter and complete acquiescence to verifying my overwhelming stupidity" vs "proof", maybe this will help; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/attention-governor-perry-evolu tion-is-a-fact/2011/08/23/gIQAuIFUYJ_blog.html There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today's Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous 'GOP' nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered 'grand') is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today's Republican Party 'in spite of' is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job. Any other organization - a big corporation, say, or a university, or a learned society - when seeking a new leader, will go to immense trouble over the choice. The CVs of candidates and their portfolios of relevant experience are meticulously scrutinized, their publications are read by a learned committee, references are taken up and scrupulously discussed, the candidates are subjected to rigorous interviews and vetting procedures. Mistakes are still made, but not through lack of serious effort. The population of the United States is more than 300 million and it includes some of the best and brightest that the human species has to offer, probably more so than any other country in the world. There is surely something wrong with a system for choosing a leader when, given a pool of such talent and a process that occupies more than a year and consumes billions of dollars, what rises to the top of the heap is George W Bush. Or when the likes of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin can be mentioned as even remote possibilities. . . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 663 Registered: Mar-04 | Ok Norma, everybody who is conservative is a nut... Sites like politfact and factcheck, they have no bias what so ever. I understand that you believe that, and that is to be expected. However there are others who see things differently than your average left wing hack/apologist. Again, what is it about Barry Obama that compels you to vote for him again ? We all know you will vote for Barry and that is an important decision. What are his accomplishments that give you a sense of confidence that he will indeed be a benefit to the nation for an additional four years ? Since he is a constitutional scholar perhaps you can cite a brief he has written, any notes from the lectures he has given, or perhaps you can cite peer reviewed articles? What job(s) did Obama hold after he graduated law school ? Again I understand the "strategy" not to focus on the president and his "accomplishments" . That worked in 08' but let me fill you in crazy woman, he does have a record now and it cannot be hidden. Yes, of course there are those who shill for him, hack and lemmings, but as I said the ship is taking on water... and the focus will remain on Barry. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16664 Registered: May-04 | . The Texas Tribune Broad Ripples From a PAC on Tort Reform By ROSS RAMSEY Published: August 27, 2011 Ross Ramsey, the managing editor at The Texas Tribune, writes a column for The Tribune. Texans for Lawsuit Reform is the biggest and richest tort reform group in the state. No surprise there. But as its political action committee has become the dominant financial engine for legislative races, it has helped create a Legislature that's not only more conservative about legal issues, but more conservative, period ... In the mid-1990s, T.L.R. became a powerhouse, overshadowing older business groups and interests. When George W. Bush ran for governor in 1994, one of the four planks in his platform was tort reform. When he took office in 1995, he and the Legislature rewrote some of the state's basic civil laws, changing the economics of suing for civil damages in Texas and putting some serious hurt on the trial lawyers on the other side. Not all of that was about civil justice. The Texas Trial Lawyers Association and, individually, some of the state's wealthiest trial lawyers, were the dominant financial force on the Democratic side of the political ledger. (The Texas Trial Lawyers Association is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) What tort reform did in the courts was relatively easy to see, with this law limiting liability, and that one changing the rules on who was liable for what, and another one setting new rules on where and when lawsuits could be filed. The changes in politics weren't as obvious. They weren't written into law. No legislative hearings - or, for that matter, court hearings - were held ... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28ttramsey.html . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16665 Registered: May-04 | . "The other number we keep hearing about - $27 billion isnt a budget shortfall no matter how many media clowns call it that. Twenty-seven billion dollars is how much money the Texas government lacks if it wants to retain the lifestyle it had on its old salary. The difference is: it knows in advance its new salary and can budget accordingly. This is a reduced salary, not a budget shortfall." I'd laugh if I wasn't living through our Texas "reduced salary" and the ideologically short sighted cuts made to the needs of the average Texas citizen it entails. What Keeton Strayhorn predicted when Perry pulled his tax stunt is exactly what came to pass - other than she was about $5 billion short in her estimates. Look it up, squiddy. It's public record if you want to actually know the facts. Well worth the read if your preference is for facts rather than BS and if you consider Perry to be a force in the 2012 elections. Dubose has followed Texas politics for decades and knows the players as well, if not better, than anyone - certainly better than those wingnut hacks writing about Texas while sitting in their pajamas in front of their computer screens in far off lands such as South Carolina. The Washington Spectator is an independent leaning publication willing to take on both repubs and dems. The article is far less opinion than it is simple, straight forward factual reporting. Facts come fast and furious in this article, so keep up and, most of all, keep your head up. RICK PERRY'S BUDGET HUSTLE How the Texas Governor Created His State's Budget Crisis by Lou Dubose - September 1, 2011 He Was Warned "As of this moment, this legislation is a staggering $23 billion short of the funds needed to pay for the promised property tax cuts over the next five years. These are conservative estimates." -Texas Comptroller Carole Strayhorn, warning Gov. Rick Perry about his 2006 tax reform proposal IN HIS STATE OF THE STATE SPEECH in February, Rick Perry described the $27 billion budget shortfall confronting the Texas Legislature. "Now, the mainstream media and big government interest groups are doing their best to convince us that we're facing a budget Armageddon," Perry said. "Texans don't believe it and they shouldn't because it's not true." The $27 billion equaled 15 percent of the $182 billion biennial budget the Legislature had passed two years earlier. If not Armageddon, an apocalyptic loss of revenue in a low tax state that provides bare bones public services. Perry's statement was even more remarkable because most of the budget shortfall was a consequence of a business tax bill he pushed through the Legislature in a special session five years earlier. With Perry running for president on a record of fiscal responsibility (and job creation, discussed later in this article), it's important to understand the consequences of his 2006 "business margins tax" - and to ask if the governor knew that the tax reform he proposed would undermine the state's budgets in the years that followed. First, some background. Texas is one of nine states with no income tax. It relies on property taxes to pay for public services - notably, to pay for public education, which consumes the lion''s share of property taxes. Because there is no income tax, property taxes are high. In 2006, Perry called a special session to address property taxes. With no income tax, there are no easy fixes. Yet Perry found one. A business margins tax he said would provide enough revenue to allow for reductions in property taxes. It was evident at the time that the new tax would not deliver what the governor promised. The state comptroller, Carole Strayhorn, had her staff run the numbers on Perry's tax reform proposal. "In 2007," she wrote in a letter to Perry, "your plan is $3.4 billion short; in 2009, it is $5.4 billion short; in 2010 it is $4.9 billion short, and in 2011 it is $5 billion short. These are conservative estimates." The comptroller warned that "no economic miracle will close the gap your plan creates. Even if every dollar of the current [2006] $8.2 billion surplus was poured into the plan, it would not cover the plan's cost for more than two years, 2007 and 2008. The gap is going to continue to grow year by year." The shortfall the bill created could only be closed by tax increases, the comptroller warned, "or massive cuts in essential public services - like public education." "It was not only Ms. Strayhorn's letter," Houston Democratic Rep. Scott Hochberg told me. "Every official document predicting the state''s financial crisis at the time predicted exactly what happened." Hochberg, the Legislature's resident authority on public education finance, also warned Perry that the tax bill he was promoting would not produce the revenue he promised. "I asked the governor about this in a small meeting amongst legislators,"" Hochberg said. "His answer to me, I remember it as clear as day, was 'Scott, use your common sense. Don't you know that when we cut property taxes we will see such an economic boom that you will never even notice the drop in revenue?' " Perry's response to the Democratic legislator was candid - and newsworthy. Perry admitted that he knew that the tax reform he proposed would result in a "drop in revenue." Perry was not alone in that knowledge. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst told San Antonio Express News reporter Garry Scharrer this past January that he, too, knew the new tax wouldn't deliver what it promised: "Dewhurst now says that he knew that revenue projections from the revised business franchise tax 'were inflated' and told Senate members in closed door caucus meetings at the time that the business tax would not perform as advertised 'and that we were going to create a structural funding deficit in state government.' But Dewhurst said he also believed at the time that 'we would grow out of it by now.' " A state senator told me last month that Republican leaders in the Senate knew the tax they were supporting wouldn't provide adequate revenue, and the "grow out of it" trope was their answer to questions from skeptics. "They knew their projections were bullsh*t," the senator said. "When you questioned them about it, they'd say 'we'll grow out of it.' " That's the story. The state's Republican governor and lieutenant governor knowingly created a budget crisis. As the state's comptroller predicted, a surplus covered some of the 2007-2008 budget shortfall. In 2009, Perry used $17 billion of President Obama's federal stimulus money to fill the funding gap for the following two years, and to cover a shortfall in the previous fiscal year's budget. (Perry angrily refused $555 billion in stimulus money designated for the extension of benefits to the unemployed, protesting that the federal dollars came with strings attached.) When the Legislature convened in January 2011, the federal stimulus money was spent, and the budget shortfall about which the comptroller warned Perry five years earlier had arrived. Public education took the biggest hit ... ; http://www.washingtonspectator.org/articles/20110901budgethustle.cfm It might help if you understand Texas is a state governed by a State Legislature which meets for only two months every two years. By tradition, the Texas Governor is a place holder position normally sent to cut ribbons and kiss babies. The real power in the state - as when W was Governor - lies in the office of the Lieutenant Governor or David Dewhurst in this article (Dewhurst will be seeking the US Senate seat left vacant by retiring Senator Hutchinson whom Perry roughed up in last year's Gubernatorial primaries). Perry has realinged how the Texas Governorship operates (making W look like a rank ameteur at the process of pay for play and second only in recent history to the now-appealling-his-conviction Tom Delay). Perry has done so with the financial assistance of some very special and very rich friends. His ties to campaign contributions and political favors - cronyism at the taxpayers' expense - are well reported in the article. As are his methods of covering up his trail of failures when making business deals which ultimately cost the Texas taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. About The Washington Spectator Since 1974, our feisty bi-weekly bulletin has given independent minded readers behind the scenes insight into significant news that is ignored by the corporate media. In the tradition of I.F. Stone's Weekly, we scour the big dailies, the newsweeklies, the foreign press, and specialist magazines to pull together vital information on major issues of the day, and strip it of the distortions of the spin controllers. In concise and fact packed reports, our editors and experts forecast and analyze the doings of Congress, the White House, Wall Street and your State House. For those fed up with media superficiality, we offer insightful commentary on issues of war and peace, the environment, religion, education, and economics. Over the years The Washington Spectator has stood consistently - and persistently - for human rights, international peace, civil liberties and for an open, accountable government.; http://www.washingtonspectator.org/about.cfm The Washington Spectator is a project of the The Public Concern Foundation, Inc., a non-profit 501c3 educational foundation. Lou Dubose is the editor of the Washington Spectator, the award winning independent newsletter covering national affairs (www.washingtonspectator.org). Dubose has covered Texas politics since the mid-eighties when he edited the Texas Observer. With co-author Jan Reid, he wrote The Hammer: God, Money and the Rise of the Republican Congress (Public Affairs), a political biography of Tom Delay, who was sentenced this year by a Texas jury to three years in jail for money laundering. Dubose was also the co-author with the late Molly Ivins of two New York Times bestsellers about George W. Bush: Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush and Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, both published by Random House http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Public_Concern_Foundation . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 664 Registered: Mar-04 | NBC News' Chuck Todd says President Obama promising to create jobs is raising the bar. TODD: "It does seem as if he has pledged to do this plan out there. Not a lot of details, but to me he's raised the bar, because he said, 'this plan is going to grow the economy, create jobs and deal with the debt.' So that's, sounds like a big, large plan to me, Ezra." There you have a servile media not doing it's job. Let's hold the president accountable for a change... |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 665 Registered: Mar-04 | Obamas Team Is Blowing It Aug 25, 2011 7:51 PM EDT }Independents hated the presidents debt deal, a new poll shows. Michael Tomasky on Obamas lousy summerand how David Plouffe and Bill Daley are letting him down. We were told, as I recall, that Barack Obama had to seek a debt deal with the Republicans to please independent voters. Well, the independent voters are speaking, and they dont appear to be especially appeased. Theres a new Gallup poll just out showing that independent voters hate the deal. Their views on it are far more similar to the GOPs than to the Democratic Partys. Combine these data with the presidents approval numbers, which are swiftly heading south, and we have little choice but to conclude that this brilliant stratagem backfired. Isnt it time for someone to say: this new White House political team is worse than the previous one? First let me run you through the numbers. Americans disapprove of the deal by 46 to 39 percent. Democrats support it 58-28. Republicans oppose it 26-64. Independents oppose it 33-50. A second question asked of respondents: Was the deal a step forward or backward or neither with respect to addressing the federal debt situation? Democrats lined up 30-14-50. Republicans, 15-28-52. Independents, 16-25-50. Finally, independents also align more closely with Republicans on the question of whether the deal will have a good or bad effect on the economy. Whereas 29 percent of Democrats think the effect will be good, just 12 percent of independents and 8 percent of Republicans believe that. The White House strategy failed, and it failed pretty spectacularly. It reminds me that I am hard pressed to think of a White House strategy that hasn't failed in the last several months. The springtime budget negotiation, the one where a government shutdown was narrowly averted and Obama bragged about overseeing the biggest single-year domestic spending cut in history, was a failure too; a success, one supposes, in the sense that the government did not shut down, but another situation in which Obamas back was pressed to the wall by congressional Republicans. Lets see, what else? The immigration speech from May? What, you dont even remember it? If it was at least partly intended as a sop to Latino voters before the campaign really revs up, it seems to have left them largely unmoved Obama is below 50 percent with Latinos in some surveys. OK, how about the more recent Midwestern jobs swing? Probably did no damage, but certainly did no good. The Vineyard vacation? I dont begrudge the man a little R and R, and maybe its a small thing, but that destination a bad symbol, Marthas Vineyard. He might as well have gone to California wine country. Last I checked, there are golf courses aplenty to be found in North Carolina, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Colorado. When David Axelrod left to go to the campaign office in Chicago, and Rahm Emanuel left to become mayor, the spin was that David Plouffe and Bill Daley, their respective replacements, would, if nothing else, bring fresh and unwearied perspectives to these admittedly grueling and thankless jobs. But they appear to have given Obama bad advice at nearly every turn. Plouffe, from what I can see, just looks to be in over his head in this job. He was a whiz at organizing a campaign field network. But this is a different game. The spin was that David Plouffe and Bill Daley would, if nothing else, bring fresh perspectives to these admittedly grueling and thankless jobs. But they appear to have given Obama bad advice at nearly every turn. The fundamental problem appears to be the excessive fixation on Obamas (forgive me for even using this word) brand this adult in the room nonsense. Whenever I see those words in print anymore, usually in a background quote from a White House aide or a Democratic source trying gamely to be on-message, I hear strong and unsettling echoes of the 2008-vintage messianism. Does anyone buy this anymore, outside of what appears to be an increasingly bubble-ized White House? Those beloved independents certainly arent thinking of the president that way these days, and one doubts that even most of his supporters are. Obamas brand is and has by now long been determined by events and facts, not by White House spin and set pieces, or by vestigial remnants of the Days of Hope. Those events and facts are almost uniformly grim (except Libya, whose political gains will be fleeting or perhaps nonexistent). Adults get credit when the household is running smoothly and the kids are well behaved and pulling good grades. With none of those things happening, the adult in the room is precisely the last thing to want to be. But they refuse to change gears. Watching this White House over these last several weeks has been like watching a time-lapse video of an apple rotting. Were supposed to believe now that the jobs plan to be announced next month will change everything. Maybe. But what needs to change is the way the White House approaches politics. To what? To a simple, blunt, and deeply real-world truth: Hes not nearly as bad as the other guys, who are crazy. Thats all hes got. Thats his brand now. If his people keep insisting on trying to package him the way they did three years ago, he wont have even that. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 666 Registered: Mar-04 | Crazy woman, just reading the washington spectators front page tells me all I need to know. Strange that they have to tell people how "independent" they are.... But I suppose this is your "new" source for "hard" facts....? "The Washington Spectator is an independent leaning publication willing to take on both repubs and dems. " Ok crazy lady they say it and you parrot it. "Over the years The Washington Spectator has stood consistently - and persistently - for human rights, international peace, civil liberties and for an open, accountable government" Ahhhhh such lofty goals ..... and they are completely without any bias... remarkable in this day and age. Perry isn't going to get the nomination, and I think we both know that. Flavor of the month perhaps, will make some noise perhaps. The race for the nomination is a marathon not a sprint and he will run out of steam. Now I understand the idea is to destroy each potential rival to the boy king, as he cannot possible win re-election on his own merit and accomplishments... Once Perry goes then you can focus on Romney, and I cannot wait to see the gutter sniping that comes out of that. Of course Barry and his checkered past and lack of accomplishments is off limits .... |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16667 Registered: May-04 | . "Let's hold the president accountable for a change... " ROTFLMAO!!! You don't have a clue, do you, squiddy? If we actually did that, a dozen members of the Bush II administration - including W hisownself and ol'man Cheney (who has just admitted he OK'd torture and would do it again) - would be in prison right now for - if nothing else - their international war crimes. Bush I would be in court defending his practices. Reagan would have been run up on violations of abuse of office according to the US Constitution along with illegal arms trading with US enemies plus providing false evidence to Congress - all that cocurred when he wasn't napping. Of course, the Republicans in Congress finally did that to Nixon - our only President to be forced into humiliating resignation and a stain on the entire nation. That's not even mentioning the additional 15,000 GI's who died in Viet Nam after he failed to produce his promised "secret plan" to end the war in 1968. None of which you seem to be even remotely cognizant of, squid. Yeah, I agree! Let's hold a few Presidents accountable. We can start with the Bushies and Cheney. They can't travel to Europe without being arrested for international crimes. squiddy, I can't decide whether you're just a gigantic stooge or a humongous idiot. Either way, you don't know jacksh*t about any of this. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16668 Registered: May-04 | . "Over the years The Washington Spectator has stood consistently - and persistently - for human rights, international peace, civil liberties and for an open, accountable government" Ahhhhh such lofty goals ..... and they are completely without any bias... " Uhhhhhh? "Bias"?! Biased against who? Against what? What are you trying to say here, squidbrain? That anyone who "has stood consistently - and persistently - for human rights, international peace, civil liberties and for an open, accountable government" is biased against those people who have stood against those values? Just who would "those people standing against human rights" be? Who do you feel is standing against international peace? Or civil liberties? Most of all, who do you think is for "unaccountable government"? Republicans? That's what you're claiming - despite the fact you won't be able to figure this out - when you claim anyone standing for the values we should all espouse is biased against a certain group. You flaming idiot! You're saying repubs are for unaccountable government - check! They are for unending war - check! They are against civil liberties - check! And most of all, they are for the rights of the few rather than the humans rights to which we are all entitled - check and double check!!! Ya gotta love it! Those are the values you're for, aren't they, squiddy? Because you've been told they are good values, haven't you? And you believe it, don't you? Because you've been told whenever you see anything that doesn't preach the party line, you should call it "biased". And you do as you're told without even thinking. Right? Because the party doesn't want you to think! They just want you to be a good little mindless footsoldier doing as you're told! ROTFLMAO!!!!! This is why I didn't want this thread to be filled with idiots like you, squiddy. But here you are running your yap and doing just what good little mindless repub parrots do. Ok, you're both a gigantic stooge ... and a humongous idiot! Biased against human rights! How stupid is that? Geeeeeez! What a doofus! You stupe! you're not supposed to say that out loud! Somebody might catch on. . |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16669 Registered: May-04 | . Beck: "This Hurricane Is A Blessing ... It Is God Reminding You ... You Are Not In Control" August 26, 2011 12:47 pm ET From the August 26 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108260014 Well, at least he didn't pull a Pat Roberts and blame it on the g*ys and the ab*rtion doctors. . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 667 Registered: Mar-04 | Obama's best hope for reelection is destroying GOP nominee By: Hugh Hewitt | Examiner Columnist | 08/22/11 11:34 AM When President Obama broke with long-standing tradition and blasted the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United even as members of the court sat before him at the 2010 State of the Union address, he was giving voice to the collective anxiety of the Democratic Party over a suddenly level political playing field. In the decision's aftermath, the unions lost an enormous advantage in fundraising and campaign spending in that all individuals and organizations - including corporations - were suddenly entitled to spend on political messages any amount those individuals and organizations deemed wise. The president was angry. However, chances are today he is very, very thankful for Citizens United as Campaign 2012 gets underway. We are entering the first campaign in which the full effects of Citizens United will be felt, and Republican voters should be considering not just who can raise the most money or be the beneficiary of the most independent expenditures, but who is best positioned to survive the coming deluge of independently-funded politics of personal destruction. For although the president lambasted the court for returning the operation of the First Amendment to its original intent of protecting political speech, he now may well be celebrating the decision for empowering the best hope he has of re-election: the demonization and destruction of his GOP opponent. With his record bereft of accomplishment and unemployment certain to be, at best, above 8 percent, the president will have to cue the worst sort of attacks on the Republican nominee and hope that George Soros and the rest of the wealthy left, assisted by the best talent in Hollywood, unleash every conceivable attack on Obama's opponent in the last month of the election. Hundreds of millions in independent expenditures are a certainty. Billions may be coming. Scorched earth tactics aren't pretty but they can be effective, and Republican primary voters ought to be evaluating their field with this certain onslaught in mind. Will Obama partisans attack Mitt Romney for his Mormon faith? JFK and Al Smith before him endured attacks on their Catholic beliefs, though not elaborately funded by individuals or electronically disseminated through the vast reaches of the new media. Of course, the left's big money won't hesitate to attack Romney's faith. Will a sliced-and-diced version of the video of Rick Perry praying at a recent rally run in an endless loop in attack ads with sinister music playing beneath it and a scroll suggesting this most amiable of men intends some sort of theocracy? Will the public hear heavily edited excerpts of Sarah Palin saying that she can see Russia from her from porch, or of Michele Bachmann talking about Elvis or Concord? The answers are yes, yes, and yes. Such attacks - and worse - will appear depending on the identity of the nominee. It will be the nastiest, no-holds barred assault on an individual in the history of modern politics because unlimited money will combine with ubiquitous technology to make it so. The president will issue denunciations of the worst of the slanders, but the independent committees will not be public and the mainstream media will be slow to follow the money. Democrats are fond of arguing that the Swift Boat veterans destroyed John Kerry, but their names and their message was public record from day one, and their charges climbed a mountain of MSM hostility. People knew who made the charges and what those charges were, and they were launched in August, not the closing days of the campaign. The attacks of 2012 on President Obama's opponent will be made late, from behind impenetrable walls and not merely uninvestigated by MSM, but vigorously abetted by the Manhattan-Beltway media elite. It is hard to say which of the GOP's would-be nominees is best prepared to run this inevitable gauntlet, but every voter ought to be thinking not only who is least likely to fold under such conditions, but also whose armor presents the fewest gaps. Examiner columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com. What else can Barry and his acolytes do ? |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 668 Registered: Mar-04 | Early Obama Letter Confirms Inability to Write By Jack Cashill On November 16, 1990, Barack Obama, then president of the Harvard Law Review, published a letter in the Harvard Law Record, an independent Harvard Law School newspaper, championing affirmative action. Although a paragraph from this letter was excerpted in David Remnick's biography of Obama, The Bridge, I had not seen the letter in its entirety before this week. Not surprisingly, it confirms everything I know about Barack Obama, the writer and thinker. Obama was prompted to write by an earlier letter from a Mr. Jim Chen that criticized Harvard Law Review's affirmative action policies. Specifically, Chen had argued that affirmative action stigmatized its presumed beneficiaries. The response is classic Obama: patronizing, dishonest, syntactically muddled, and grammatically challenged. In the very first sentence Obama leads with his signature failing, one on full display in his earlier published work: his inability to make subject and predicate agree. "Since the merits of the Law Review's selection policy has been the subject of commentary for the last three issues," wrote Obama, "I'd like to take the time to clarify exactly how our selection process works." If Obama were as smart as a fifth-grader, he would know, of course, that "merits ... have." Were there such a thing as a literary Darwin Award, Obama could have won it on this on one sentence alone. He had vindicated Chen in his first ten words. Although the letter is less than a thousand words long, Obama repeats the subject-predicate error at least two more times. In one sentence, he seemingly cannot make up his mind as to which verb option is correct so he tries both: "Approximately half of this first batch is chosen ... the other half are selected ... " Another distinctive Obama flaw is to allow a string of words to float in space. Please note the unanchored phrase in italics at the end of this sentence: "No editors on the Review will ever know whether any given editor was selected on the basis of grades, writing competition, or affirmative action, and no editors who were selected with affirmative action in mind." Huh? The next lengthy sentence highlights a few superficial style flaws and a much deeper flaw in Obama's political philosophy. I would therefore agree with the suggestion that in the future, our concern in this area is most appropriately directed at any employer who would even insinuate that someone with Mr. Chen's extraordinary record of academic success might be somehow unqualified for work in a corporate law firm, or that such success might be somehow undeserved. Obama would finish his acclaimed memoir, Dreams from My Father, about four years later. Prior to Dreams, and for the nine years following, everything Obama wrote was, like the above sentence, an uninspired assemblage of words with a nearly random application of commas and tenses. Unaided, Obama tends to the awkward, passive, and verbose. The phrase "our concern in this area is most appropriately directed at any employer" would more profitably read, "we should focus on the employer." "Concern" is simply the wrong word. Scarier than Obama's style, however, is his thinking. A neophyte race-hustler after his three years in Chicago, Obama is keen to browbeat those who would "even insinuate" that affirmative action rewards the undeserving, results in inappropriate job placements, or stigmatizes its presumed beneficiaries. In the case of Michelle Obama, affirmative action did all three. The partners at Sidley Austin learned this the hard way. In 1988, they hired her out of Harvard Law under the impression that the degree meant something. It did not. By 1991, Michelle was working in the public sector as an assistant to the mayor. By 1993, she had given up her law license. Had the partners investigated Michelle's background, they would have foreseen the disaster to come. Sympathetic biographer Liza Mundy writes, "Michelle frequently deplores the modern reliance on test scores, describing herself as a person who did not test well." She did not write well, either. Mundy charitably describes her senior thesis at Princeton as "dense and turgid." The less charitable Christopher Hitchens observes, "To describe [the thesis] as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be 'read' at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language." Michelle had to have been as anxious at Harvard Law as Bart Simpson was at Genius School. Almost assuredly, the gap between her writing and that of her highly talented colleagues marked her as an affirmative action admission, and the profs finessed her through. In a similar vein, Barack Obama was named an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Although his description of the Law Review's selection process defies easy comprehension, apparently, after the best candidates are chosen, there remains "a pool of qualified candidates whose grades or writing competition scores do not significantly differ." These sound like the kids at Lake Woebegone, all above average. Out of this pool, Obama continues, "the Selection Committee may take race or physical handicap into account." To his credit, Obama concedes that he "may have benefited from the Law Review's affirmative action policy." This did not strike him as unusual as he "undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my academic career." On the basis of his being elected president of Law Review -- a popularity contest -- Obama was awarded a six-figure contract to write a book. To this point, he had not shown a hint of promise as a writer, but Simon & Schuster, like Sidley Austin, took the Harvard credential seriously. It should not have. For three years Obama floundered as badly as Michelle had at Sidley Austin. Simon & Schuster finally pulled the contract. Then Obama found his muse -- right in the neighborhood, as it turns out! And promptly, without further ado, the awkward, passive, ungrammatical Obama, a man who had not written one inspired sentence in his whole life, published what Time Magazine called "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician." To question the nature of that production, I have learned, is to risk the abuse promised to Mr. Chen's theoretical employer. After all, who would challenge Obama's obvious talent -- or that of any affirmative action beneficiary -- but those blinded by what Obama calls "deep-rooted ignorance and bias"? What else could it be? |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16670 Registered: May-04 | . (little squiddybrain talking to itself in the only safe echo chamber it knows - itself ... ) Politifact is always biased. Factcheck is really biased. The Washington Spectator is definItely always really biased. Civil liberties? That's always leftwing stuff. Let them pull themself up by their bootstraps and stop being a parasite sucking on my money which is being confiscated by the lefties. And, of course, Jan is biased because the "strategy is (and you follow the conga line of freaks) to destroy the competition" by posting things that are always biased. yeah, right, I know the rules now ... So who am I gonna believe when everyone who doesn't post exactly the BS I want to believe is biased? Red State? They're always a reliable source for partisan BS I can accept. Maybe some joker named Jack Cashill who writes crap all the right wingnuts latch onto and pass around like it was a fact? http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=Early%20Obama%20Letter%2 0Confirms%20Inability%20to%20Write%20%20By%20Jack%20Cashill&type= And Hewitt's got a few loose bolts rolling around looking for a useable wingnut. doy-de-doy-doy ... (scretch scretch ... ) Geez, my hemmorhoids hurt ... And then there'sThe Fort Worth Star Telegram! Texas, right? Must be a conservative paper, right? They'll tell me what I want to hear rather than the facts which are always biased. OK I'm in the fetal position, wrapped in my anti-anxiety blanket and sipping my party approved Tea ... Let's take a look ... NO!!! NOOOOOOO!!! IT CAN'T BE!!! NOOOO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPENNING (SOB) EVERYONE IS BIASED EXCEPT ME ... Texas incentive funds touted by Perry draw praise, criticism ... As Perry campaigns for president, he is trumpeting Texas' unmatched success in creating jobs, and spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said he believes the two incentive funds are "a very important tool to maintaining Texas' competitive edge." But the funds have also come under fire for falling short of delivering on promised job gains and creating an appearance of political favoritism because Perry has accepted campaign contributions from companies that received taxpayer funds. There are also complaints that Perry exercises too much control over the funds. "The governor's office pretty much runs the program as a deal closing fund," Clower said of the Enterprise Fund. In 2010, Perry disclosed that a number of Enterprise Fund contracts, which carry clawback provisions if job goals aren't met, had been amended to make them more favorable for companies that struggled to meet targets during the recession. And in April, a state audit faulted the Emerging Technology Fund, saying Perry's office did not monitor the state's investments adequately, needed more transparent decision making and should prohibit advisory board members from investing in companies seeking money from the fund. Frazier said "a lot of those recommendations were already common practice," and noted that Perry signed a bill this year that requires several new disclosures, including the number of jobs actually created by each project. It also calls for the lieutenant governor and speaker of the House to each appoint two members to the Emerging Technology Fund's advisory committee, rather than the governor's office nominating all 17 members; sets new guidelines for recovering grant money when job targets aren't met; and requires committee members to file financial disclosures. Critics say there are still inherent conflicts of interest. "People on the left and right have questions about governments handing out money to private companies," said Andrew Wheat, research director at Texans for Public Justice. Last year, the Austin group reviewed 45 Enterprise Fund contracts and found that only 13 met job targets. "If you go down that road, you'd want to set it up to be as insulated from politics as [much as] possible and as transparent as possible. These programs fail miserably on both counts," said Wheat, whose group focuses on the impact of money in Texas politics. Last year, The Dallas Morning News reported that the Emerging Technology Fund awarded more than $16 million to firms with investors or officers who are large donors to Perry's campaigns. One, David Nance, landed a $4.5 million award for Convergen Lifesciences in Austin without the approval of a regional screening board. Nance has donated about $80,000 to Perry in the past decade. The New York Times reported Aug. 20 that John McHale of Austin gave Perry two $50,000 contributions, one before and one after G-Con, a pharmaceutical firm he helped launch, received $3 million from the Enterprise Fund. In both cases Perry or his representatives said the grants and the contributions were not connected ... The GE deal marked the seventh company with a Tarrant County location to win a grant from the Enterprise Fund. But according to the Texans for Public Justice study, four of the Tarrant deals - plus another involving Vought Aircraft, now Triumph Aerostructures, just across the county line in Grand Prairie - failed to meet job goals on schedule or were terminated, resulting in money being returned to the state ... The history of refunds on Tarrant area deals isn't necessarily representative of the Enterprise Fund in general. Of the 89 deals listed as of June 30, 31 have produced repayments totaling $25.8 million out of the $363 million that has actually been disbursed. Most repayments are for less than $200,000, although seven were for more than $1 million ... http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/08/26/3317016/texas-incentive-funds-touted-by. html?wpisrc=nl_fix . |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 669 Registered: Mar-04 | Ok Crazy woman the sources you cite have no bias. That is because they have fact in their title or perhaps they strive towards world peace. So in effect you are the "decider" as to what is truth/relevant and who is and is not "sane". That is quite the responsibility you have taken upon yourself, and you are foolish enough to believe you are up to the task. There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase often credited to P. T. Barnum (1810â€"1891). You call this 'regulatory reform'? James W. Lucas Professor Cass Sunstein has announced the first results of the regulatory review the President ordered at the beginning of the year. Sunstein is the regulatory czar to the czar of all the czars -- his former University of Chicago law school colleague Barack Obama. All federal regulatory bodies were to eliminate regulations that were unduly burdensome to small businesses. Private sector critics promptly called the reforms a drop in the bucket. Republicans in Congress have several legislative proposals to alleviate the federal regulatory burden on small business. However, all this begs a deeper question: why is the national government regulating small businesses in the first place? Let us quickly try to quantify the size of Professor Sunstein and Obama's drop in the bucket. Sunstein claims that the reforms could save businesses over $10 billion in compliance costs over the next five years. The Small Business Administration reports that the total cost of regulation to American business is $1.7 trillion annually. If we assume that Professor Sunstein's savings estimate is reasonable, and that regulatory costs will not increase over the same time period (a very unreasonable assumption), that makes the total savings from the regulatory review equal to 0.001% of the costs of regulatory compliance. That's one-thousandth of one percent for those who like their numbers spelled out. "Drop in the bucket" overstates the impact. Another way to measure the gross impact of federal regulation is to count the pages in the official publication of all federal regulations, the Federal Register. This is a bit crude as a measure, because a very long regulation may be fairly innocuous whereas a short one could have a massive cost imprint, but it is a decent rough gauge of the extent of the totality of federal regulation. The Federal Register for 2010 is over 81,000 pages long, a 19% increase in one year. We do not have a page count on the regulations to be repealed, perhaps because many of the revisions have yet to actually go into effect, but it is safe to assume that they will come nowhere near to matching the voluminous regulations still to be issued under the new Obamacare and Dodd-Frank laws. And there are also the numerous ongoing rule-makings by President Obama's hyperactive regulators at the EPA, NLRB, and the rest of the seemingly endless alphabet soup of federal regulatory bodies. Now let's put this in some perspective. The Federal Register was first issued in 1936. At that time it was 2,600 pages long (and that was after four years of the New Deal). The left will argue that growth in federal regulation is inevitable as our nation grows. So, let's look at that. From 1936 to 2010 the population of the United States grew by 240% (128 million to 308 million). Over the same time period the Federal Register grew by over 3131%. That means that the page count of federal regulations has grown at over 13 times the rate of population growth since the middle of the New Deal. And again, as noted, Professors Sunstein and Obama still have much, much more regulation to come. |
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Silver Member Username: Unbridled_idChicagoUsa Post Number: 670 Registered: Mar-04 | Trumka to Obama: Bolder Is Better Labor leader Richard Trumka said the jury is still out on whether hell recommend the AFL-CIOs participation in the 2012 Democratic National Convention. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Some of our affiliates will participate. Some wont. I dont know what Im going to recommend. That decision will be made with my executive council, the AFL-CIO president told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Some union leaders are upset that the convention will be held in Charlotte, N.C., a right-to-work state, though Mr. Trumka didnt mention that on Thursday. At the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver, AFL-CIO leaders participated in large numbers, using the event not only to lobby for union-backed proposals but also to help fire up the Democratic base to help generate votes for the presidential election. The AFL-CIO said at the time that a quarter of the more than 4,000 convention delegates were active or retired union members. AFL-CIO officials, including then-president John Sweeney, addressed convention audiences and sat on economic panels with Democratic leaders. While the convention might be up in the air, Mr. Trumka does know he wants to see bolder leadership from President Barack Obama on job creation not just focusing on little things and proposing only what Republicans are willing to accept. He added that Mr. Obama showed strong leadership early in his presidency by pushing for the stimulus bill but later made a strategic mistake by confusing the jobs crisis with deficit reduction. This is going to be a moment in history when our members are going to judge him, said Mr. Trumka. The consequence of a weak effort, he said, will be poor voter turnout among union members in 2012. That could hurt the president and the Democratic Partys down-ballot candidates. The AFL-CIO has already warned Democratic politicians that it will withhold funds from those who dont support labor-backed initiatives, such as a robust and long-term infrastructure bill, strong enforcements of trade laws and efforts to prevent more layoffs in state and local governments. Mr. Trumka said Thursday that the AFL-CIO has decided to form a so-called Super PAC funds that will be collected from various unions along with outside donors. The money will be used to build what Mr. Trumka called a better structure to deliver votes for union-backed candidates next year. He was short on details, however. He suggested the AFL-CIO will broaden its get-out-the-vote efforts beyond union members and affiliates. The Super PAC could also provide additional resources to fight state legislative battles that threaten to curb union rights. Meantime, Mr. Trumka said he is telling union members to watch President Obama and push him toward bold action. Theres not question that he can be the leading force. One of Barrys handlers "the walrus" is telling the genius what to do... I wonder if the walrus calls barry "boy" on his weekly visits to the white house... might as well. But one thing is for certain crazy woman, Barry has your "enlightened" vote come 2012... |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 16673 Registered: May-04 | . "So in effect you are the 'decider' as to what is truth/relevant and who is and is not 'sane'." No, you jerkwad, I just don't automatically head to the most partisan red meat blogs and talking heads for my information. I can figure out what is factual and what is purely BS. Apparently, you cannot. You, apparently, don't have a clue as to what a "fact" is or how to disseminate information to come to a logical conclusion. You won't accept a fact into your head because most of them will destroy the wingnut BS you've already implanted in there. The format for the thread was laid out in the first page. Read it and adhere to it and there will be no problems. Read it and find facts which are purely opposite what you've been told to believe. Read it and simply educate yourself for a change. Not everything comes from the far right blogosphere. Read it and learn how facts are formulated and how BS seeks to infect your mind and keep you from the ability to think and resason on your own. Otherwise, playing your little repub game where everyone not marching to the party line drum beat is "biased" remains what it is - pure crap. It is a simple propaganda/brainwashing technique which you don't seem capable of recogninzing for what it is. Either you get with the game or you don't belong here. The title of the thread is "Hard (as possible) facts". It is not "Look what some fool said without any supporting proof." So far, you've been the fool and you've posted crap that allows everyone to see just how big a fool you are willing to be. . |