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Ever since I attached this (See 1 below.) to a previous memo, I have been receiving favorable responses from several friends.
I thanked them and encouraged them to talk this meeting up and to come because if you care about our city, the crime problem and getting competent people to offer themselves for public office then they need your vote, your financial help and support.
As far as I am concerned, Meg's candidacy is a matter above political affiliation. I would support her regardless of party.
Those who know me, know I am outspoken and people frequently pose this question to me: "Why don't we have qualified candidates to vote for?"
I understand their frustration and tell them there is no one reason but many. They involve the high cost of a campaign, the sacrifice imposed on their family and themselves and most of all the vulnerability, these days, of being in the public arena and the abuse and vitriol one takes.
Well, we have a qualified candidate in Meg Heap and she deserves your consideration.
I met Meg because a long and dear mutual friend of my wife and Meg's urged me to do so and give her my support if I deemed her candidacy worthy. I did and am.
I am providing you this opportunity at my own expense because I believe what Meg is about is just that important.(See 1 below.)
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Anger! (See 2 below.)
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Words have meaning and those from government are subtle but also generally meaningless and often even dangerous. (See 3 below.)
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Clint vs Barak. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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Welcome to 'Obamascare.' (See 5 below.)
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The president's budget is a political gimmick, as many are, but this one continues to disregard the financial plight in which we find ourselves. It is a blatant and arrogant attempt to change the course of our nation's direction from which we will never be able to retreat.
Its attack on the military spending in order to fund more government dependency programs should provide those who care insight into this president's ideology and is typical of progressive dangerous thinking.
But then that is this president's plan. Cripple our nation and make it pay for its past sins according to this president. (See 6 below.)
The other view.
You decide! (See 6a below.)
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The day after according to this hysterical writer or is he? Time will tell. (See 7 below.)
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Prof. Siegel writes: stocks will go higher because all life is relative.
The low interest rate, high liquidity market appears willing to climb that wall of worry until one of the major problems we and the world faces, hits the fan. Then it will go rapidly down and that is the way it has been and always will be.(See 8 below.)
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From a friend who remains mystified. He writes: "What I have never figured out is the way people are absolutely mesmerized with this guy-----what is the attraction?
Is it because they think he is the epidome of intelligence and the human race? Is it because he is so cool? Is it because he promises to take care of all of them with his/our stash? Is it because the celebrities want to be seen with and supporting him so it enhances their own careers? Is it because the masses are so naive, gullible, unaware, and uninformed that they truly believe he is the messiah?
I am totally dumbfounded and miffed by the entire situation. Will someone please tell me what I am missing.
I responded: "All of the above. We are taken in by glitz and are incapable of reasoning and understanding what the empty words mean.
For example - the Masterlock visit. Yes, the company took back some manufacturing from China abut , because of automation, less than one third now work in the plant and I doubt the wages of the newly employed are as high as they were prior to shipping the business overseas.
A lot of this is smoke and mirrors. All presidents emphasize the positive, spin it to suit their purposes and lie through their teeth while Americans, innocent dolts that they,are suck it up and continue clapping."
Far too much of what this, or any contemporary president does, is staged and orchestrated by handlers, media advisers etc. Presidents are too busy lifting their finger in the air to determine where the wind is coming from so they can craft their comments accordingly. They are no longer capable of telling anything in an unvarnished way. How sad indeed. (See 9 below.)
---If they can reach into your pocketbook why not your lunch pail? You owe it to Mrs. Obama to stay healthy and not be a burden on society - don't you get it you sniveling citizens? Government knows best so fall in line and salute and eat your damn greens! (See 10 below.)
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Dick
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1) The current serving DA has now been sued for sex bias. He is a lousy administrator and an incompetent. People have left his office in droves and Savannah has a serious crime problem. For these and many more reasons, I am supporting Meg Heap who is running to succeed Larry Chisholm.
The one drawback with Meg is she is extremely qualified and that is a novel thing in politics these days.Paticularly when it comes to Savannah.
I am hosting a 'Meet Meg' event Tuesday, March 13, at the Ballroom of The Plantation Club at the Landings at 5PM. Please come and if you are not a Landings resident let me know and I will place your name on a list at the main gate. .
MEG DALY HEAP
22 E. Bryan Street, Suite #143
Savannah, Georgia 31401
912-398-1512
Email: meg4da@gmail.com
PERSONAL
Born: September, 1964
Marital Status: Married - Children: 2 sons
EDUCATION
Saint Vincent’s Academy 1982 - Honor Graduate
Savannah, Georgia
Georgia Southern College June 1986
Statesboro, Georgia Cum Laude - Honor Graduate
Mercer University May 1992 - Juris Doctorate
Walter F. George School of Law, Macon, Georgia
EXPERIENCE
Solo Practitioner December 2011 to present
Attorney at Metts Law Firm August 2011 to December 2011
West Congress Street, Savannah, Georgia
Staff Attorney September 2010 to July 2011
Judge Penny Freesemann
Superior Court of Chatham County
Savannah, Georgia
Chief Assistant District Attorney January 2009 to August 2010
Eastern Judicial Circuit
District Attorney’s Office, Chatham County
Savannah, Georgia
Assistant District Attorney July 1995 to December 2008
Eastern Judicial Circuit
District Attorney’s Office, Chatham County
Savannah, Georgia
· December 2005: Assigned to prosecute the abuse of the elderly and disabled adults. The position was the first elder abuse prosecutor in the State. Duties also included education for the community and law enforcement.
· Previously assigned to the Superior Court Division prosecuting felonies. From 1995 to 1997. Also assigned to the State Court Division prosecuting misdemeanors.
Assistant District Attorney 6/1/92 to 7/30/95
Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit
District Attorney's Office, Cherokee County
Canton, Georgia
· Prosecuted felonies in the Superior and Juvenile Courts and handled civil condemnations. Offenses ranged from murder, child molestation, to burglaries, thefts and any other offense where the overall needs of the office dictated.
Volunteer Coordinator July 1986 to August 1989
Victim Advocate
Victim-Witness Assistance Program, Savannah, Georgia
· Recruited and trained volunteers in Chatham County to work with victims of crime through our court system.
· Volunteer coordinator of the year for Chatham County in 1988. Worked with victims of crime in coordination with DA’s Office.
Career Highlights
§ September 2005: Presenter at clergy training “Ministering to Vulnerable Populations: Child and Elder Abuse”
§ September of 2005: Presenter clergy training seminar called “Ministering to Vulnerable Populations: Child and Elder Abuse.”
§ December 2005: attended the National Triad Training Symposium in Tunica Mississippi.
§ March 2006: Presenter at the Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center Area Agency on Aging: Issue: Elder Abuse (Richmond Hill, G.)
§ April 2006: Adult Protective Services Statewide Seminar - prosecuting elder abuse. Skilled to Build: Shaping and Enhancing Services to Protect Georgia’s Vulnerable Adults
§ April 2006: Presenter at the statewide Adult Protective Services Seminar
§ April 2006: Presenter at First Baptist Church “Classics”, group of seniors on the issue of elder abuse
§ May 2006: Presenter at a training sponsored by the Greater Savannah Coalition on Aging for professionals who work with elder or disabled adults.
§ May 2006: Presenter on elder abuse at Consumer College, a training symposium for elderly citizens.
§ May 2006 - Greater Savannah Coalition on Aging: Adult abuse prosecution in Chatham County
§ May to June 2006: Presented training for law enforcement officers of Port Wentworth, Tybee Island and Savannah Chatham Metro PDs highlighting elder abuse law
§ June 2006: Training presenter for emergency room nurses for Memorial Medical Center- elder abuse warning signs, prevention and protection
§ September 2006: Presenter Smart Seniors at Candler Hospital - the issues of elder abuse
§ September 2006: Elder abuse to Georgia Recreation and Park Assoc.
§ October 2006 - Presenter at Tara Nursing Home - training of staff
§ October 2006: Presenter at Ga. Commission on Domestic Violence - best practices: redefining best practices through the survivor’s eyes
§ June 2007 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day - Brunswick for the Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center
§ August 2007: Statewide Ga. IAFN
§ Year of 2008: Presented a 2 hour block of instruction bi-weekly to officers with the Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department
§ Spring 2008: Article on in Georgia Generations - Scams that target seniors
§ March 2008: Ludowici Police Department - training on elder abuse
§ April 2008: Elder Abuse Conference (Valdosta State University)
§ April 2008: Consumer College (SALT) elder abuse and exploitation
§ July 2008: Presenter for the Coalition on Aging
§ August 2008: Presenter at the Utah Municipal Prosecutors on the issues of elder abuse
§ August 2010: Collaborated with Department of Homeland Defense in drafting a curriculum for training law enforcement on Native American lands on the issue of domestic violence.
Member of
o Greater Savannah Coalition of Aging
o Elder Abuse Multi-disciplinary Team
o Adult Services Advisory Council
o S.A.L.T. Council (Seniors and Law Enforcement Together)
o Senior Medicare Patrol Advisory Council
o Advisory Council for the State Long-term Care Ombudsmen Program
o Coastal Children’s Advocacy Center, Board of Directors
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2)ROOT: Things that make Obama angry in Park City, Utah
Confessions of a small business owner on a ‘working vacation’
By Wayne Allyn Root
I just returned from a “working vacation” at my Park City, Utah, vacation home. As I was sitting on the plane reading the newspaper, I noticed that President Obama’s new 2013 budget is out, and it’s chock full of $1.5 trillion in tax increases on the wealthy. Some people never learn.
Suddenly, I realized that just about everything I do in Park City makes Mr. Obama and his leftist cabal angry. My vacation experience is proof positive that the president understands nothing about economics or creating jobs.
First, Mr. Obama would be angry to hear I own a vacation home in a beautiful place like Park City. I can hear Mr. Obama now: “What right does Wayne Root have to possess such wealth while there are so many poor among us?”
A couple thousand years ago, Jesus said, “The poor will always be among us.” Because of liberals like Mr. Obama, nothing has changed. Rather than creating an environment to encourage ambition, personal growth and attempts at higher education or learning a valuable trade, Mr. Obama gives the poor just enough handouts and entitlements to kill their desire and keep them poor, dependent on government and voting Democratic.
I am sure Mr. Obama would be angry to hear I think I earned my vacation home. He is much more familiar and comfortable with people (generally his voters) getting something for nothing: welfare, food stamps, tax credits, housing allowances, stimulus, bailouts, school meals, health care, education, cellphone minutes. Personal responsibility and earning anything without government help are clearly foreign concepts to our president.
In the real world, it often takes 20 years (or longer) to achieve “overnight success.” I dreamed about, planned and worked like a dog for more than 20 years, risking my own money on a dozen different businesses, to earn the down payment on that vacation home.
I’m sure Mr. Obama also gets angry at the mere mention of my “working vacation.” Since he has never run a business, he would never understand this concept. He works for government, where the idea of a “working vacation” is a labor violation. But as a business owner, my business responsibilities don’t stop just because I’m away. On a typical vacation day, I work about 10 to 12 hours, leaving enough time for 3 hours of skiing. That’s the only difference between my normal 16-hour workdays at home and my “vacations.” But I’m not unique or special. Many business owners have a similar schedule.
Mr. Obama loves to paint business owners as “greedy.” He gets angry when we talk about the jobs we create with our 16-hour workdays, working vacations and incredible financial risks taken with our own money.
People like me don’t rely on government. We rely on ourselves. Government only gets in the way and steals our money, calling it “income redistribution.” But we just lower our heads and work even harder. Then, after years of hard work, one day we buy a vacation home. Does Mr. Obama realize this is the economic engine of America?
Our ambition, earning and spending are good for everyone. Any money you steal from us in the way of higher taxes prevents us from ever saving enough money to buy our dream vacation homes. This damages the economy and kills jobs.
Here is a lesson in economics for Mr. Obama.
When I bought my vacation home, I enriched the employees of the realtor, the developer, the furniture manufacturer and the bank that provided the mortgage. The building where my Park City condo is located now employs about 50 people, all of whom I’m sure appreciate the jobs created by me and fellow vacation homeowners.
On each trip, I enrich the employees of airlines, restaurants, the ski mountain and various retail stores.
Of course, the government takes its cut, too. There are property taxes and sales taxes on everything I buy while on vacation that pay for roads, teachers, and all those government employees’ salaries and pensions. I pay for all those but don’t use any of them. I don’t live in Utah, but I’ll bet all those Utah teachers and government employees are glad I own that vacation home.
I’m sure Mr. Obama is also angry when I buy skis and ski clothing. He thinks I should use that money to pay higher taxes. I’ll bet the employees of the ski store and the ski manufacturer disagree.
I’m sure that driving around Park City in my Cadillac Escalade makes Mr. Obama angry, too. But I’ll lay you odds that GM and their employees disagree. The employees of gas stations and oil companies are also happy. So are the government employees who get paid from the sales and gas taxes I spend on this luxury SUV.
The reality is that the ambition, dreams, hard work and spending of small business owners like me creates jobs by the millions.
Lastly, I’ll bet Mr. Obama would be angry to learn I skied down the mountains of Park City at 65.8 mph. Liberals are offended and aghast if cars speed at more than 65 mph. Nanny-state politicians such as Mr. Obama would blow a gasket to hear that a person skis at more than 65 mph.
Mr. Obama, this is called freedom. Please understand we are a nation of rugged individualists, living in a free country, with free will. I’ll spend the money I earn any way I want, and ski at any speed I want.
God Bless America.
Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee and is author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution With God, Guns, Gold, Gambling & Tax Cuts” (Wiley, 2009). He writes online at RootForAmerica.com.
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3)SOCIAL SECURITY NOW CALLED 'FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENT'/ENTITLEMENT!
Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a "federal benefit payment"?
I'll be part of the one percent, to forward this, our government gets away with way too much in all areas of our lives, while they live lavishly on their grossly overpaid incomes!
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THIS CALCULATION IS THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY COLLECTED THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY!!!! WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO?????????????
This is another example of what Rick Perry called "TREASON in high places"!!!
Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that's close to $220,500.
If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the government pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working you'd have $892,919.98.
If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.
The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.
Entitlement my butt, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!
Congressional benefits ---- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my social security retirement entitlements?
We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless.
In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile , and Turkey . And now Pakistan ......home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!
Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries!
They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.
Sad isn't it?
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4)What Would Clint Eastwood Do?
Regarding the nation's purpose, Clint Eastwood and Barack Obama couldn't be further apart.
By DANIEL HENNINGER
The Barack Obama budget document just released is not a budget. It is a work of literature. It is Barack Obama's published apologia for a second presidential term, in which—as the budget and its tax proposals make clear—he will reset the historic balance in America between the public sector and the private sector. This reset will require large wealth transfers—from individuals and companies to the government, and from the government back to the people.
The Obama budget is described everywhere as a "political document," but it is more than that. Mr. Obama hasn't assembled these ideas just to get elected. This budget is a statement of belief. It is a road map of where he wants the country to go.
This being so, it behooves us to revisit the most controversial political event of the past two weeks—Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl commercial for the Chrysler car company.
This ad was widely viewed as an argument for a second Obama term. It is undoubtedly true that the pro-Obama admen who created the commercial embedded a pro-Obama spin. Asked about this afterward, Clint Eastwood said simply: "I certainly am not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama."
No sensible person would try to disagree. When The Man With No Name looks at you dead on, as he did Super Bowl Sunday, and says it's halftime in America and the country will come roaring back, you know the man speaking those words wasn't talking about his embrace of the vision in Barack Obama's 2013 budget.
In terms of the nation's animating ethos, these two American icons could not be further apart. Clint Eastwood was talking about an America heading back up—"roaring" forward in the unpredictable, astonishing way it has since at least the days of the Wild West. The Obama budget is about an America whose path will be guided by the government far into the future. He is announcing that in his second term, the days of the private Wild West in America will come to a close.
There is no better way to discover this intent than in the president's tax proposals. Taxes are a nation's Rorschach test. In taxes you discover how a nation wants to be known to others. The burden of taxation may say that a nation more than anything wants to produce (say, Malaysia), or taxes may say that what a nation most wants is to be thought of as fair (Belgium).
What Mr. Obama wants, with the symbolic billionaire Warren Buffett propped at his side, is a wealth tax that redefines the U.S.
Regarding the nation's purpose, Clint Eastwood and Barack Obama couldn't be further apart.
Mr. Obama wants to enact the Buffett Rule to ensure that every "millionaire" pays at least a 30% federal tax on some definition of income. He would raise taxes on married couples making $250,000. The tax on capital gains would rise to 30% from 15%, and he would return the estate tax to 45%.
No more certain sign exists that a nation has chosen to step off its historic upward path than the creation of wealth taxes. A nation imposes a wealth tax when it wakes up one day to conclude that it has become embarrassed, rather than proud of, its wealth, which is to say, its national success.
We are not talking here about the vast wealth that closed, crony economies direct toward a small plutocracy and no one else, though this rigged scam seems to be Barack Obama's understanding of the modern American economy. The reality is that since its inception the U.S. has been an open, free economy that let wealth, including vast wealth, flow to dreamers, geeks and college dropouts whose unpredictable success multiplied into greater wealth for others.
Henry Ford's automated car-assembly line spawned a galaxy of parts factories filled with workers. Apple's little machines brought forth a universe of devices and applications.
The timing of such productive explosions is mysterious. The Obama wealth tax will smother and stifle this mysterious force.
France has the world's most famous wealth tax. They call it "the solidarity tax," which is the Gallic equivalent of the Obama "fair share."
Today France is famous for the flight of its productive citizens to other countries. Spain abolished its wealth tax, but then-Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a Socialist, re-imposed it last September. What these countries, and much of Europe, have in common are high rates of youth unemployment.
Youth unemployment is the disturbing symptom of an economy no longer dynamic or "young" in the sense of creating new wealth to replace old wealth. The United States lately has also developed relatively high youth unemployment, which suggests the problem here isn't fairness, but fatigue.
The Obama budget says one reason for its wealth taxes is to provide sufficient revenue to protect "the investments we need to grow the economy and create jobs." He does the investing, and the economy grows.
The Obama budget is about national attitude. Before this presidency, the national attitude was indeed caught in the snarling, disgusted, refuse-to-lose tone of Clint Eastwood's voice in that commercial. The new national attitude on offer is caught in the Obama voice: resentful, moody, looking for someone else to blame and then punish.
An American wealth tax will make us wimpy and whiny. That won't be halftime. It will be the final whistle.
4a) Obama and Other People's Money
What sets this president apart is how eager he is to fund his schemes outside the normal appropriations process.
By KARL ROVE
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that the problem with socialism is that eventually you "run out of other people's money." And it's not just tax dollars she was talking about, as the Obama presidency has shown.
Take the decision to force Catholic institutions to provide health-insurance coverage for sterilization, contraception and abortion-inducing drugs. When this decision caused an outcry, Mr. Obama offered the following compromise: Insurance companies will be ordered to provide such coverage "free" to employees of Catholic churches and organizations.
But of course, this coverage won't be free. Insurance companies will pass the cost on to policyholders, including those same Catholic institutions. In short, Other People's Money will be used.
Another example: To appear empathetic about housing foreclosures, the Obama administration pressured five banks to cough up $25 billion—$3 billion to the federal and state governments, and nearly $22 billion for payments to people foreclosed upon and to reduce the principal of mortgages with balances greater than the home's current value.
This will bail out no more than 10% of homeowners whose mortgages are underwater, according to an estimate by Chris Papagianis of the nonpartisan policy-research institute e21, who notes there is roughly $700 billion in residential negative equity across the country.
But the political optics are good—the banks can be tarred because of their paperwork foul-ups—and the $25 billion isn't from the federal budget. This also constitutes a use of Other People's Money, paid by all bank customers through bigger fees and higher interest rates.
Similarly, when Mr. Obama set up a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010 to make sure people are treated fairly, he wanted to hide the new bureaucracy's cost and limit congressional budget oversight. So he gave it an automatic draw on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. Now the massive new financial regulatory agency will take money collected from every bank and institution (and, in turn, their customers) that does business with the Fed.
Reuters
This tactic should no longer surprise anyone. Consider the provision in the president's health-care law that prohibits insurers from charging younger, healthier policyholders substantially less than older, less healthy policyholders. The upshot: Healthy 30-year-olds who go to the gym pay higher prices for health insurance than they should, thereby subsidizing the insurance of older policyholders who drink and smoke. The subsidies are all "free"!
Candidate Obama promised to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. But according to the Tax Policy Center, some 76 million Americans who file income-tax returns, or 46.4% of the total, won't pay any taxes. No problem. Through 2018, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, the administration's "Making Work Pay" program—if it is made permanent—would take $640 billion from people who do pay income taxes and give to those who don't in the form of a refundable tax credit.
In other words, the government will cut them a check. That was once called "welfare." Using Other People's Money allows Mr. Obama to call it "tax cuts."
Mr. Obama used taxpayer dollars for most of his auto industry bailout—with $37 billion still outstanding, most of which is probably lost forever. Even then, he still needed Other People's Money. About $20 billion was taken from bondholders and given to the United Auto Workers, which ended up owning a slug of GM and Chrysler. Fairness, at least to the president's union supporters.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those two failed government-sponsored enterprises, will cost taxpayers as much as $333 billion—according to the Congressional Budget Office—as Mr. Obama gave them an unlimited draw on the Treasury. Everyone whose mortgage isn't securitized by Fannie or Freddie ends up paying higher interest rates and larger fees as a result.
Government spends taxpayer dollars and liberals want to spend more of them. But what sets Mr. Obama apart—what places him in a category of one—is how eager he is to find ways outside the normal appropriations process to fund his schemes in the name of fairness, or to make them appear free.
For Mr. Obama, helping political supporters and those he believes deserving, while shifting the costs onto those he considers undeserving, may be jolly good fun. But the question is how deep of a hole he'll leave all of us to dig out of when he vacates the Oval Office.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5) Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee
Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until bureaucrats start telling your insurer which cancer screenings to cover
Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.
Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.
The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely.
That's because mandating coverage for all the "A" and "B" services will be very costly. In 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the marginal cost of similar state insurance mandates was 5%-10% of total claims. Other estimates put the cost of mandates as high as 20% of premiums.
Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don't get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren't mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.
David KleinAmericans first became familiar with the task force in November 2009, when it made the controversial decision to recommend that women ages 40-49 shouldn't get routine mammograms. More recently, it rebuffed routine prostate-cancer screening and the use of tests that detect the viruses that can cause cervical cancer.The task force relishes setting a very high bar. Like the Food and Drug Administration in approving new drugs, it usually requires a randomized, prospective trial to "prove" that a diagnostic test or other intervention improves clinical outcomes and therefore deserves a high grade of "A" or "B."
This means its advice is often out of sync with conventional medical practice. For example, it recommended against wider screening for HIV long after such screening was accepted practice. As a result, many of its verdicts are widely ignored by practicing doctors.
The task force is a part-time board of volunteer advisers that works slowly and is often late to incorporate new science into its recommendations. Only in 2009 did it finally recommend aspirin for the prevention of stroke and heart attack among those at risk—decades after this practice was demonstrated to save lives and had become part of standard medical practice.
The task force is also the only federal health agency to have the explicit legal authority to consider cost as one criterion in recommending whether patients should use a medical test or treatment.
Over time, the task force will surely recommend against many services that patients now take for granted, while mandating full insurance coverage for things that they'd be just as happy paying for. Among the interventions that it plans to consider in 2012 are screening for hepatitis C in adults, for osteoporosis in men and for depression in children; counseling for obesity in adults and for alcohol use in adolescents; and daily aspirin for heart-attack and stroke prevention in people over 80.
The task force's problems are compounded by the fact that it is deliberately exempted from the rules that govern other government advisory boards and regulatory agencies. Thus it has no obligation to hold its meetings in public, announce decisions in draft form or even consider public comments. Consumers have no way to directly appeal its decisions. And health providers or product developers affected by its decisions can't sue it for recourse.
To begin addressing these problems, Congress should make the task force subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would at least require it to hold its deliberations in public. Congress could also make it a full-fledged part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which already convenes its meetings. That would make the task force subject to the Administrative Procedures Act and all the rules that bind other regulatory bodies, including the legal requirement to consider public comments and provide avenues for appeal.
Better still, Congress could let private health plans—and their members—decide on their own how preventive tests and treatments should be covered. If not, Americans will soon be surprised by all the important tests and treatments that become more costly, and all the less relevant stuff that's suddenly free.
It's all a reminder that President Obama's decision on contraception isn't a one-off political intervention but the initial exploit of an elaborate new system.
Dr. Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has served as deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He consults with and invests in health-care companies.
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6)It’s math, not politics: Vast debt a killer
Tax deal: Best option? Or more of the same?
The president, the GOP and the deficit 2009 federal deficit surges to $1.42 trillion
The $3.8 trillion 2012-13 federal budget proposed by President Barack Obama instantly became a political football among partisans. Among the pundit class, the conventional wisdom is that the spending plan is more a campaign document to help the president win re-election. Given that Congress hasn’t passed an actual budget in three years, this cynicism is defensible.
But at some point we wish everyone – the political class, the media, taxpayers of all ideologies – would just accept this as a given: As a nation, we can’t continue spending vastly more than we take in. The Obama plan, if enacted, would add $901 billion to the national debt. This is less than in recent years but still enormous on a historical scale – the U.S. spending 31 percent more than it receives in revenue.
A household that for years on end spent 31 percent more than it took in would soon be spending more on interest on debt than on most priorities. As a nation, we are already there. In 2010-11, the federal government spent $454 billion in interest on the national debt – 12 percent of the entire budget. That’s only going to go up, up and away unless deficits are finally, substantively addressed. We wish the immensity of this problem would finally sink in – with everyone.
6a)CHART: Don’t Buy The GOP Hype On Obama Budget Deficits
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden
By BRIAN BEUTLER
Republicans have taken to describing President Obama’s budget as “deficits built to last” — a play on Obama’s call for an economy built to last. The implication: hand the government over to us, and we’ll rid the budget of this deficit scourge. Put aside for a moment that wiping out deficits too fast would be economically disastrous, leading to rocketing unemployment rates. The truth is there are plenty of budget proposals out there, including Paul Ryan’s “Path To Prosperity,” which was endorsed by nearly every Republican in Congress. And these also project significant deficits well into the future.
Of course, Obama’s budget is very substantively different from Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity. Obama’s would draw down deficits over the coming decade with a mix of proposed tax increases on high income earners and corporations, already enacted spending cuts, and additional cuts to health care spending and other programs. But it maintains the basic shape of the existing safety net over the long term. Ryan’s calls for huge cuts to the safety net, for making Medicaid a block grant program, and, after a decade, for phasing out Medicare. But he proposes significant tax cuts at the same time.
And even with all that slashing, just what does that do to the projected deficit? The chart below tells you quite starkly:
Yes, Ryan’s plan also gives you… deficits built to last! Ryan’s own numbers project annual deficits of about $400 billion under his plan by the end of the decade. Obama’s budget draws deficits down to about $600 billion over the same time frame. That’s not nothing. But it’s not what you’d expect given the GOP’s heated rhetoric.
Note, too, that Paul Ryan’s budget and the Bowles-Simpson plan based their projections on economic forecasts that grew gloomier over the past year — so their deficit projections are outdated, and perhaps a bit rosier than reality.
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7)The Day After Israel Attacks Iran
By Amir Mizroch
Creative Commons. IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Voice of Israel from Jerusalem,
Shalom, the time is now 6 am and here is the news, in the studio, this is Rivki Dangot,
Soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces on land, sea, and air are engaging enemy forces in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and in Judea and Samaria. Border Police forces, together with units of the Givati Brigade are engaging Global Jihad and Hamas forces in the Sinai Peninsula. Overnight, air, land, and sea forces, as well as long-range missiles fired from land and sea struck deep into enemy territory in Iran and have, in some instances, recorded significant successes against the nuclear facilities of that country. Israeli forces have also been met with heavy resistance, from air defenses over Iranian airspace as well as naval units in the Arabian sea. Heavy artillery exchanges are continuing throughout the Golan Heights between the Golan Formation and elements of the Syrian army loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad. Ground assault forces, including elements of the 366th Armored Division and the Yahalom Combat Engineering unit have advanced into central Gaza City, where heavy fighting has been reported. Israeli Police Special Forces have surrounded Shlomi in the north and are in a tense standoff with a Hezbollah cell which has infiltrated the border town and is holding several dozen children hostage in the town’s school building. In Jerusalem, special border police undercover units have thwarted an attempted truck bombing of the Malha commercial mall.
A Color Red alert has sounded over Tel-Aviv. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and head immediately to secure areas.
A Color Red alert has sounded over the Beersheba, Ashkelon, and Ashdod region. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and head immediately to secure areas.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said this morning that 47 IAF aircraft have not returned to their bases from last night’s operation against Iranian nuclear installations. Eshel added that 20 pilots have been confirmed killed in action over Iran, while 12 IAF crew from a helicopter squadron have been confirmed killed in Lebanon. Several dozen pilots and navigators have not yet been accounted for since last night’s initial raids over Iran, and seven are missing in action in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.
IAF forces are continuing to operate over Iranian airspace, Eshel said, adding that even though operations are ongoing, the IDF will work to locate its downed airmen and women. At a briefing with military reporters outside “the bunker” at IDF Headquarters in the Kiriya Complex in Tel-Aviv, Eshel said 8 Iranian installations connected with Iran’s nuclear enrichment program were targeted overnight, 5 were confirmed “destroyed,” whereas the extent of damage at three of the facilities has not yet been ascertained. Eshel added that Iranian air force and air defense targets were attacked in the first wave of Jericho missile attacks, after which IAF bombers hit the nuclear installations. Aerial combat was reported in several incidents. Most of the Israeli planes were brought down by advanced Russian-made surface-to-air missile systems provided to Iran by the Russian government. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Eshel said, the IAF had the means to continue a “rolling operation” over Iran and that last night’s sorties did not constitute the sum total of Israel’s aerial campaign over Iran. “It’s not a one-shot deal,” Eshel said, adding that the air force would carry out its mission until all Iranian nuclear facilities were “significantly eroded,” and the threat of a nuclear Iran was removed from the arena.
Eshel denied earlier reports on government-aligned Turkish news websites of Israeli warplanes firing on two Turkish Air Force patrols over northern Iraqi airspace. The IAF chief said, in the most stringent terms, that at no point in time had Israeli warplanes violated Turkish airspace, and that there was no engagement between aircraft of the two countries’ air forces. Eshel said he was trying to get in contact with his counterpart in Ankara but that this Israeli clarification has also been relayed via diplomatic channels. Despite this, the Turkish government has announced an emergency mobilization of the entire Turkish Armed Forces, with the army’s high command meeting in emergency session.
A Color Red alert has sounded over Haifa and the surrounding region. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and head immediately to secure areas.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Tel-Aviv.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Ramat-Aviv.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Ramat-Gan.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
At the same briefing with Eshel, OC Ground Forces Command Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman said IDF ground units have been advancing on several fronts and engaging formations of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards at or near nuclear installations across Iran. Turgeman revealed that a large infantry force was parachuted north of the Litani River area overnight and are engaging units of the Hezbollah at fortified positions. Other units are engaged in heavy fighting across the eastern and central sector, with reports of heavy fighting around Bint J’bel and Maroun a-Ras. Turgeman would not confirm reports in the Arab press and social media regarding the presence of Israeli Special Forces units at suspected Syrian chemical and biological weapons silos, saying only that it was stated Israeli policy to make sure that Assad’s stockpiles of WMD would not fall into terrorist hands or be used by the dying Alawite regime before it fell.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Rishon LeZion, Givatayim, Petah Tikva, Netanya.
A Color Red alert has sounded over Dimona and the surrounding region. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and evacuate to previously assigned locations.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Eilat.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
Israel Navy vessels, acting on intelligence that pointed to a Russian warning to Iran about Israeli aerial movements last night, have encircled a Russian warship currently moored at the Syrian port of Tartus. The Russian commander of the Admiral Kuznetsov has sent a message to the Israeli vessels demanding they withdraw to international waters by 12pm today. The Russian ultimatum was delivered by radio to the commander of the INS Hanit. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit released a statement saying only that the navy was acting in accordance with international laws of war wherein a ‘neutral’ entity in the theatre of war suspected of passing intelligence information to a combatant can be detained until a thorough investigation of the matter is complete. The Russian Interfax News Service reports that officials in Moscow have called an emergency meeting of the Russian High Command, with defense ministry sources saying that the Russian Black Sea Fleet will be dispatched to the area to make contact with the Kuznetsov. Moscow has also announced an emergency session of the Security Council to force a cessation of Israeli military operations over Iran, Syria and Lebanon, and that the Russian ambassador to Israel has been recalled.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Jerusalem.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Ramle, Kiryat Gat, Beit Shemesh.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Nazareth, Safed, Karmiel, Acre.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
In New York, we are getting reports of shooting at the 92Y cultural institution. A NYPD spokesman said this event is likely linked to the suicide bombing of two synagogues in Manhattan overnight. The bombings killed 30 people and wounded dozens. In a YouTube video, a group calling itself the “Martyrs of Mughniye” claimed responsibility for the act, and vowed that it was only the beginning of their “campaign of pain and Jihad against Jews, Israel Firsters and their supporters in the United States.”
In a letter to Israeli embassies around the world, the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, has instructed the country’s ambassadors to urge the nations of the free world to follow Israel into battle with the regime in Tehran. According to the letter, Netanyahu told the ambassadors to convey the message that Israel has taken the fateful and historic first leap to thwart the genocidal ambitions of the Islamic Republic, and it was now time for the rest of the free world to follow Israel into battle. “Israeli fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and sons, have bravely, and without joy, put on their uniforms and headed into battle against the forces of evil and destruction. As the only nation on earth whose existence was consistently threatened and promised, and whose bitterest enemies are on the cusp of attaining the weapons with which to destroy us, we looked around us for friends and allies, and found only promises and words. We were left with no choice but to act to remove the sword at our neck. Now, as our men and women in uniform are locked in battle against immense forces of evil, now is the time for the enlightened world to join us, shoulder to shoulder, so that we not stand alone in this fight. Many asked us to delay action, to give time for diplomacy to take its course. Many also said that a military option could not be effective, and that if we carried out such an option, it would only delay the Iranian nuclear weapons program for at most a year, and then give them a real excuse to build nuclear weapons and use them against us. I can tell you now that the Iranians do not need such an excuse, and that even the slightest chance that they might, perhaps, maybe, perchance, be irrational enough, crazy enough, and fanatic enough to use their doomsday weapons against us is just not a chance we can take,” the letter read. Netanyahu also called on Turkey and Russia to show restraint and understanding, and not to take any steps that would inflame the situation. The Prime Minister’s letter ended with a plea to Washington to break its silence and take a stand, together with Israel, against Iran. Netanyahu’s office also released a YouTube message from the Prime Minister making Israel’s case.
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8)Jeremy Siegel: Here’s Why Stocks Will Go Higher
Thursday, 16 Feb 2012 08:24 AM
By Greg Brown
Stock bull and finance professor Jeremy Siegel has a simple explanation for why the market run of early 2012 is likely to continue: Relative to bonds, they’re a bargain.
The Wharton professor and author of the bestselling “Stocks for the Long Run,” Siegel bases his research on more than a century of data. He sees Dow 15,000 and maybe higher in the coming two years, perhaps 17,000.
If he is right, that would mark a 32 percent gain from Monday’s close._
“I've seen stocks cheaper than this, but I've never seen stocks cheaper than this relative to bonds and I think that's a real positive factor for the market,” Siegel told Bloomberg Television in an interview.
The Dow Industrials are currently at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 14.36 with a dividend yield of 2.50 percent. The S&P 500 P/E ratio is 15.56 and the dividend yield is just over 2 percent.
Comparatively, a 10-year Treasury pays 2 percent and the 30-year yields 3.125. Investment gurus, including Warren Buffett and Jeremy Grantham, have gone out of their way to warn investors away from pricey bonds.
Meanwhile, analysts predict that the dividend yield on stocks is likely to climb as profits pile up.
Standard & Poor’s predicts the payout to rise as companies cease the cash hoarding that caused dividends to fall during the financial crisis.
“I expect the index will retake that high later this year and hit a new record,” Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for Standard and Poor’s indexes, told CNBC.
“I’m looking for $263 billion by the time this year is over.”
© Moneynews. All rights reserved.
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9) President Obama, speaking at L.A. fundraiser, points to positive changes
The visit follows a stop at Master Lock in Milwaukee, where he promotes the rebound of American manufacturing.
By Kathleen Hennessey and Michael Finnegan
Reporting from Los Angeles—
While acknowledging that "change is hard," President Obama touted the nation's economic progress on his watch during a celebrity-studded fundraising stopover Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
Addressing a crowd of about 1,000 at an outdoor reception, Obama needled Angelenos about the weather — "You're all cold. This is balmy, people" — then talked about the change he promised in the 2008 campaign, and the depth of the nation's economic troubles when he took office.
"We did not fully comprehend at that point how deep this crisis would be," he said, then mentioned the increase in jobs in recent months. "Don't underestimate the changes we made."
He said the U.S. auto industry was saved, and asserted that "2.6 million young people have health coverage who wouldn't otherwise have it" had it not been for the healthcare law that he championed.
Obama was expected to raise a total of more than $3 million during two events at the expansive Holmby Hills estate of "The Bold and the Beautiful" producer Bradley Bell and his wife, Colleen. The outdoor event, with tickets priced at $250 and $500, featured a performance by the Foo Fighters and appearances by comedian Jack Black and actress Rashida Jones.
Obama spoke later to a more intimate gathering inside the Bells' Spanish-style home, which about 80 supporters each paid $35,800 to attend. Among those present were George Clooney, Jim Belushi and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who on Wednesday was named chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
Obama offered a version of his standard campaign speech, touting the end of the Iraq war, job creation and the end of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but acknowledged some supporters' frustration with work left undone. "I understand that; I feel the same way sometimes," he said, citing the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the continued detention of suspected "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The president's foray into Los Angeles came amid tension between him and some of his Hollywood supporters over anti-piracy legislation. The entertainment industry strongly backed the bills, but they were killed under pressure from Google and other Silicon Valley interests on Internet free-speech grounds. The White House angered some in Hollywood by publicly criticizing key aspects of the bills.
Previous visits by Obama have caused severe traffic jams across Los Angeles, prompting outrage from frustrated motorists. The Los Angeles Police Department urged drivers to avoid major Westside streets Wednesday night and Thursday morning, when Obama is scheduled to travel to a fundraiser at the Corona Del Mar home of real estate developer Jeff Stack and his wife, Nancy. He is then scheduled to travel to San Francisco and Seattle.
Earlier Wednesday, the president visited the Master Lock factory in Milwaukee, portraying the world's largest padlock manufacturer as an optimistic tale about American manufacturing on the rebound.
Over the last two years, Master Lock has moved 100 jobs from China back to the Milwaukee plant, a mini-surge that Obama compared to the recovery of America's troubled auto industry since an emergency government bailout in 2008 and 2009.
"What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries," Obama told a crowd gathered on the factory floor. "Today you're selling products directly to customers in China stamped with those words, 'Made in America.' "
The president appealed to manufacturers to reverse outsourcing and find ways to create jobs back home. He makes his pitch as China's expected future president, Xi Jinping, makes his own U.S. tour and faces questions about China's role as America's chief rival in the global economy.
U.S. industry doesn't lack patriotism, Obama's Republican critics argue. Business executives will add jobs when it's in their economic interest to do so, said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
"The best thing the president can do to prevent outsourcing is pull back on the destructive policies — like his healthcare law and regulations — and threat of tax hikes that are making it harder for American businesses to hire workers here at home," Buck said.
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10)Lunchbox lunacy: Gov't swaps out child's meal
Bob Kellogg and Jody Brown
Conservative Christian groups are outraged that a school decided a lunch a pre-schooler's mother prepared was not healthy enough and replaced it with chicken nuggets.
The elementary school in Raeford, North Carolina, decided the four-year-old's lunch -- which consisted of a turkey-and-cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice -- did not meet nutritional standards established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Why? Because it did not contain a vegetable.
The USDA guidelines say lunches, even those brought from home, must consist of one serving each of meat, milk, and grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables. Those guidelines -- introduced last month as "historic improvements" by the federal government -- spring from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by First Lady Michelle Obama as part of her Let's Move! Campaign and signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Dr. Janice Crouse, senior fellow for the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America, sees the incident at the North Carolina school as historic in another sense. She says it is just another way government intrudes on the rights of parents.
"It's another way that the government says it knows best, another way to waste taxpayer dollars, quite frankly, and to really irritate parents," Crouse tells OneNewsNow.
The mother of the young girl, in an interview with Carolina Journal, says what angered her the most was the message her daughter received. "...Number one, don't tell me I'm not packing her lunch box properly," she stated. "I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats." The child, she reported, does not like vegetables; so the mom packs fruit instead.
Crouse, who is concerned government intrusion on families will increase, encourages parents to tell the schools they will not stand for it.
"I think our state legislators [and] our federal legislators have to get involved in this because regulation is coming from the top," she says. "And quite frankly, a lot of this stems from the first lady's emphasis on nutritional requirements that the government has to certify that each child has the appropriate nutritional requirements."
Gary Bauer with Campaign for Working Families views it as "government gone wild" -- adding that while such government intrusion is not quite as blatant as it is in Communist China, it may not be far off.
"If the government can force us to buy specific products, force religious institutions to violate their values, and send lunchbox inspectors to sort through our kids' food, Chinese-style 'commissars' are in our future," he says in a published statement.
In a note to the mother, the school said a $1.25 fee could result for the meal that replaced the four-year-old's sack lunch. But a spokeswomen for the USDA's Division of Child Development told Carolina Journal that the mother should not have been charged.
The federal government and the school have not identified the person who inspected the lunches and determined if they met USDA guidelines.
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6)It’s math, not politics: Vast debt a killer
Tax deal: Best option? Or more of the same?
The president, the GOP and the deficit 2009 federal deficit surges to $1.42 trillion
The $3.8 trillion 2012-13 federal budget proposed by President Barack Obama instantly became a political football among partisans. Among the pundit class, the conventional wisdom is that the spending plan is more a campaign document to help the president win re-election. Given that Congress hasn’t passed an actual budget in three years, this cynicism is defensible.
But at some point we wish everyone – the political class, the media, taxpayers of all ideologies – would just accept this as a given: As a nation, we can’t continue spending vastly more than we take in. The Obama plan, if enacted, would add $901 billion to the national debt. This is less than in recent years but still enormous on a historical scale – the U.S. spending 31 percent more than it receives in revenue.
A household that for years on end spent 31 percent more than it took in would soon be spending more on interest on debt than on most priorities. As a nation, we are already there. In 2010-11, the federal government spent $454 billion in interest on the national debt – 12 percent of the entire budget. That’s only going to go up, up and away unless deficits are finally, substantively addressed. We wish the immensity of this problem would finally sink in – with everyone.
6a)CHART: Don’t Buy The GOP Hype On Obama Budget Deficits
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden
By BRIAN BEUTLER
Republicans have taken to describing President Obama’s budget as “deficits built to last” — a play on Obama’s call for an economy built to last. The implication: hand the government over to us, and we’ll rid the budget of this deficit scourge. Put aside for a moment that wiping out deficits too fast would be economically disastrous, leading to rocketing unemployment rates. The truth is there are plenty of budget proposals out there, including Paul Ryan’s “Path To Prosperity,” which was endorsed by nearly every Republican in Congress. And these also project significant deficits well into the future.
Of course, Obama’s budget is very substantively different from Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity. Obama’s would draw down deficits over the coming decade with a mix of proposed tax increases on high income earners and corporations, already enacted spending cuts, and additional cuts to health care spending and other programs. But it maintains the basic shape of the existing safety net over the long term. Ryan’s calls for huge cuts to the safety net, for making Medicaid a block grant program, and, after a decade, for phasing out Medicare. But he proposes significant tax cuts at the same time.
And even with all that slashing, just what does that do to the projected deficit? The chart below tells you quite starkly:
Yes, Ryan’s plan also gives you… deficits built to last! Ryan’s own numbers project annual deficits of about $400 billion under his plan by the end of the decade. Obama’s budget draws deficits down to about $600 billion over the same time frame. That’s not nothing. But it’s not what you’d expect given the GOP’s heated rhetoric.
Note, too, that Paul Ryan’s budget and the Bowles-Simpson plan based their projections on economic forecasts that grew gloomier over the past year — so their deficit projections are outdated, and perhaps a bit rosier than reality.
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7)The Day After Israel Attacks Iran
By Amir Mizroch
Creative Commons. IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Voice of Israel from Jerusalem,
Shalom, the time is now 6 am and here is the news, in the studio, this is Rivki Dangot,
Soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces on land, sea, and air are engaging enemy forces in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and in Judea and Samaria. Border Police forces, together with units of the Givati Brigade are engaging Global Jihad and Hamas forces in the Sinai Peninsula. Overnight, air, land, and sea forces, as well as long-range missiles fired from land and sea struck deep into enemy territory in Iran and have, in some instances, recorded significant successes against the nuclear facilities of that country. Israeli forces have also been met with heavy resistance, from air defenses over Iranian airspace as well as naval units in the Arabian sea. Heavy artillery exchanges are continuing throughout the Golan Heights between the Golan Formation and elements of the Syrian army loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad. Ground assault forces, including elements of the 366th Armored Division and the Yahalom Combat Engineering unit have advanced into central Gaza City, where heavy fighting has been reported. Israeli Police Special Forces have surrounded Shlomi in the north and are in a tense standoff with a Hezbollah cell which has infiltrated the border town and is holding several dozen children hostage in the town’s school building. In Jerusalem, special border police undercover units have thwarted an attempted truck bombing of the Malha commercial mall.
A Color Red alert has sounded over Tel-Aviv. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and head immediately to secure areas.
A Color Red alert has sounded over the Beersheba, Ashkelon, and Ashdod region. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and head immediately to secure areas.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said this morning that 47 IAF aircraft have not returned to their bases from last night’s operation against Iranian nuclear installations. Eshel added that 20 pilots have been confirmed killed in action over Iran, while 12 IAF crew from a helicopter squadron have been confirmed killed in Lebanon. Several dozen pilots and navigators have not yet been accounted for since last night’s initial raids over Iran, and seven are missing in action in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.
IAF forces are continuing to operate over Iranian airspace, Eshel said, adding that even though operations are ongoing, the IDF will work to locate its downed airmen and women. At a briefing with military reporters outside “the bunker” at IDF Headquarters in the Kiriya Complex in Tel-Aviv, Eshel said 8 Iranian installations connected with Iran’s nuclear enrichment program were targeted overnight, 5 were confirmed “destroyed,” whereas the extent of damage at three of the facilities has not yet been ascertained. Eshel added that Iranian air force and air defense targets were attacked in the first wave of Jericho missile attacks, after which IAF bombers hit the nuclear installations. Aerial combat was reported in several incidents. Most of the Israeli planes were brought down by advanced Russian-made surface-to-air missile systems provided to Iran by the Russian government. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Eshel said, the IAF had the means to continue a “rolling operation” over Iran and that last night’s sorties did not constitute the sum total of Israel’s aerial campaign over Iran. “It’s not a one-shot deal,” Eshel said, adding that the air force would carry out its mission until all Iranian nuclear facilities were “significantly eroded,” and the threat of a nuclear Iran was removed from the arena.
Eshel denied earlier reports on government-aligned Turkish news websites of Israeli warplanes firing on two Turkish Air Force patrols over northern Iraqi airspace. The IAF chief said, in the most stringent terms, that at no point in time had Israeli warplanes violated Turkish airspace, and that there was no engagement between aircraft of the two countries’ air forces. Eshel said he was trying to get in contact with his counterpart in Ankara but that this Israeli clarification has also been relayed via diplomatic channels. Despite this, the Turkish government has announced an emergency mobilization of the entire Turkish Armed Forces, with the army’s high command meeting in emergency session.
A Color Red alert has sounded over Haifa and the surrounding region. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and head immediately to secure areas.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Tel-Aviv.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Ramat-Aviv.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Ramat-Gan.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
At the same briefing with Eshel, OC Ground Forces Command Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman said IDF ground units have been advancing on several fronts and engaging formations of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards at or near nuclear installations across Iran. Turgeman revealed that a large infantry force was parachuted north of the Litani River area overnight and are engaging units of the Hezbollah at fortified positions. Other units are engaged in heavy fighting across the eastern and central sector, with reports of heavy fighting around Bint J’bel and Maroun a-Ras. Turgeman would not confirm reports in the Arab press and social media regarding the presence of Israeli Special Forces units at suspected Syrian chemical and biological weapons silos, saying only that it was stated Israeli policy to make sure that Assad’s stockpiles of WMD would not fall into terrorist hands or be used by the dying Alawite regime before it fell.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Rishon LeZion, Givatayim, Petah Tikva, Netanya.
A Color Red alert has sounded over Dimona and the surrounding region. Residents are advised to heed the instructions of the Home Front Command and evacuate to previously assigned locations.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Eilat.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
Israel Navy vessels, acting on intelligence that pointed to a Russian warning to Iran about Israeli aerial movements last night, have encircled a Russian warship currently moored at the Syrian port of Tartus. The Russian commander of the Admiral Kuznetsov has sent a message to the Israeli vessels demanding they withdraw to international waters by 12pm today. The Russian ultimatum was delivered by radio to the commander of the INS Hanit. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit released a statement saying only that the navy was acting in accordance with international laws of war wherein a ‘neutral’ entity in the theatre of war suspected of passing intelligence information to a combatant can be detained until a thorough investigation of the matter is complete. The Russian Interfax News Service reports that officials in Moscow have called an emergency meeting of the Russian High Command, with defense ministry sources saying that the Russian Black Sea Fleet will be dispatched to the area to make contact with the Kuznetsov. Moscow has also announced an emergency session of the Security Council to force a cessation of Israeli military operations over Iran, Syria and Lebanon, and that the Russian ambassador to Israel has been recalled.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Jerusalem.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Ramle, Kiryat Gat, Beit Shemesh.
The IDF Home Front Command announces missile fall in Nazareth, Safed, Karmiel, Acre.
We continue with the regular broadcast.
In New York, we are getting reports of shooting at the 92Y cultural institution. A NYPD spokesman said this event is likely linked to the suicide bombing of two synagogues in Manhattan overnight. The bombings killed 30 people and wounded dozens. In a YouTube video, a group calling itself the “Martyrs of Mughniye” claimed responsibility for the act, and vowed that it was only the beginning of their “campaign of pain and Jihad against Jews, Israel Firsters and their supporters in the United States.”
In a letter to Israeli embassies around the world, the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, has instructed the country’s ambassadors to urge the nations of the free world to follow Israel into battle with the regime in Tehran. According to the letter, Netanyahu told the ambassadors to convey the message that Israel has taken the fateful and historic first leap to thwart the genocidal ambitions of the Islamic Republic, and it was now time for the rest of the free world to follow Israel into battle. “Israeli fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and sons, have bravely, and without joy, put on their uniforms and headed into battle against the forces of evil and destruction. As the only nation on earth whose existence was consistently threatened and promised, and whose bitterest enemies are on the cusp of attaining the weapons with which to destroy us, we looked around us for friends and allies, and found only promises and words. We were left with no choice but to act to remove the sword at our neck. Now, as our men and women in uniform are locked in battle against immense forces of evil, now is the time for the enlightened world to join us, shoulder to shoulder, so that we not stand alone in this fight. Many asked us to delay action, to give time for diplomacy to take its course. Many also said that a military option could not be effective, and that if we carried out such an option, it would only delay the Iranian nuclear weapons program for at most a year, and then give them a real excuse to build nuclear weapons and use them against us. I can tell you now that the Iranians do not need such an excuse, and that even the slightest chance that they might, perhaps, maybe, perchance, be irrational enough, crazy enough, and fanatic enough to use their doomsday weapons against us is just not a chance we can take,” the letter read. Netanyahu also called on Turkey and Russia to show restraint and understanding, and not to take any steps that would inflame the situation. The Prime Minister’s letter ended with a plea to Washington to break its silence and take a stand, together with Israel, against Iran. Netanyahu’s office also released a YouTube message from the Prime Minister making Israel’s case.
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8)Jeremy Siegel: Here’s Why Stocks Will Go Higher
Thursday, 16 Feb 2012 08:24 AM
By Greg Brown
Stock bull and finance professor Jeremy Siegel has a simple explanation for why the market run of early 2012 is likely to continue: Relative to bonds, they’re a bargain.
The Wharton professor and author of the bestselling “Stocks for the Long Run,” Siegel bases his research on more than a century of data. He sees Dow 15,000 and maybe higher in the coming two years, perhaps 17,000.
If he is right, that would mark a 32 percent gain from Monday’s close._
“I've seen stocks cheaper than this, but I've never seen stocks cheaper than this relative to bonds and I think that's a real positive factor for the market,” Siegel told Bloomberg Television in an interview.
The Dow Industrials are currently at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 14.36 with a dividend yield of 2.50 percent. The S&P 500 P/E ratio is 15.56 and the dividend yield is just over 2 percent.
Comparatively, a 10-year Treasury pays 2 percent and the 30-year yields 3.125. Investment gurus, including Warren Buffett and Jeremy Grantham, have gone out of their way to warn investors away from pricey bonds.
Meanwhile, analysts predict that the dividend yield on stocks is likely to climb as profits pile up.
Standard & Poor’s predicts the payout to rise as companies cease the cash hoarding that caused dividends to fall during the financial crisis.
“I expect the index will retake that high later this year and hit a new record,” Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for Standard and Poor’s indexes, told CNBC.
“I’m looking for $263 billion by the time this year is over.”
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9) President Obama, speaking at L.A. fundraiser, points to positive changes
The visit follows a stop at Master Lock in Milwaukee, where he promotes the rebound of American manufacturing.
By Kathleen Hennessey and Michael Finnegan
Reporting from Los Angeles—
While acknowledging that "change is hard," President Obama touted the nation's economic progress on his watch during a celebrity-studded fundraising stopover Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
Addressing a crowd of about 1,000 at an outdoor reception, Obama needled Angelenos about the weather — "You're all cold. This is balmy, people" — then talked about the change he promised in the 2008 campaign, and the depth of the nation's economic troubles when he took office.
"We did not fully comprehend at that point how deep this crisis would be," he said, then mentioned the increase in jobs in recent months. "Don't underestimate the changes we made."
He said the U.S. auto industry was saved, and asserted that "2.6 million young people have health coverage who wouldn't otherwise have it" had it not been for the healthcare law that he championed.
Obama was expected to raise a total of more than $3 million during two events at the expansive Holmby Hills estate of "The Bold and the Beautiful" producer Bradley Bell and his wife, Colleen. The outdoor event, with tickets priced at $250 and $500, featured a performance by the Foo Fighters and appearances by comedian Jack Black and actress Rashida Jones.
Obama spoke later to a more intimate gathering inside the Bells' Spanish-style home, which about 80 supporters each paid $35,800 to attend. Among those present were George Clooney, Jim Belushi and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who on Wednesday was named chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
Obama offered a version of his standard campaign speech, touting the end of the Iraq war, job creation and the end of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but acknowledged some supporters' frustration with work left undone. "I understand that; I feel the same way sometimes," he said, citing the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the continued detention of suspected "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The president's foray into Los Angeles came amid tension between him and some of his Hollywood supporters over anti-piracy legislation. The entertainment industry strongly backed the bills, but they were killed under pressure from Google and other Silicon Valley interests on Internet free-speech grounds. The White House angered some in Hollywood by publicly criticizing key aspects of the bills.
Previous visits by Obama have caused severe traffic jams across Los Angeles, prompting outrage from frustrated motorists. The Los Angeles Police Department urged drivers to avoid major Westside streets Wednesday night and Thursday morning, when Obama is scheduled to travel to a fundraiser at the Corona Del Mar home of real estate developer Jeff Stack and his wife, Nancy. He is then scheduled to travel to San Francisco and Seattle.
Earlier Wednesday, the president visited the Master Lock factory in Milwaukee, portraying the world's largest padlock manufacturer as an optimistic tale about American manufacturing on the rebound.
Over the last two years, Master Lock has moved 100 jobs from China back to the Milwaukee plant, a mini-surge that Obama compared to the recovery of America's troubled auto industry since an emergency government bailout in 2008 and 2009.
"What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries," Obama told a crowd gathered on the factory floor. "Today you're selling products directly to customers in China stamped with those words, 'Made in America.' "
The president appealed to manufacturers to reverse outsourcing and find ways to create jobs back home. He makes his pitch as China's expected future president, Xi Jinping, makes his own U.S. tour and faces questions about China's role as America's chief rival in the global economy.
U.S. industry doesn't lack patriotism, Obama's Republican critics argue. Business executives will add jobs when it's in their economic interest to do so, said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
"The best thing the president can do to prevent outsourcing is pull back on the destructive policies — like his healthcare law and regulations — and threat of tax hikes that are making it harder for American businesses to hire workers here at home," Buck said.
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10)Lunchbox lunacy: Gov't swaps out child's meal
Bob Kellogg and Jody Brown
Conservative Christian groups are outraged that a school decided a lunch a pre-schooler's mother prepared was not healthy enough and replaced it with chicken nuggets.
The elementary school in Raeford, North Carolina, decided the four-year-old's lunch -- which consisted of a turkey-and-cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice -- did not meet nutritional standards established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Why? Because it did not contain a vegetable.
The USDA guidelines say lunches, even those brought from home, must consist of one serving each of meat, milk, and grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables. Those guidelines -- introduced last month as "historic improvements" by the federal government -- spring from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by First Lady Michelle Obama as part of her Let's Move! Campaign and signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Dr. Janice Crouse, senior fellow for the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America, sees the incident at the North Carolina school as historic in another sense. She says it is just another way government intrudes on the rights of parents.
"It's another way that the government says it knows best, another way to waste taxpayer dollars, quite frankly, and to really irritate parents," Crouse tells OneNewsNow.
The mother of the young girl, in an interview with Carolina Journal, says what angered her the most was the message her daughter received. "...Number one, don't tell me I'm not packing her lunch box properly," she stated. "I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats." The child, she reported, does not like vegetables; so the mom packs fruit instead.
Crouse, who is concerned government intrusion on families will increase, encourages parents to tell the schools they will not stand for it.
"I think our state legislators [and] our federal legislators have to get involved in this because regulation is coming from the top," she says. "And quite frankly, a lot of this stems from the first lady's emphasis on nutritional requirements that the government has to certify that each child has the appropriate nutritional requirements."
Gary Bauer with Campaign for Working Families views it as "government gone wild" -- adding that while such government intrusion is not quite as blatant as it is in Communist China, it may not be far off.
"If the government can force us to buy specific products, force religious institutions to violate their values, and send lunchbox inspectors to sort through our kids' food, Chinese-style 'commissars' are in our future," he says in a published statement.
In a note to the mother, the school said a $1.25 fee could result for the meal that replaced the four-year-old's sack lunch. But a spokeswomen for the USDA's Division of Child Development told Carolina Journal that the mother should not have been charged.
The federal government and the school have not identified the person who inspected the lunches and determined if they met USDA guidelines.
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