I handed the teller @ my bank a withdrawal slip for $400.00
I said "May I have large bills, please"
She looked at me and said "I'm sorry sir, all the bills are the same size."
When I got up off the floor I explained it to her....
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My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco.
She asked the person behind the counter for 'minimal lettuce.'
He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg lettuce.
From Kansas City
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I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked,
'Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?'
To which I replied, 'If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?'
He smiled knowingly and nodded, 'That's why we ask.'
This was in Birmingham, Al.
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When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. 'Hey,' I announced to the technician, 'it's open!' His reply: 'I know. I already got that side.'
This was at the Ford dealership in Canton, MS
---
We had to have the garage door repaired.
The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a 'large' enough motor on the opener.
I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one Sears made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower.
He shook his head and said, 'Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower.' I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4.
He said, 'NO, it's not..' Four is larger than two.'
We haven't used Sears repair since.
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Sent to me by a dear friend.patriot, fellow Marine and memo reader about The Class Warfare we need. It is not just simply the rich versus the poor though Obama and his lot would have us simplistically think so. Framing it that way might make for politics the Obama way but as usual with him it is intellectually fraudulent. (See 1 below.)
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Some ancient history - about five years ago! (See 2 below.)
And Obama's economic plan for our nation sent to me by a long standing friend, fraternity brother and memo reader. (See 2a below.)
And just to make sure Obama wins, because he cannot run on his record, he will fix it through his Attorney General, that paragon of virtue.
All we need are more Panthers at polling sites. (See 2b below.)
Finally, why not take the low road it is so much faster and like ole Bill Clinton once said: "You gotta do what you gotta do!" (See 2c below.)
---
Iran effort to mollify the Saudis and build a relationship has begun. Whether it will work remains to be seen. (See 3 below.)
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Christian Coptic's beware - your days are numbered in Egypt. Obama will remain mute as will the entire Western World. Must not offend Arabs and Muslims while your own are beaten, harassed and plundered. (See 4 below.)
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"1984" warned us about "Big Brother." Well "Big Brother" has finally morphed into "Enormous Brother."
The key to losing individual freedom is for government to pass laws so eventually everything you do is in violation of some federal law. Laws are always passed under the guise of restraining wrong doers but they creep like Kudzu into the world of the innocent eventually entrapping them as well. (See 5 below.)
---
This was just sent to me by a friend and fellow memo reader and it tells the story of the RAF's greeting to Obama as their fly by spells out F--- O--. (See 6 below.)
Dick
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1)The Class Warfare We Need
By Steve Conover
The class deserving voters’ wrath is composed of society’s predators and parasites, who span all rungs of the income ladder.
Class warfare is emerging as a major theme for the 2012 presidential election campaign. “Millionaires and billionaires”—a reliable phrase that apparently continues to test well with the Democrats’ focus groups—are the easy target, because even though they receive a large portion of national income, they represent only a small fraction of the electorate. But are the millionaires and billionaires the right enemy? Not according to the Republicans, who warn that the major victims of a class war against millionaires would be small businesses.
In short, the class war as it stands today finds "Democrats accusing Republicans of siding with the rich, and Republicans countering that Democrats were taxing small business owners who create jobs." Voters are faced with an apparent dilemma, a contest between the two powerful emotions of envy and fear: should we let our envy of the supposedly too-wealthy, too-powerful “rich” outweigh our fear of damaging the economy’s ability to create private sector jobs? Which side should we take in the unfolding class war: the Democrats’ message exploiting envy, or the Republicans’ message exploiting fear?
The true heroes in our economy are the producers and earners; they can be found all the way up and down the income ladder, and class warfare should defend and reward them instead of targeting them.
It’s a difficult dilemma—but, fortunately, it’s also a false dilemma. Why? Because, as it stands today, the class war has misidentified the enemy. Not all of the rich are the “bad guys” who deserve targets on their backs. By the same token, not all of the remainder are the “good guys” who deserve to be defended—and that includes the middle class, the poor, small businesses, and any other group we don’t usually think of as rich. It’s just not as simple as “the rich versus the rest.”
The graphic below illustrates the underlying error: the class of people who deserve our enmity is not precisely “the rich” at the very top of the income ladder; instead, the class deserving voters’ wrath is composed of society’s predators and parasites, who span all rungs of the income ladder.
The point is this: If we’re going to have a war, let’s do it right. The battle lines should be drawn orthogonally to the oversimplified “rich versus the rest.” A virtuous war would be one that rewards society’s honest earners and productive contributors, while punishing society’s predators, pirates, and parasites—all without regard to anyone’s income level. It is a target-rich environment that includes anyone (of any income level) who is cheating to win, any business or union (of any size) with its snout in the public trough, any politician filling that trough and feeding those snouts for reciprocal gain, and any group using the political system (at any level) to maintain its monopoly, or its winning “edge” against less-well-connected competitors.
Among “the rich” are many entertainment superstars, artists, CEOs, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Are all of them villains because of their huge incomes? Of course not. Most of them get where they are because they produce things that entertain us, make us more productive, save us money, or save us time. Most are “rich” because they earned it—and because they earned it, they do not deserve to be targets in the class war.
It’s just not as simple as ‘the rich versus the rest.’
It’s also true that not everyone at the top earned their way to that position. For example, a few are the well-positioned rentiers leveraging their strategic position at a bottleneck in the financial system. As economist Tyler Cowen points out, "The high incomes in finance should give us all pause." Why? Because much of it was not earned; it was instead obtained by gaming the system, by staying a step ahead of the statutes, by keeping profits privatized and risks socialized, and by monetizing moral hazards. This group includes Wall Street firms employing high-speed data feeds into computers programmed to beat less-sophisticated market participants by using a trading technique known as “quote-stuffing,” a method designed to submit-and-retract thousands of dummy bids per second in the profitable quest for fleeting arbitrage events worth pennies each. This group stays one step ahead of the letter of current laws and regulations, lobbies to prevent unfavorable changes in those regulations, nudges the free market a step closer to a fake market, and extracts the resultant economic profits from a comparatively inexpert investing public.
As economic historian Joel Mokyr said of some past economic successes, “Prosperity and success led to the emergence of predators and parasites in various forms and guises who eventually slaughtered the geese that laid the golden eggs.” Might today’s Wall Street situation be a contemporary example of history repeating itself? Cowen’s article implies as much. In any case, any Republicans (or Democrats) who think the profitmaking methods described above are worth defending will have an increasingly difficult time doing that, and deservedly so. As the above diagram depicts, some of “the rich” fall into the class known as “predators and parasites” whose profits are large but not earned.
Some businesses—large and small, national and local—are sufficiently well-connected politically to maintain their comfort and longevity by extracting government subsidies for their special interest.
However, predators and parasites inhabit more than just the ranks of “the rich.” Examples abound. Some tech-savvy individuals and small businesses prey on the elderly, on government programs, or on vulnerable computer systems in governments and other businesses. Some public-sector union bosses are powerful enough to swing elections toward the candidates who will sit on the other side of the negotiating table, thereby bending the public trust to their special advantage. Some businesses—large and small, national and local—are sufficiently well-connected politically to maintain their comfort and longevity by extracting government subsidies for their special interest, or by getting their political friends to pass favorable legislation against competitive threats. The politicians on one side of crony capitalism, as well as the business managers on the other, are part of the problem a virtuous class war should be designed to fix.
A proper class war would require Democrats and Republicans to admit that the distinguishing characteristic of the enemy is not the level of income or wealth; rather, it is whether that income or wealth was earned. The true heroes in our economy are the producers and earners; they can be found all the way up and down the income ladder, and class warfare should defend and reward them instead of targeting them. Conversely, the proper targets are the class that includes cheaters, predators, pirates, and parasites—who can also be found at all income levels.
If class warfare is inevitable, let’s at least go after the right enemy. Fingering “millionaires and billionaires” as the culprits is the easy way out; it might pass muster in focus groups and might fit well into campaign speeches, but it doesn’t even come close to a proper description of the true enemies of economic growth and broadly shared prosperity. If we can target the right enemy, we’ll be fighting a good war; in that case, by all means, let the 2012 class war begin in earnest.
Steve Conover retired recently from a 35-year career in corporate America. He has a BS in engineering, an MBA in finance, and a PhD in political economy. His website is www.optimist123.com.
FURTHER READING: Conover also writes “The Fatal Flaws of a Balanced Budget Amendment,” “How Democrats—and the Tea Party—Get Reagan Wrong,” and “The Myth of Middle-Class Stagnation.” Michael Barone contributes “Obama Pursues Poor, Not White Working Vote.” Alan D. Viard asks “Do Taxes Narrow the Wealth Gap?” Jonah Goldberg discusses “Corporate Jets and Tax Breaks.”
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2)Who is really to blame? Who is accountable and responsible to the citizens of our Republic for the economic mess we are in today?
Here are two separate articles basically stating the same thing…both are in the English language, but the conclusions are radically
different…please read both.
Remember the day the Democrats took over?
Or, in other words, it's still Bush's Fault because so many people don't remember.
Don't just skim over this, read it slowly and let it sink in. If in doubt, check it out.
First Story
The day the democrats took over was not January 22, 2009, it was actually January 3, 2007. This is the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, the start of the 110th Congress.
The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103 rd Congress in 1995.
For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", remember the day,
(January 3, 2007) the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress.
At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember, that day? Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee. The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy? BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things), dumping $5-6 TRILLION of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(GEORGE BUSH ASKED CONGRESS 17 TIMES TO STOP FANNIE & FREDDIE - STARTING IN 2001 - BECAUSE IT WAS FINANCIALLY RISKY FOR THE US ECONOMY).
And who took the THIRD highest campaign pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA!!!!!
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress.
So when someone tries to blame Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"
Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving.
Set the record straight on Bush!
"It's not that liberals aren't smart, it's just that so much of what they know isn't so" -Ronald Reagan
But it's Bush's Fault!
As president Reagan said (paraphrasing): "The facts can be stubborn realities to deal with."
Second Story
The Washington Post babbled again recently about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush. Amazingly enough, a lots of people swallow this BULL.
So once more, a short civics lesson.
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress - since
January 2007, it has been the Democrat Party.
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008, 2009, as well as 2010 and 2011.
DURING THAT TIME THERE HAS BEEN NO BUDGETS PASSED!
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush
somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
For fiscal year 2009, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid by-passed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government
running until Obama could take office. Then they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets.
And where was Obama during this time? He was a member of the very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills.
And then, as President, he signed the omnibus bill into law!
Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in
five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Obama, who voted for the budgets.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is: "I inherited a deficit that I voted for, and then I have expanded that deficit four-fold since I took office".
2a)Obama’s economics says profits from a successful business are inherently bad.
Growing a business thru investing the profits into the business is inherently bad.
The owners who invest in their business and earn profits are inherently bad. This whole system of capital investment to create profits is inherently bad. It is an unfair system. It benefits the privileged few shareholders at the expense of the employees.
Taxes are good. Taxes are what makes businesses grow. Taxes incent the shareholders to invest more in a business. The government knows better which businesses should grow. The government knows better how businesses should compete. Taxes create jobs…for the tax collectors, the regulators, the lobbyist lawyers, the twenty million government workers. Tax funded entitlement programs motivate citizens to work more productively.
The evidence supporting Obama’s economics can be found in the growth economies of Greece, Italy, Spain, France and England.
China’s growth comes from industries which have been released from communist control and have created millionaires and billionaire owners and millions of prospering job holders. According to Obama, that is inherently bad. Those industries in China which are still subject to government ownership and government planning are surviving because of subsidies paid for with taxes. That is inherently good.
Bankers who make loans and try to collect repayment of those loans are inherently bad. Investment bankers who raise capital for business owners thru stock and bond sales are inherently bad. They are inherently bad because they charge fees for their capital raising efforts and interest for their loans.
America’s inventors and innovators, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Hewlett and Packard,
Larry Ellison, Jack Welch , Ralph Lauren and the dozens of others who made America great are inherently bad because their vast personal wealth which was accumulated as a result of their investment, innovation and creativity is so much greater than the income of their employees. Job creation resulting in the accumulation of wealth is inherently bad.
These are the basic tenets of Obama Economics:
Wealth is bad…
Income disparity thru investment and ownership is bad…
Investing for profit is bad…
Confiscatory taxation is good…
Private ownership of a business for profit is bad…
Government control and regulation of business stimulates growth…
Government subsidies and loans to “green businesses” is good…like Solyandra
If you want America to look the European Economic Model, re-elect Obama. Robert Owen, Henri de Saint Simon, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx are Obama’s intellectual mentors. Obama’s recent campaign rhetoric reeks of class distinctions and the immoralities of wealth. It reads like the 18th and 19th century utopian tracts which venerated the redistribution of wealth and denigrated the concept of merit and its rewards as an immoral attribute.
Know the consequences of this next Presidential election… its outcome can permanently change the 200 year old American tradition that hard work and risk taking with your capital deserves a compensatory reward.
2b)Holder Signals Tough Review of New State Laws on Voting
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
AUSTIN, Tex. — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday entered the turbulent political waters of voting rights, signaling that the Justice Department would be aggressive in reviewing new voting laws that civil rights advocates say will dampen minority participation in next year’s elections.
Mr. Holder urges political parties “to resist the temptation to suppress certain votes in the hope of attaining electoral success and, instead, achieve success by appealing to more voters.”
Declaring in a speech that protecting ballot access for all eligible voters “must be viewed not only as a legal issue but as a moral imperative,” Mr. Holder urged Americans to “call on our political parties to resist the temptation to suppress certain votes in the hope of attaining electoral success and, instead, achieve success by appealing to more voters.”
The speech by Mr. Holder could inflame a smoldering partisan dispute over race and ballot access as the 2012 campaign cycle intensifies. It comes as the Justice Department’s civil rights division is scrutinizing a series of new state voting laws that were enacted — largely by Republican officials — in the name of fighting fraud.
Mr. Holder spoke here at the presidential library of Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The act enables the civil rights division to object to election laws and practices on the grounds that they would disproportionately deter minority groups from voting — even if there is no evidence of discriminatory intent — and to go to court to block states from putting the laws in place.
Mr. Holder also laid out a case for replacing the “antiquated” voter registration system by automatically registering all eligible voters; for barring state legislators from gerrymandering their own districts, and for creating a federal statute prohibiting the dissemination of fraudulent information to deceive people into not voting.
His remarks came against the backdrop of a huge turnout of young and minority voters in the 2008 election that helped propel President Obama to victory. In the 2010 election, when voting by such groups dropped off and enthusiasm among more conservative groups surged, Republicans won sweeping victories, winning or expanding control of many state legislatures and governorships.
This year, more than a dozen states enacted new voting restrictions. For example, eight — Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin — imposed new laws requiring voters to present state-issued photo identification cards. Previously voters were able to use other forms of identification, like bank statements, utility bills and Social Security cards.
Proponents of such restrictions — mostly Republicans — say they are necessary to prevent voter fraud that could cancel out the choices of legitimate participants. Opponents — mostly Democrats — say there is no evidence of meaningful levels of fraud and contend that the measures are a veiled effort to suppress participation by hundreds of thousands of eligible voters who lack a driver’s license.
Mr. Holder quoted with approval a speech by Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and longtime civil rights activist, who recently declared that voting rights were “under attack” in “a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process.”
The attorney general noted that the Justice Department is reviewing the new laws in South Carolina and Texas requiring voters to present photo ID cards. It has sought information from the states about the demographic breakdown of eligible voters who do not have such identification to see whether the rule would disproportionately deter minorities from voting.
Mr. Holder also singled out litigation with Florida over a new state law restricting the availability of early voting — including banning it on the Sunday before Election Day, when black churches traditionally follow services with get-out-the-vote efforts. It also imposed new rules on groups that conduct voter registration drives, including fining them whenever workers do not turn in registration forms within 48 hours. In response, the League of Women Voters has stopped registering new voters in Florida.
“Although I cannot go into detail about the ongoing review of these and other state-law changes, I can assure you that it will be thorough — and it will be fair,” he said.
In a question period, Mr. Holder added that he was “concerned about some of the legislation passed recently” that he said tended “to restrict in ways that are subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, the ability of the American people to cast their ballots.”
Mr. Holder has been a popular target for Republicans, most recently because of a disputed gun-trafficking investigation called Fast and Furious, and his speech seemed likely to heighten partisan frictions. A group of protesters rallied outside the library on Tuesday afternoon, and several dozen greeted his arrival with signs supporting voter identification laws or urging him to resign.
Catherine Engelbrecht, who said she organized the rally, faulted Mr. Holder for taking what she called divisive tactics of suggesting that “photo voter ID” laws are an effort to “suppress” eligible voters. She said such laws are necessary to guard against “real problems with the integrity of the elections process.”
Such problems, Ms. Engelbrecht said, included people showing up at polls without any identification, or showing up with multiple voter registration cards in different names, and being allowed to vote; she said she had not witnessed such irregularities during her own service as a volunteer at polling places, but had heard about them happening from other poll watchers.
In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law requiring voters to present photo ID cards, ruling that the state’s interest in preventing fraud outweighed the burdens the law placed on voters. That case, however, was based on the Constitution’s equal-protection clause and did not address the different standards imposed by the Voting Rights Act.
In a 2009 case involving a Texas water board, the Supreme Court said that a key section of the Voting Rights Act, despite its “undeniable” historic importance, “now raises serious constitutional concerns” because it intrudes on states’ rights. However, it declined to strike down the law.
There are five pending lawsuits asking the court to strike the law down. But Mr. Holder argued that the protections were still necessary — pointing, among other things, to a Texas redistricting plan that a court ruled discriminated against Hispanic voters. His reference prompted applause in the packed auditorium.
John A. Payton, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, one of several rights group leaders who attended Mr. Holder’s speech, said it was “really important that he bring the powers that he has to bear on this challenge to our democracy,” contending that “we have not seen this much action that will have the effect of limiting people’s ability to vote” since the Voting Rights Act was signed.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 13, 2011
A previous version of this article misstated when Robert Driscoll worked for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division; it was in the administration of George W. Bush, not Ronald Reagan’s. (And a previous correction misstated that it was the elder George Bush’s administration.)
2b)Democrats Follow Obama Down the Low Road
By Karin McQuillan
It is not good for our country when a president of the United States singles out one group and tries to get the public to blame that group for the terrible problems facing us. Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much politically. These days, we can't even agree on the basic proposition that scapegoating is destructive.
Scapegoating tears a country apart. It distracts us with false solutions when we are facing an economic emergency and have no time to waste. And it raises the specter of violence -- actual physical violence, with businesses destroyed and people hurt and killed. Yet Democrats applaud President Obama's scapegoating rhetoric.
On a recent visit to the East Coast, I was told by dear friends and relatives who know I'm a Tea Party Republican that Republicans are selfish (three times), moronic (four times), crazy (once), and racist (twice). I witnessed friends and family scared about lost jobs, failing businesses, losing their homes, their retirement money, friends with college grads who can't get a job and are living at home. Every day of my visit, I witnessed these people who are so dear to me rant on and on, faces contorted with angry enthusiasm, against "The Rich."
What if instead of "The Rich," we called them the Jews, or the lawyers, or the bourgeoisie? Why is it so comfortable to blame one group of citizens for our enormous and complex problems when we call them The Rich? Scapegoating is evil, whatever the group targeted. This is a form of hate-mongering Republicans can't stop -- Democrats have to speak out and stop it.
It is not politics as usual. It has never existed in our lifetimes in America. Why are Democrats cheering the president on instead of saying, no, this is not okay, even if it plays well in the polls? We are not going to scapegoat a class of people for the country's problems. We don't target anger on groups of fellow citizens in
America.
Here is another reason why Democrats should care. A leader scapegoats for one purpose: to deflect public attention away from how the public is being screwed by said leader. Our federal government is spending at a rate the country cannot afford. Obama wants his followers to think we can afford it, if only the top 1% of earners would give a little bit more. This is a lie. It may be a comfortable lie for Democrats, but it is one that none of us can afford to believe.
One liberal friend told me that she can't stand hearing any more about our debt-to-GDP ratio. None of us can stand hearing about it. It is terrifying. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal debt will rise to 101% of GDP in ten years. That's Greece territory.
The Rich don't have enough money to pay for $4,000,000,000,000 (that's trillions) a year in government spending -- not even if the government confiscated 100% of their income every year. Yes, that is every penny they earn.
Democrats could vote to take every penny of the income of families who make $100,000, and it still doesn't pay for our yearly federal budget. Why? They earn only $3.4 trillion in taxable income. Our president has spent $3.6 trillion this year, we are in debt for 15 trillion, and the looming Social Security deficit is over $50 billion this year -- and $500 billion in a decade (again via the CBO). And still the Democrats are asking for more. The money isn't there.
Either our government -- that means both parties -- faces reality and makes actual spending cuts, or we are finished as a prosperous nation. If we don't curb our spending, our economy will sink into something that made the Depression look like child's play.
Note that this disaster is completely bipartisan. The ballooning federal government has been created over decades by Republican and Democrat presidents and Congresses. There are big forces of history at play -- to name two of the biggest, longer lives and medical miracles are bankrupting Social Security, and China's unfair trade practices have gutted our industrial sector. Democrats and Republicans have failed to cope with these challenges.
The long-term problems aren't Obama's personal creation. But he and his loyal base are responsible for how they choose to meet these challenges. The summer debate on raising the debt ceiling focused the public's attention for the first time on where we stand: right at the edge of the abyss. Everyone is scared. Fear gives rise to anger. Obama's poll numbers plummeted. This is when scapegoating became the policy of choice for Democrats.
Obama's pollsters told him that his chance of being re-elected on his record was zero. But they had good news for him: Obama didn't have to do anything as hard as tackling our economic problems. He didn't have to pivot to the middle and find bipartisan solutions as Bill Clinton did. Obama didn't need to change his budget proposal, which still calls for increased spending. He didn't need to respect the Tea Party's grassroots demand for budget responsibility. All he had to do was make speeches about how the rich are too greedy to pay their fair share.
So that's what we've had since the Martha's Vineyard vacation: three months of nonstop Blame Game. It's gone on and on because Obama's loyal followers like it. They think it's strong leadership.
Obama was advised to scare people about Social Security, make them think Republicans are greedy, evil, moronic, "you're on your own" extremists. The liberal media and pundits are working overtime on the same message. They are thrilled that Obama has changed the topic from the need to lower government spending to the unfairness of income inequality. Of course, Obama promises Democrats that he will raise taxes on only Other People, the undeserving millionaires and billionaires. No one has to do anything hard -- the millionaires and billionaires will pay for it all. Nothing has to be cut. Nothing has to change.
I can't help but smile as I write this. Obama's ploy is so childish, even ridiculous -- and yet it works! I heard each and every talking point coming out of my liberal friends' mouths. This is the power of leadership. My smile doesn't last. It hurt me to see a friend's love for her handicapped child abused, turned into gut-wrenching fear of Republicans -- and then to see her gentle face all blurry and distorted with anger, a few inches from mine, as she yells into my face that Republicans want to abandon her child because we're not willing to pay taxes. In that moment, the potential violence of the OWS crowd became chillingly real.
We are getting toxic leadership from this White House. Obama doesn't have the power to destroy my old friendship. But he does have the power to destroy our country. Only Democrats can stop him
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3)Iran propositions Saudis, seeks anti-US pact, offers nuclear cooperation
A large Iranian delegation led by Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi visited Riyadh Monday, Dec. 12 and put a proposition before Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz: Why not bury the Saudi royal house's historic feud with the ayatollahs of Tehran and form an anti-US and anti-Zionist pact for leading the Middle East? The Iranians boasted that after the seizure of America's top secret drone technology by a successful cyber attack they must now be accepted as the superpower of the region.
Prince Nayef agreed to receive the delegation following a request from the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Moslehi is one of his closest advisers and a leading antagonist of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was not told about the visit.
Iranian sources report the Iranians pushed hard for a partnership with the Saudis on such issues as oil, Iraqi, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen, on most of which Tehran and Riyadh are in direct collision. Saudi Arabia spearheads the Persian Gulf emirates' campaign to establish a bloc of Sunni Arab kings and rulers to fight off Iranian expansion and the influence of the Shiite Hizballah and Syria.
The visitors to Riyadh pointed out that a Saudi-Iranian axis in the region would be strong enough to freeze out American and Turkish meddling in the Arab Revolt. It would draw its strength from the combination of Iranian military, intelligence and nuclear capabilities on the one hand and Saudi power and wealth on the other. For the sake of this pact, Moslehi said, Tehran was willing to share its nuclear program with Riyadh.
The Moslehi delegation represented high-ranking Iranian military and intelligence chiefs, while Prince Nayef was attended by the heads of Saudi intelligence services, including Director of General Intelligence Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz.
The two figures conspicuously absent were the top men orchestrating the Arab Revolt and Iraq from opposite sides of the table: Saudi National Security Adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan and commander of the Iranian Al Qods Brigades, Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Bandar heads the apparatus funneling weapons, money and fighters to the Syrian opposition fighting President Bashar Assad, Tehran's senior ally, while Soleimani leads the counter-campaign for keeping the Assad regime extant.
Nevertheless, the Iranian visitor is reported by sources as explaining to his Saudi hosts that an understanding between them had been reached before and could be reached again. He referred to the May 2008 agreement on Lebanon known as the "Doha Accord," under which Iran, the Persian Gulf states and Syria agreed that the Lebanese crisis would end without winners and losers but with a power-sharing arrangement granting representation to all the country's adversarial forces, including Hizballah.
Tehran saw no reason why the same principle could not be applied to the Syrian crisis. The bloodshed and the horrors of civil war could be saved by bringing the opposition factions into the Damascus government.
In return for these understandings, Moslehi proposed an Iranian-Saudi deal for the future of Iraq following the American withdrawal. Iran, he said, was willing to guarantee the rights of Iraq's Sunni community and their participation in Nouri al-Maliki’s government in Baghdad.
Turning to the nuclear issue, military sources report the Iranian intelligence minister maintained that Tehran and Riyadh needn’t be rivals or develop separate nuclear programs, as proposed last week by Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal. Turki said that if Iran continued with its weapons of mass destruction program, the Persian Gulf states (including Saudi Arabia) would have no choice but to develop their own. Tehran, said Moslehi, was ready to open up its nuclear program, like its space program, to Saudi participation.
Crown Prince Nayef promised to bring the Iranian proposals before the king and senior princes and have an answer ready soon.
But Riyadh was ready sooner than expected with a response. Before even addressing their overture, Nayef acted to take the Iranians down a peg or two from their self-appointed military and intelligence superpower status.
In a broadcast Tuesday, the day after the Iranian visit, the Saudi television network Al Arabiya attributed the explosion at the Moadarress Iranian missile base in the Malard region west of Tehran on Saturday, December 10, to an assassination plot against Ayatollah Khamenei .
Khamenei’s son Mojtaba and senior Revolutionary Guard officers were described in the broadcast as having been detained and questioned in connection with the plot.
This TV item informed Tehran exactly how high the Saudis rate Iran's regional standing and the stability of its government.
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4)Egypt's Christian minority praying for a secular miracle
By Jeffrey Fleishman
"The whole country will collapse," says Shenouda Nasri.
"I'm trying to get my family out," says Samir Ramsis.
"This is the Islamists' time," says George Saied.
A caretaker sweeps the stones, a woman slips into a pew. But these days Egypt's minority Coptic Christians are finding little serenity. Islamist political candidates, including puritanical Salafis, are dominating parliamentary elections. Sectarianism is intensifying and the patriotic veneer that unified Egyptians in overthrowing longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak is threatened by ultraconservative Muslim clerics whose divisive voices had been suppressed by the state for decades.
"Our goal is to achieve an Islamic caliphate with Islamic sharia rules," Mohamed Zoghbi, a hard-line Salafi preacher, said this year on TV. "If Egypt becomes a caliphate, then the Middle East and Arab countries will follow our path. All Muslim youth should strive and die to build this caliphate even over their own bodies."
Copts are now anxiously watching a theological and political battle sharpen between Muslim parties that are expected to win at least 60% of parliamentary seats after the final round of elections in January. The struggle between the Salafis and the more moderate and popular Muslim Brotherhood will define an emerging political Islam and how deeply religion will be ingrained in public life.
That unresolved question is one of the most contentious in Islam. It has been energized as uprisings across the region have upended despots, leaving fertile ground for untested political voices that would have been unimaginable just months ago. It is a seminal moment for an Arab world that appears, at least for now, determined to reinvent failed secular governments through what clerics regard as the purifying prism of Islam.
"The Islamists have been unleashed," says Nasri, a pharmacist hoping to follow the lead of tens of thousands of Copts who have left Egypt this year. "You're talking about no rights for women. No rights for Coptic Christians. They'll make us more of a minority. It'll be like living centuries ago."
Coptic Christians make up 10% of Egypt's population of 82 million. They have coexisted in relative peace with Muslims for centuries, but even before the overthrow of Mubarak, they endured increasing deadly attacks on churches, including a bombing in Alexandria and incidents of arson in Cairo and other cities.
Copts have felt further isolated as radical screeds have echoed from mosques since Mubarak's rule was brought down by a popular rebellion in February that included secularists, Islamists and communists.
Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members were jailed under the former president. But as the "Arab Spring" burgeoned early this year, the once-outlawed Brotherhood, which for decades built a network of social and religious programs, quickly became the nation's most potent political force. It has attempted to calm secular Egyptians and the West by emphasizing democracy and civil rights as it moves to gradually expand Islam throughout the government while addressing the country's economic turmoil, poverty and neglected institutions.
But the Salafis, who had been apolitical for decades, are demanding an immediate debate on religion and saying the new constitution must be interchangeable with the Koran. Relying on satellite TV and money from the Persian Gulf, the resurgent fundamentalists epitomize Egypt's startling political upheaval. They show little concern for compromise or diplomatic sound bites. One of their groups, Gamaa al Islamiya, renounced violence long ago but its candidates are a link to the coarse sectarian voices that led to the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and terrorist attacks.
Wagdi Ghoneim, a popular ultraconservative Muslim preacher, fled Egypt's police state years ago. He has lived in the United States and the gulf, transmitting audio and televised speeches that resonate in Cairo's slums and outlying villages. He couldn't be more clear on where he stands.
"There's nothing called democracy. Democracy is built on the basis of infidelity," he says. "The Crusader Christians are a minority and we can never equate a minority's rights with the majority's.... How can they ask for the same rights as ours?"
Such rhetoric alarms Copts such as Ramsis, seated on a bench in the church courtyard, the Nile shining like a mirror beyond the marsh grass. Copts believe that Mary and the baby Jesus fled here to escape King Herod's soldiers. Ramsis, a math teacher with two children, is now contemplating his own possible flight from his native land.
"I was born in Cairo," he says. "But as a Christian I no longer feel like a whole citizen. I just want to go someplace where I can be respected."
He straightens his blue and yellow tie, brushes the sleeves of his pressed shirt. He fears that Salafis will forbid the building of churches and impose more Islamic education in schools.
"Everyone is afraid, not just Copts," he says. "People working in tourism, banking, antiquities. No one knows what the Islamists will do. The Muslim Brotherhood is trying to calm things. They're talking about tolerance. But we still have to be afraid. They have little political experience."
Nasri, the pharmacist, sits nearby. The bad economy cost him his job and he's scouring want ads and wondering how he can raise the money to move to the United States. The cross of his faith is tattooed on his hand and arm; he folds away the newspaper and watches the Nile. It does not soothe.
"I never used to think about the differences between a Copt and a Muslim," he says. "But the Islamists are telling people that we are not the same. It's all changed. Before, if you were on a bus … the police would stop it and pull off the bearded men. Now, everyone has a beard. I'm scared that even moderate Islamists will be influenced by these Salafis."
Car parts salesman Saied is less fretful. He prefers the long view, quoting parables and looking for omens as he seeks to decipher the changing fortunes of history. He believes the Arab world, despite being reshaped by revolt, will not forsake its Christians.
He also knows that the ruling military council, which took over after Mubarak's downfall and will stay in power until a president is elected in June, opposes the ultraconservatives' agenda. It has vowed to oversee the drafting of the constitution, to ensure it is not weighted too heavily toward Islamic law.
The Islamists will be "rejected in the coming years," he says. "It's a problem of political ignorance. Egypt has been in a coma for 60 years. None of our presidents since 1952 left office through elections. Now we're having one, and Muslims think they're doing God's will by voting for Islamists."
The Muslim call to prayer rises from the minaret across the street from the church.
"The Islamists will try everything to put more Islamic law into the constitution. But the moderate nature of Egyptians will not accept this for long.
"Look," he says, holding up a newspaper headline, "the Islamists are already fighting among themselves. Neither accepts the other."
The sunny courtyard grows crowded. A few tourists price rosaries and icons in the gift shop.
"A lot of Copts have left the country. This is a weakness," Saied says. "I lived abroad once as a young man, working odd jobs in Europe. I missed my people, my family.
"This is my land. I know Copts don't have full rights. I'll never choose to leave here again. But we don't want to change the tyrant Mubarak with a tyrant Islamic leader."
He speaks of a Bible that floated down the Nile and washed up near the church decades ago. He tells of apparitions of the Virgin and how Jesus was carried along these banks to safety.
"In tough times," he says, "we wait for a sign to comfort us."
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5)Criminal Code Is Overgrown, Legal Experts Tell Panel
By GARY FIELDS and JOHN R. EMSHWILLER
The federal criminal code has grown so large it ensnares everyday citizens who have no idea they are violating the law, a bipartisan group of legal experts told a House panel Tuesday.
There are about 4,500 criminal statutes, said Edwin Meese, attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and now with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "This is in addition to over 300,000 other regulations that don't appear in the federal code but nevertheless carry essentially criminal penalties including prison," he said. "So the vast array of traps for the unwary that lurks out there in federal criminal law is more extensive than most people realize." The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts figures some 80,000 defendants are sentenced in federal court each year.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's panel on crime, terrorism and homeland security,and several panelists cited an article in Monday's Wall Street Journal, part of a yearlong series about the expansion of the federal criminal code and the erosion of "criminal intent" requirements. The article chronicled the conviction of one Maryland man for actions prosecutors said weren't intentional. It explained how Lawrence Lewis ended up with a federal criminal record while trying to deal with clogged toilets at a military retirement home in Washington, D.C.
"He was subject to the same law that [would apply to] somebody who knowingly, willingly dumped toxic materials into a navigable water," said Mr. Sensenbrenner, who has introduced a bill to shrink the federal criminal code by a third and to define the level of criminal intent necessary to break the law.
Mr. Meese said the article was "a graphic example" of what is happening in the federal system. He suggested that fines or other administrative sanctions would suffice.
The subject has brought together lawmakers on both sides of the aisle critical of the expansion of laws and regulations at the federal level.
"We ought to get rid of the old myth that you're presumed to know the law," said Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), a member of the subcommittee.
Mr. Lewis's lawyer, Barry Boss, a Washington attorney with Cozen O'Connor, said the firm plans to seek a presidential pardon.
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6) The Anointed One and his wife made “protocol” fools of themselves several times during their “State Visit” , which was after NOT getting invited to the Royal Wedding that had occurred less than a month before “their” official “visit”.
But the real “kicker” is in fact “His” sending back the Churchill bust within days of “His” inaugural – If he didn’t want to look at the bust, then he could have just had it put in storage during his term. What right did he have to send back a gift to an Ally of all things, that was given to the American People, NOT to Barrack Hussein Obama personally!
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