Our #1 is a review of a new book “The Obama’s.” #2 talks about how the OWS is looking to divvy up the loot they took in. #3 looks at a Naomi Wolfe article on how Bush was lining up a dictatorship and applies it to President Obama. #4 asks the question is Wasserman-Schultz the dumbest person in congress. #5 looks at bias in the media. #6 is a story about how Obama wants to raise wages for government workers. #7 introduces us to Ludmya “Mia” B. Love who may be running for congress. #8 relates the problems with solar energy and why the market for solar seems to be collapsing.
1. Book: The Obama’s
Hope is easier to embrace than reality.
That is one of the themes of Jodi Kantor's new book, "The Obamas," which tells the story of the first couple's arrival in the White House and their subsequent struggles to adapt to Washington and its ways while facing expectations that may have been equaled only in the early days of JFK’s American Camelot.
Kantor's account of the Obamas' first weeks in the capital is a reminder of a euphoria that seems very far away today, as the president continues to grapple with a tepid economy and the lock step Republican opposition to almost every facet of his agenda. The question at his inauguration was whether Barack Obama would oversee a historic, transformative administration that could overcome partisan politics; the question now is whether he will survive his re-election campaign.
In retrospect, some of Obama's early promises seem hopelessly optimistic if not downright naive (for starters, he pledged to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of his first term, as well as to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year)…
That is one of the themes of Jodi Kantor's new book, "The Obamas," which tells the story of the first couple's arrival in the White House and their subsequent struggles to adapt to Washington and its ways while facing expectations that may have been equaled only in the early days of JFK’s American Camelot.
Kantor's account of the Obamas' first weeks in the capital is a reminder of a euphoria that seems very far away today, as the president continues to grapple with a tepid economy and the lock step Republican opposition to almost every facet of his agenda. The question at his inauguration was whether Barack Obama would oversee a historic, transformative administration that could overcome partisan politics; the question now is whether he will survive his re-election campaign.
In retrospect, some of Obama's early promises seem hopelessly optimistic if not downright naive (for starters, he pledged to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of his first term, as well as to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year)…
This looks like it might be a good read. The promise about hope between Israel and the Palestinians reminds me of an old joke (I’m updating it here). This person finds a magic lamp and rubs it and a genie appears. The genie asked what his wish was. The man takes out a map of the world and says he’d like peace in the Middle East. The genie said he can do magic, but even that is beyond what he can do. So the man says, “Okay, I’d like Tim Tebow and the Broncos to win the Super Bowl this year.” The genie looks at him and says, “Let me look at that map again.”
2. OWS dilemma
The cash is burning a hole in their pockets.
As the Occupy Wall Street movement loses steam, protesters are pitching new and creative ways to spend the $300,000 remaining in the kitty.
The group now raises just a few hundred bucks a day, down sharply from the tens of thousands that poured in daily at its height in November.
All told, it took in $706,855.91 in donations between Oct. 1 and Jan. 4. Much of what was already spent went to food, laundry, supplies and MetroCards.
Among the suggestions aired at recent OWS meetings on how to slice up the Occu-pie were:
1 Withdraw all the money in hundred-dollar bills, stuff the Benjamins in canvas bags and torch the cash in a bonfire on Wall Street. The incendiary proposal was dropped.
2 Split the loot among occupiers. “A lot of people aren’t thinking it’s such a crazy idea anymore,” one said. The twice-proposed measure was also withdrawn.
3 Buy a $150,000 piece of real estate for homeless protesters to live in. “At least 100 homeless people held down the center of our movement in Zuccotti Park by staying there and occupying the ground 24/7,” one homeless occupier wrote in a proposal, which also was withdrawn.
4 Spend $9,500 to break into a foreclosed home on Vermont Street in Brooklyn, fix it up and move a family back in. An OWS general assembly approved this outlay last month and it was done….
It will be interesting to see what they eventually do with the money. Are they more honest and trustworthy than politicians?
3. Obama’s Fascism in America in 10 Steps
Writing back in 2007, Naomi Wolfe catalogued the steps to creating a dictatorship (which she sought to apply to George W. Bush). Interestingly enough, they apply far more to the man who replaced him.
Wolfe's steps include:
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
Isn't that precisely what Occupy Wall Street has done with the banks and businesses? OWS has ties to Obama's friends in ACORN, as well as to SEIU. Isn't that what was done with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his attempts to save that state from bankruptcy? Isn't that what the EPA is doing with its endangerment finding -- claiming that carbon dioxide emitted by industry is going to cause catastrophic climate change? For that matter, isn't that precisely what was done by the Department of Homeland Security, whereby pro-life citizens, returning military, gun-owners, Ron Paul supporters, Christians, and just about everybody in "Red State America" falls under the category of domestic terrorist?
2. Create a gulag
FEMA is doing something that bears a disquieting resemblance to concentration camps.
And Madam Wolf worried about Guantánamo Bay, yet Mr. Obama has not closed it.
3. Develop a thug caste
At a town hall meeting in St. Louis held by Democrat Congressman Russ Carnahan, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), representative of government employees, beat a black man who was there selling flag pins. A woman was beaten up by an Obama supporter in Minnesota. A man had his finger bitten off in an assault by an Obama supporter at an anti-health care rally.
And let's not forget the entire Occupy movement of the 99-centers; they have been camps full of lawlessness, full of rapes and assaults. OWS was produced and organized by people close to the Obama administration.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system…
So what do you think? Is Obama trying to create a dictatorship in America?
4. Wasserman-Schultz: Perhaps the most stupid person in Congress
At issue was her criticism of GOP Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. According to Ms Schultz, as CEO of Bain Capital, Romney was responsible for layoffs made by companies which received Bain investment dollars. Following that logic Wallace asked Schultz if the CEO of the United States, President Obama was responsible for the layoffs at Solyndra
You see says Dumb, Dumb Debbie ""The decisions that were made at Solyndra that ultimately led to their bankruptcy were those of people who worked at Solyndra." The CEO of the investment company, the United States of America bears no responsibility. But the layoffs made at companies Bain invested in, were not because of decisions made by the people who worked at those companies, those were the fault of the CEO of the investment company.
The video below is almost comical the way Schultz tries to get out from under her own words.
You see says Dumb, Dumb Debbie ""The decisions that were made at Solyndra that ultimately led to their bankruptcy were those of people who worked at Solyndra." The CEO of the investment company, the United States of America bears no responsibility. But the layoffs made at companies Bain invested in, were not because of decisions made by the people who worked at those companies, those were the fault of the CEO of the investment company.
The video below is almost comical the way Schultz tries to get out from under her own words.
It is really funny to watch the video as little Debbie trips all over herself trying to explain why Romney as a venture capitalist was responsible for layoffs, but Obama as a venture capitalist in the green energy field isn’t responsible for any layoffs.
5. Media Bias, Stage Two
Scott wrote this morning about the absurdity of Republican debates being moderated by liberal activists like George Stephanopoulos and David Gregory, who, as Scott put it, are “on a mission to take down the candidates by making them appear crazy or by separating them from the base of the Republican Party.” But that is just stage one of the liberal press’s effort to control the presidential election cycle. Stage two comes when Democratic Party activists posing as journalists report on the proceedings.
From now until November, the leading offender likely will be the Associated Press. Today the AP described last night’s debate in November; its account began:
Mitt Romney brushed aside rivals’ criticism Saturday night in the opening round of a weekend debate doubleheader that left his Republican presidential campaign challengers squabbling among themselves far more than trying to knock the front-runner off stride.
Three days before the first in-the-nation New Hampshire primary, Romney largely ignored his fellow Republicans and turned instead on President Barack Obama. “His policies have made the recession deeper and his policies have made the recovery more tepid,” he said, despite a declining unemployment rate and the creation of 200,000 jobs last month.
The AP’s gratuitous editorializing is intended to suggest that Romney’s assertion that Obama’s policies have worsened the recession and weakened the recovery is self-evidently false. But that is absurd: the nation’s “declining unemployment rate” is all the way down to 8.5%, whereas it was 7.6% when Obama took office. Moreover, that comparison understates the deterioration in the nation’s employment since Obama took office, since hundreds of thousands of people have given up and left the labor force….
In actuality there are over 4 million Americans missing from the work force. That is the number that using history would have joined the workforce in the last three years that are missing. If you add them into the mix, the actual unemployment rate is near 11%.
6. Obama calls for a Raise for Government workers…
… The chief executive wants to give federal civil servants a half-percent pay raise. The absurdity of this proposal is clear in light of the excellent reporting of USA Today's Dennis Cauchon. In a series of stories in 2010 that drew emotional criticism from federal employee union leaders but no factual refutations, Cauchon used the government's own data to show that civil servants' compensation has far outstripped that of private-sector workers. "The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade," Cauchon found. "Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009, while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available." If anything, Obama should freeze federal pay indefinitely so private-sector employees can catch up with the bureaucrats.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2012/01/obama-guts-military-gives-raises-bureaucrats/2074876#ixzz1ixZIVkRG
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2012/01/obama-guts-military-gives-raises-bureaucrats/2074876#ixzz1ixZIVkRG
I thought civil servants had smaller pay but better benefits. It appears they now are top dogs on everything.
7. Introducing Ludmya B. Love
If you haven’t heard of Ludmya “Mia” B. Love before, you will be hearing a lot more about her. Mia has the potential to be the next big thing in conservative politics. And you heard about her here first!
Mia is the American-born daughter of Haitian immigrants, mother of three children, served on the PTA, city council and now is Mayor of Sarotoga Springs, Utah. She is an avid runner and shooter, and I’m sure the readers will love this tidbit:
She has a concealed carry permit and often packs a gun. Her husband introduced her to shooting on their first date. His first gift to her was a rifle.
She’s also recently announced that she’s running for Congress in the newly created 4th District of Utah….
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/01/mia-b-love-a-conservative-political-star-rises-in-utah/
An interesting story and a person who looks like a great candidate. Of course to the left she is the ultimate heretic being a woman and black and a conservative. Expect the left to pull out all the stops to stop her.
8. Solar Power’s demise
…But for generating continuous mains power, solar is a green toy. In clear sunny weather, the electricity generated from solar panels varies from zero at midnight to a modest maximum at midday, providing there is no dust on the panel. On a cloudy day, output varies from negligible to none. In all cases complete reliable backup generation is required.
Solar power is a high cost way of generating an intermittent and variable supply of electricity from a very dilute source while sterilising a large area of land.
The solar industry is only efficient at one thing - extracting unearned profits from tax payers and other electricity consumers.
As the growing global austerity starts to bite, all such frippery will evaporate.
The sagging market for solar panels is merely heralding that emerging reality.
There is a fossil fuel rush going on which the greens don’t want to acknowledge. They thought they had killed FF with AGW, but that has fallen by the roadside. They went on to say even if AGW isn’t a problem we will soon experience peak oil and we have to change anyway. But the boom of fracking and finding more and more gas and oil that are within our reach offers the world a new golden age with cheap energy and worldwide prosperity.
