Story #1 tells us what’s going on in Pennsylvania and it isn’t good news for the Democrats. #2 speaks to my theory of why Liberals lose elections. #3 talks about Operation Fast and Furious and how the Democrats are trying to tie it to Operation Wide Receiver. #4 looks at whether president Obama is trying to raise our taxes for the UN. # 5 looks at the Fannie and Freddie and what part they played in the financial crisis. #6 exposes a hole in the stat often used by the left to talk about inequality in income distribution. It seems it’s not as bad as they want you to believe. #7 is about Climategate 2.
1. Could Obama Lose Pennsylvania?
…HARD TO IMAGINE A DEMOCRAT COULD LOSE PENNSYLVANIA IN A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ESPECIALLY ONE WHO WON IT JUST THREE YEARS AGO BY NEARLY 10 PERCENTAGE POINTS.
Never mind that Republicans swept the state in last year's midterm elections, taking a majority of U.S. House seats, a U.S. Senate seat, both chambers of the state Legislature and the governor's mansion -- PENNSYLVANIA IS STILL 4 PERCENT MORE "DEMOCRAT" THAN HER MIDWESTERN COUNTERPARTS.
The latest survey from liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling showed 59 percent of white Pennsylvania voters disapprove of Obama's job performance, a rate usually found among Southern voters.
Sean Trende, a RealClearPolitics numbers analyst, said that while the president could write off Pennsylvania and win, it would be difficult. "The key would be holding the Bush states he won in the Mountain West -- Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, plus Virginia and North Carolina."
That path gives him 280 electoral votes and assumes he will lose Indiana and Ohio, which he almost certainly will if he loses Pennsylvania.
OBAMA'S MAIN PROBLEM IN PENNSYLVANIA IS DOWNSCALE WHITES, said Trende: "The white working class has never been crazy about this president, and really only came on board with the collapse of the stock market in September of 2008."
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE. "HE CALLED THEM 'BITTER,'" TRENDE SAID -- AND THEY HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN THAT….
Obama writing off Pennsylvania? - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/zito/s_770153.html#ixzz1ffbbHQbz
It’s one of the ironic things. Obama calls them bitter and they are bitter about that.
2. Why Liberals lose elections
Lenore Zimmerman, 85, was angry and embarrassed after what she claims was a STRIP SEARCH AT KENNEDY AIRPORT Tuesday. Now another woman in her 80′s at the very same terminal says she was exposed one day before.
From her home in Sunrise, Florida, 88-year-old Ruth Sherman says she knows for a fact senior citizens are being violated at a screening checkpoint at JFK…
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/12/04/another-elderly-woman-says-she-was-exposed-at-kennedy-airport/
Over and over liberals can’t believe that they aren’t permanently in power. Their individual policies are popular, but liberals are the party of government and over and over again we see the abuse, stupidity, and recklessness of power. And those popular policies never seem to work out as planned. The reasons liberals lose elections is because of the experience we have when they are in power.
3. Operation Fast and Furious
…IT WAS ALL A LIE. The angry denials, the high dudgeon, the how-dare-you accuse-us bleating emanating from Eric Holder’s Justice Department these last nine months.
Operation Fast and Furious — the “botched” gun-tracking program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — DID, IN FACT, DELIBERATELY ALLOW SOME 2,000 HIGH-POWERED WEAPONS TO BE SOLD TO MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL AGENTS AND THEN WALTZED ACROSS THE BORDER AND INTO THE MEXICAN DRUG WARS — just as Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, who are leading the congressional investigations, have charged all along.
That’s the conclusion we can draw from Friday night’s nearly 1,400-page document dump, which gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Justice Department as it struggled earlier this year to come up with an explanation for the deadly mess — and “misled” Congress….
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/284879/and-award-best-fast-and-furious-water-carrier-goes-michael-walsh
What makes this interesting is the way the left is trying to spin this. They are trying to say this is a continuation of a Bush era operation called Wide Receiver. Except it isn’t. Wide Receiver actually involved not gun-walking but controlled delivery. You can read about the difference in the link provided.
4. Obama looks poised to Tax Americans for UN Green Fund
PRESIDENT OBAMA'S TEAM OF NEGOTIATORS AT THE UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE MAY AGREE TO A TAX ON FOREIGN CURRENCY TRANSACTIONS, designed to pay for a "Green Climate Fund," that would fall disproportionately on American travellers and businesses, according to a group attending the conference that is skeptical of the UN position on global warming.
Negotiators at the conference are considering "a new tax on every foreign currency transaction in the world," according to the Center for a Constructive Alternative (CFACT). "EVERY TIME YOU TRAVEL ABROAD, YOU'LL HAVE TO PAY A CLIMATE TAX," explains CFACT, the group that released the Climategate emails. "More importantly, EVERY TIME WE IMPORT GOODS, EVERY TIME WE EXPORT OUR FINE PRODUCTS (THINK JOBS) WE WILL DO SO WITH A CLIMATE TAX SKIMMING OFF THE TOP."
European countries would evade much of the tax burden, however, because "transactions within the Eurozone won't have to pay this new tax…."
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/report-un-tax-americans-green-climate-fund/237466
Go to Lie of the Year contest http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/dec/02/2011-lie-year-finalists/ and vote for BHO’s comment, “I didn’t raise taxes once.” Of course that may be true since he’s raised them many times.
5. Fannie and Freddie
… When Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, pushed for comprehensive GSE reform in 2005, DEMOCRAT SEN. CHRIS DODD OF CONNECTICUT SUCCESSFULLY THREATENED A FILIBUSTER. Later, after Fannie and Freddie collapsed, Mr. Dodd asked, "Why weren't we doing more?" He then voted for the Bush reforms that he once called "ill-advised."
But Mr. Dodd wasn't the only Democrat to heap abuse on the Bush reforms. REP. BARNEY FRANK OF MASSACHUSETTS DEFENDED FANNIE AND FREDDIE AS "FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND" AND LABELED THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSALS AS "INANE." He later voted for the reforms. SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER OF NEW YORK DISMISSED MR. BUSH'S "SAFETY AND SOUNDNESS CONCERNS" AS "A STRAW MAN." "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT," WAS THE HELPFUL ADVICE OF BOTH SEN. THOMAS CARPER OF DELAWARE AND REP. MAXINE WATERS OF CALIFORNIA. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York berated a Bush official at a hearing, saying, "I am just pissed off" at the administration for raising the issue.
Democrats had ready allies among lenders accustomed to GSEs buying their risky mortgages. For example, ANGELO MOZILO, CEO OF COUNTRYWIDE FINANCIAL, COMPLAINED THAT "AN OVERLY CUMBERSOME REGULATORY PROCESS" WOULD "REDUCE, OR EVEN ELIMINATE, THE INCENTIVES FOR THE GSES AND THEIR PRIMARY MARKET PARTNERS."
It took Fannie and Freddie over three decades to acquire $2 trillion in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. TOGETHER, THEY HELD $2.1 TRILLION IN 2000. BY 2005, THE TWO GSES HELD $4 TRILLION, UP 92% IN JUST FIVE YEARS. BY 2008, THEY'D GROWN ANOTHER 24%, TO NEARLY $5 TRILLION. They held almost half of all American mortgages.
The more the president pushed for reform, the more they bought. Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute and Charles Calomiris of the Columbia Business School suggest $1 trillion of this debt was subprime and "liar loans," almost all bought between 2005 and 2007. THIS BULK-UP IN RISKY PAPER MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR BANKS TO LEND IMPRUDENTLY ON A MASSIVE SCALE.
Some critics blame Mr. Bush because he supported broadening homeownership. But Mr. Bush's goal was for people to own homes they could afford, not ones made accessible by reckless lenders who off-loaded their risk to GSEs.
THE HOUSING MELTDOWN IS LARGELY A STORY OF GREED AND IRRESPONSIBILITY MADE POSSIBLE BY GOVERNMENT PRIVILEGE. If Democrats had granted the Bush administration the regulatory powers it sought, the housing crisis wouldn't be nearly as severe and the economy as a whole would be better off….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123137220550562585.html
The Democrats continue to deny Fannie and Freddie’s part in the financial debacle, so here is an article from 2009.
6. Tax Rates, Inequality and the 1%
A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CB0) says, "THE SHARE OF INCOME RECEIVED BY THE TOP 1% GREW FROM ABOUT 8% IN 1979 TO OVER 17% IN 2007."
This news caused quite a stir, feeding the left's obsession with inequality. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, for example, said this "jaw-dropping report" shows "why the Occupy Wall Street protests have struck such a nerve." The New York Times opined that the study is "likely to have a major impact on the debate in Congress over the fairness of federal tax and spending policies."
But here's a question: WHY DID THE REPORT STOP AT 2007? The CBO didn't say, although its report briefly acknowledged—in a footnote—that "HIGH INCOME TAXPAYERS HAD ESPECIALLY LARGE DECLINES IN ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME BETWEEN 2007 AND 2009."
No kidding. Once these two years are brought into the picture, THE SHARE OF AFTER-TAX INCOME OF THE TOP 1% BY MY ESTIMATE FELL TO 11.3% IN 2009 from the 17.3% that the CBO reported for 2007.
The larger truth is that RECESSIONS ALWAYS DESTROY WEALTH AND SMALL BUSINESS INCOMES AT THE TOP. Perhaps those who obsess over income shares should welcome stock market crashes and deep recessions because such calamities invariably reduce "inequality." OF COURSE, THE SAME RECESSIONS ALSO INCREASE POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204630904577062661910819078.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
It appears JFK was correct when he said “A rising tide lifts all the boats.” The unsaid thing was a leak in the boat lowers everyone and puts the people who were lowest in the water.
7. Climategate 2
New and explosive revelations continue to emerge from the Climategate 2 emails, two weeks after the 5,000-plus emails were first publicly unveiled. While Climategate 2 does not share the “novelty factor” of Climategate 1, THE CONTENTS OF THE CLIMATEGATE 2 EMAILS ARE AT LEAST AS APPALLING AS CLIMATEGATE 1. Most importantly, the Climategate 2 emails SHOW SCIENTISTS AT THE FOREFRONT OF GLOBAL WARMING ACTIVISM ACKNOWLEDGING SERIOUS FLAWS IN ALARMIST GLOBAL WARMING THEORY, WORKING TOGETHER TO HIDE DATA CONTRADICTING ALARMIST GLOBAL WARMING THEORY, AND TAKING CONCERTED AND NEFARIOUS ACTION TO RUIN THE CAREERS OF SCIENTISTS AND PEER-REVIEWED SCIENCE JOURNAL EDITORS who publish studies and data that undermine alarmist global warming claims.
Global warming activists and their sympathetic media allies are attempting to paint the Climategate stories as merely frustrated scientists understandably acting catty in response to incessant personal attacks from global warming skeptics. Such a storyline is about as accurate and believable AS PAINTING THE WATERGATE SCANDAL AS RICHARD NIXON MERELY AND UNDERSTANDABLY ACTING CATTY IN RESPONSE TO INCESSANT PERSONAL ATTACKS FROM DEMOCRATS AND A HOSTILE MEDIA….
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/05/climategate-2-emails-loaded-bombshells
I posted this because I like the analogy. Well it is called ClimateGATE.
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