Halloween; Democrat Style

Have a fun day, folks!  Those of you who are dressing little ones and taking them out, have a great time!  Those of you who (like me) turn your lights off and go upstairs to watch TV in case any kids come (there aren't a lot in my neighborhood!), eat some CANDY! :-)

z

Obamnesia.........And the media's blaming ROMNEY for a change of mind?

Strassel: A Chronic Case of Obamnesia

The president has left a long trail of flip-flops.

·         By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

With 10 days until the election, Barack Obama's latest strategy is to claim that his opponent has developed "stage 3 Romnesia." Mitt Romney, the argument goes, is conveniently forgetting his real agenda, flipping his positions to better appeal to the electorate. Since Mr. Romney's conservative base would surely disagree, this raises the question of whether the president isn't himself suffering from a psychological malady that experts call "projection."

***

"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program"—Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, June 2003.
"I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter"—President Obama, August 2009.

***

"Leadership means that the buck stops here. . . . I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit"—Sen. Barack Obama, March 2006.
"It is not acceptable for us not to raise the debt ceiling and to allow the U.S. government to default"—President Obama, July 2011.

***

"I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages"—Obama questionnaire response, 1996, while running for Illinois state Senate.

 

"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage"—Sen. Obama, November 2008, while running for president.

"It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married"—President Obama, May 2012.

***

"We have an idea for the trigger. . . . Sequestration"—Obama Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew in 2011, as reported in Bob Woodward's "The Price of Politics."
"First of all, the sequester is not something that I've proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed"—President Obama, October 2012.

***

"If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election"—Sen. Obama, 2007.
"We've made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election"—Sen. Obama, June 2008.

***

"I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign"—Sen. Obama, June 2008.
"The way Bush has done it over the last eight years is . . . [he] added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back. . . . That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic"—Sen. Obama, July 2008.
"I don't remember what the number was precisely. . . . We don't have to worry about it short term"—President Obama, September 2012, on the debt figure when he took office ($10 trillion) and whether to worry about today's $16 trillion figure.

***

"[Sen. Hillary Clinton believes] that . . . if the government does not force taxpayers to buy health care, that we will penalize them in some fashion. I disagree with that"—Sen. Obama, Jan 2008, opposing the individual mandate for health insurance.
"I'm open to a system where every American bears responsibility for owning health insurance"—President Obama, June 2009, supporting the individual mandate.

***

"Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive"—President Obama, April 2009, in France.
"We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms"—President Obama, April 2009, in Trinidad and Tobago.
"Nothing Governor Romney just said is true, starting with this notion of me apologizing"—Barack Obama, October 2012, on whether he went on a global apology tour.

***

"The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel"—Sen. Obama, September 2008.
"Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years"—President Obama, January 2010.

***

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them"—Sen. Obama, January 2008, on his plans to financially penalize coal plants.
"Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution"—Sen. Obama, August 2008.

"Here's what I've done since I've been president. We have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years. Natural gas production is the highest it's been in decades. We have seen increases in coal production and coal employment"—President Obama, October 2012.

"If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition"—President Obama, 2009.
"We've got a long way to go but . . . we've come too far to turn back now. . . . And that's why I'm running for a second term"—President Obama, October 2012.


Z:  You know, if Americans don't read The Wall Street Journal, they don't hear this stuff.  In the LA Times on Sunday, there wasn't a WORD about Benghazi!   We've all seen this kind of thing over and over again....and where is the media on these incredible flip flops of Obama's as they accuse Romney of changing HIS MIND?!     Unbelievable.

z

"Tidal Wave" of Romney in L.A.

Editorial: Elect Mitt Romney president

Z: This is the editorial headline from LOS ANGELES' SECOND LARGEST NEWSPAPER, THE DAILY NEWS.......Yes, Los Angeles.   I'm breaking my rule of posting anything about California in the hopes that you'll be respectful to the home state I love and focus on the fact that an admittedly very liberal state's large paper has endorsed the Republican...THIS IS HUGE...ENORMOUS...a TIDAL WAVE.  Here's the editorial piece:

FOUR years ago, as America faced serious trouble at home and abroad, this news
organization embraced the need for bold change to a different brand of leadership and endorsed Barack Obama for president.

That assessment of the depth of the nation's problems and the most promising solution was correct in 2008. Regrettably, it applies no less in 2012, after nearly a full term of Obama's
administration. This is why the editorial board urges voters to choose Mitt Romney for president in the Nov. 6 election. He is the leader this country needs for the future.

The election is likely to be very close, the Electoral College tally to be tipped one way or another by the results in just a few states. Alas, California again will not be among the difference-makers.

The mere fact that Obama finds himself in a neck-and-neck race speaks to the disappointment he has inspired in many one-time believers. Even if he ekes out a victory, as the public-opinion polls suggest, he will be the first president in 180 years to be elected to a second term with a lower percentage of the popular vote than he received the first time around.

That Democrats and Republicans are so evenly and stubbornly split also speaks to the political state of a nation beset by corrosive partisanship. An unhealthy number of supporters of the Democratic ticket, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, and the Republican standard bearers, Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, cannot imagine what the other side is thinking.

It is precisely this kind of partisan divide that Obama promised to end. He was going to make history not only as the United States' first black president but as its healer, vowing to lead the nation into a new era of cooperation. But that promise to blend blue America and red America into purple America is an example of Obama's failure of leadership.

Sad to say, the reservations our editorial board expressed about Obama in 2008 have been borne out. His inexperience in an executive position has been exposed. His naivete about his chances of getting much of his program through a deeply partisan Congress has been cured the hard way. Instead of taking charge in Washington, Obama has shown unwillingness to take even the most basic step in presidential leadership: picking up the Oval Office phone to bring his influence to bear on reluctant representatives and senators.
Obama's signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act, is symbolic of his term for another reason: It passed entirely because of Democratic support.

The economy is making an all-too-slow recovery. The nation's budget problems remain unsolved, portending a new financial crisis ahead. In the ending of the Iraq War and the killing of Osama bin Laden, there is a sense that we've already seen the high points of an Obama administration.And Americans hoping for better from a prospective second term are frustrated by Obama's failure to explain how four more years would be different. Meanwhile, Romney is not merely an acceptable alternative to Obama.He is an honorable, trustworthy and steady leader who, had he been the Republican Party's nominee four years ago, would have given Obama a tougher challenge than the reckless duo of John McCain and Sarah Palin. 

Romney has proven his leadership qualities as a business success, as the trouble-shooting head of the Salt Lake City Olympics, and as the governor of Democratic Party-dominated Massachusetts.
And, at a time when leading Republicans and Democrats fly the flag of inflexibility, the worst thing that many critics say about Romney is that he is too flexible, that he bends his policies to the situations in front of him.
As president, Romney would not be restrained by foolish consistency. He would be expected to do the right thing no matter where the solutions originate. This is the most precious trait an officeholder can have in this era of corrosive hyperpartisanship.

The best first move a President Romney could make would be to claim ownership of the nation's problems from the minute he is sworn in. Little has shaken Americans' faith in Obama as his - and his most ardent supporters' - habit of reminding us of the problems he inherited from President George W. Bush.
Instead of following through on his hope-and-change message, Obama keeps telling us the limits of hope and change.

We are all for hope and we champion change. Many of this organization's editorial positions are guided by the belief that change in government is to be sought, not feared. We embrace new leaders, independent thinking, and shaking up the status quo; this philosophy is evident in several other endorsements this fall. Four years ago, the editorial board's willingness to change horses in the middle of a churning river led us to call for voters to break the Republican hold on the White House and try a Democrat with a fresh spark. Today, it leads the editorial board to urge voters to say "enough" to a Democratic administration whose sincere best has turned out disappointing, and install a seasoned leader with a record of fixing problems. 

Mitt Romney is that seasoned leader. 
 
Z:  HOLY COW is all I have to say.   How about you?  If an LA Paper is endorsing Romney, how many more are across our land?  How about your town papers?
  

Sunday Faith Blog ...Normandy, France

These photos were taken by commenter and friend FrogBurger on Friday in Normandy, France at the American cemetery:

(give any of those photos a mouse click and see them large...amazing)

In the top photo, you will notice how close the cemetery is to the actual place where so many died. On the sandy area to the left, at the shoreline, are German bunkers one can still go down into. The cross above (see Jewish star grave marker, too...easier to see if you click on the second photo) says "HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY A COMRADE IN ARMS KNOWN BUT TO GOD." Amen. 
I hope all of you have been or can go someday. It's quite an experience. I thank FrogBurger so much for these amazing photographs. 

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine." Isaiah 43:1. 

It's my fondest wish that all our soldiers were sure of their eternal rest with God.  We owe them so much.   Rest, our American fallen...we love and respect and will never forget you. 

Have a good Sunday, GeeeZ  readers. 


 me

It Is Up to US ... at Home

What we must have in this country is a dose of reality:  we must not allow Washington politics to define who we are.  Furthermore, if the federal government would confine itself to the things the Constitution empowers it to do, and which limits the power of the central government, then we could all live happily ever after arguing with one another over state-centric and local community issues.

I think this was Congressman Ryan’s message not long ago during a speech in Ohio.  Here’s what he said: 

Even though so many barriers to equality have fallen, too many old inequities persist.  Too many children, especially African-American and Hispanic children, are sent into mediocre schools and expected to perform with excellence.  African-American and Hispanic children make up only 38 percent of the nation’s overall students, but they are 69 percent of the students in schools identified as lowest performing.  That’s unacceptable.  We owe every child a chance to succeed.  In the words of Abraham Lincoln, we owe them ‘an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.’  Upward mobility is the central promise of life in America.  But right now, America’s engines of upward mobility aren’t working the way they should.

I appreciate Mr. Ryan’s views, which I construe to mean there are solutions to our problems, but most of these must come from within our states, counties, and local governments.  Education is one of these.  It is not the role of federal government to tell us in Georgia, or California, or Illinois how we must educate our children.  This is a state right --a state responsibility.

We don’t live our lives for the vermin who live inside the beltway; we live our lives for our families and our communities.  And while it is certainly true that gross stupidity from Washington can make us very unhappy, as Washington has made us unhappy over the past six years, we must  find a way to refocus our attentions on caring for our loved ones, making them happy, preparing them for a better tomorrow.  Washington politicians can piss off.

If Washington would confine itself to the enumerated powers, our states would take care of everything else, consistent with available revenues and spending priorities.  This is why we have state governors, state legislatures, and state courts.  This is what our founding fathers intended.  For too many years now, we have screwed the political pooch; through our lethargy or our inattention, we have given our consent to grossly illegal activities in Washington, and it has only made us an unhappier, more contentious people. 

And for their part, Washington insiders have tried to separate us from our local roots; they have tried to interject themselves into state and local politics because it gives them more power.  Enough is enough!  We can determine our own destiny, but we must do it from within the framework of our states and our local communities; it is from this position where we can do the most good for those who need a hand up.

Romney isn't the answer to all our problems.  He can be a force for good in settling federal issues and international problems.  He can help us fix the federal economy.  But if we expect to change  the things at home that make us unhappy, then we must look to ourselves and to our neighbors.  If we are too lazy or too stupid to see that national politics is making us angry —and mostly at one another, if we are unable to see that we can solve most of our problems without federal intervention, then maybe we deserve to be unhappy.  


Mustang
z

Obama IS Norma Desmond...

by Daniel Greenfield, The Canadian Free Press: (Z:  This might be the best thing I've read recently about Obama;  I think this guy really nails him exactly right):

 The Obama Campaign, that strange 4 year marriage of Generation X hipsters, inner city bosses, suburban college educated boomers longing for racial healing, Big Green businessmen and shady Saudis, appears to be finally sinking beneath the waves. It isn’t going out in a blaze of glory, but with mumbles of trending topics.

 

Obama was always a petty man and his campaign has descended into pointless pettiness, into Team Big Bird, binders full of women and bayonets and horses. Like so much hipster culture, it exists so that the participants can entertain each other with something that no one else thinks is funny or clever. And that elitism is precisely the point. It’s the last resort of losers who hide from their lack of taste behind walls of exclusivity.  Abandoning mass appeal, Obama is getting back to his roots of entertaining upper middle class college kids with his ‘hipness’; both actual college kids and the overgrown middle aged variety that make up the professional class of the mediacracy who treat the rest of the country the way that they treated the natives on their Peace Corps assignments.

 

The Obama Campaign was never serious, but it once aspired to an Oprah level of seriousness, to the dignity of the self-help sections where trite observations are recited with great solemnity so that they sound like they must mean more than they do.

 

For the Northeastern New York Times reader, Obama held out the promise of atonement for the country’s grave racial sins. For the San Francisco wind farm executive, he offered the prospect of a presidency that would be one long endless TED talk with plenty of subsidies for the cunning Greenvestor. And the college student would finally have a president who watched the same shows, listened to the same music and got the same jokes making him the perfect Resident Adviser for the country.

Obama wasn't actually interesting, he just seemed interesting in a cursory sort of way.

 

Two biographies and four years later those same people have learned that like that party guest who mentions that he’s a nuclear physicist, a poet and an explorer of supernatural phenomena, Obama wasn’t actually interesting, he just seemed interesting in a cursory sort of way. Obama’s biography made him an interesting party guest, but not past a 5 minute chat, and it in no way qualified him to hold the country’ top job during an economic crisis and two wars.

Obama’s seriously intent tone, the one that signals you to pay attention, no longer works on even the faithful. Like Pavlov’s dogs, they have stopped coming once they realized that just because the bell rings doesn’t mean that dinner or a functional economy will be served. The weighty tone that he once used to deploy to great effect, borrowing the tricks of the preachers that he encountered in his huckstering days, has come to seem as empty as Oprah’s smile or Bill Clinton’s sincere head nod, just another of the tricks of hollow public personalities signifying nothing.
 

For years and years, he has talked and said nothing of any import. All the talk, the endless speeches and addresses, the verbal and facial tics that indicated seriousness of purpose, have never led to one single thing. Not one problem solved, not one crisis resolved and not one plan laid out and completed in four years with something to show for it.

Somewhere along the way, Obama became boring

He became that one man at a party that you don't want to talk to because he will go on forever and all his chatter leads nowhere, because for all his conversational skills, he is capable of nothing but talk.  And after talking to him for ten hours, you don't know him any better than you did after ten minutes.

Voting for Obama was never the right choice objectively, but it was the right cultural choice, it was the trend, the impulse that everyone seemed to be following, the style that everyone was wearing, and the book that everyone was reading.  But trends like that don't last.  How many people will have Lady Gaga songs in the players or Fifty Shades of Grey on their bookshelves ten years from now?  This too is the fate of the president of the trending topic, the commander-in-chief of the pet rock and the mood ring with his binders full of women and t-shirts with pictures of horses and bayonets on them.  A joke that like Snakes on a Plane or All Your Base Are Belong To Us never gets old until 5 minutes later.

When times are bad, people have a well-known escapist streak. During the Great Depression, lavish musicals were popular. After September 11, Zoolander topped the box office. Facing two wars and a failed economy, the American people followed their own escapist streak to a smooth talking trickster with a soothing bag of promises that were too good to be true. Who wanted to listen to McCain, a man who looked like a walking war injury and kept talking about sacrifice, when you could get big bags of free stuff from a man who offered a post-racial society as a free gift with every vote.

Americans escaped to Obama and now they’re escaping from Obama

The vacation was already being cut short in 2012 and now it’s approaching its blackout date. Instead of taking Americans away from everything, Obama took everything away from them, and now they’re gearing up to take it all back and put him on a back shelf next to last summer’s beach reads and last decade’s pop hits.
 

Obama is over. And confronting his ‘overness’, that deadliest of fates for a hipster, he is crawling back to pander to his original audience, the graphic designers who put together posters of him on their free time, the celebrities who were eager to form his Jack Pack, to be his Joey Bishop or his Marylin Monroe, the musicians singing about him, the netroots bloggers cranking out their sensations of euphoric immediacy at being in his presence and the professional leftists cheering for him to take down the American Empire like Godzilla took down Tokyo.
 

But all the trending memes with hashtags and Tumblr pages, the calculatingly overexposed Instagram photos and the celebrities scribbling things on their hands and Twitpiccing the results, can’t bring back the thing that’s over. And even if they could, it won’t make a difference to the election. Hipsters like things that are different before they become popular, because it makes them seem like interesting people. Once something is popular then liking it no longer means that you’re interesting, instead it comes with the ego-deflating revelation that you are just like everyone else, except more so.
 

There’s no point to liking Obama anymore. Not when Obama is everywhere, more overexposed than Instagram, grinning from every corner, from every screen and magazine cover, selling out to get ahead and making the old faithfuls wonder if he ever stood for anything at all. Theirs is the sad burden of knowing that they will never have their own JFK who died, tragically and horrifyingly, before he could dive all the way into Vietnam, before stories of his carousing hit the papers forcing him to go on television and insist that he never had sex with any of those women.
 

Obama will not be immortalized by a Communist with a rifle. Instead he is doomed to be mortal, his hair turning white and his musical tastes turning worse. Any day now he will admit to a fondness for Kenny G and after that there will be no saving him from the dread ravages of time. And so he is over because the alternative to him being over is the tastemakers having to confront their own overness. Their own mortality.

If Obama were cannier than he seems, then he would embrace his own fakeness, becoming a self-constructed celebrity, glorifying in his own artificiality, until like Lady Gaga or Lana Del Rey and every third hip hop star with a pulse, his very fakeness would serve as proof of his inventiveness and his media savvy. Such an Obama would present a birth certificate showing that he was born in Kenya to challenge our notions of identity, admit to squandering all the country’s money for its own good and keep us entertained with his latest antics. It might not win him the election, but considering the example of Zoolander, it might, because then instead of being over, he would be a new escape all over again.
 

But Obama is determined to be a hipster to the very end, instead of embracing the shamelessness of his own media manipulations, he veers erratically between an insincere sincerity and the sneer of the spitefully superior. It’s the performance we saw in the third debate, the antics of every college kid you ever argued with, that combination of smugness and insecurity that marks the hipster as an impossible conversationalist.
 

The only thing sadder than a hipster is a wannabe hipster and that’s what Obama is now ... a man in search of a meme, a one-man band in search of an artfully touching documentary about its travails in the wilds of Portland and a flat line in search of its trend.

 

Obama does not know how to govern. He does not know how to address the economy or war. The one thing he knows how to do is be popular. That is the one and only skill that he has cultivated in his life. And it is a good skill for a politician, but a politician whose only skill is popularity had better avoid taking responsibility for anything that might make him unpopular.

Popularity is a trend, and like every reality show star still pounding away on Twitter five years later, trying to move their latest CD or comedy club appearance, Oprah’s most popular boy toy since Dr. Oz has failed to realize that he is no longer popular, his moment has passed, his relevance is through and no one wants a man whose only skills are on-camera skills to be the one standing between them and economic oblivion.
 

The country doesn’t hate him, but it is tired of him. It wakes up every morning, remembers the time everyone got drunk and decided to vote for the cool black dude who talked a lot about hope, winces and then forgets about him all over again until it looks at the latest economic news. It’s over him and it wishes that he would show some dignity and walk away from a job that he isn’t qualified for on his own.
 

His fundraising emails walk the thin line between emotional blackmail and hysteria

Obama has gotten desperate. His fundraising emails walk the thin line between emotional blackmail and hysteria. Increasingly they read like Cousin Larry phoning for bail money from Tijuana. Shrilly needy they demand that we pay attention to him, that we love him, adore him and spend money on him. They are the missives of a man who cannot conceive of a life outside the spotlight, the vapid fear of a celebrity who cannot confront the real world and cannot understand why their public is walking away.
 

In the last stages of his career, Obama has become Norma Desmond, waving around a social media gun and shouting, “No one leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.” But the country has left and what they leave behind is a star falling from the sky over Chicago .

Z:  Let's hope so.

 

CONDI RICE WAS AMAZING LAST NIGHT

I got to hear Condi Rice speak last night in West Los Angeles.   She spoke for 20 minutes without notes and took 25 minutes of excellent questions with humor, warmth, intelligence and ..well, 'intelligence' is the understatement of the year, I think, in her case.  That woman is smart as it gets.

And, during the cocktails before the dinner....outside on the patio in the gorgeous California evening at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset Boulevard...Clint Eastwood appeared.   He walked right by me and I was dying to say "Can I get you a CHAIR?" :-)  but, uncharacteristically, I stayed mum.    I was pretty surprised he was at the event.  Others who were there were Glenn Reynolds from Instapundit, who Bill Whittle pointed out to me...Bill Whittle is always really nice.   David Mamet was there; he introduced Condi Rice.   As I was leaving, he was standing nearby and I shook his hand and told him I'd done a post about his change from liberal to conservative.  He seemed nice.

There were quite a few bigger celebrities than Gary Senise there tonight, but it's always good to see him at these functions because he started this group and he's done so much for America's soldiers. 

Condi Rice was one of THE best speakers I've ever had the pleasure of hearing.   I walked up close to her table just after she'd spoken only because it felt like being pretty close to history.   My friend and I left just as she did and she walked by us and we both said how much we'd enjoyed her talk and thanked her, she slowed down (secret service was whisking her away pretty quickly),  all smiles, and thanked us for the compliments,  so gracious and humble was she.  The head valet talked to us as we waited for our car and he said how nice he found Condi Rice because she had said hello to every valet when she arrived and then again as she left.  

I took a lot of notes but you don't need to hear all that she said....I'll just say that her main thrust was that America, and the world, are at a crossroads.   She said "when you lose control of your finances, you lose control of your destiny," likening that to us personally and to America.   Pretty great way to put the incredible trouble we're in right now and how badly we have to change that trend.

She said America is extraordinary and "our enemies need to know that we know we are extraordinary", the knowledge of which, anymore, our left has stripped from us.

The hotel catering staff  (including the head chef)  was glued to the walls all around the room, rapt with attention to what she was saying.  I'd say she changed votes tonight if I was an optimist.

Condi Rice is a big part of recent American history....after having heard what she said tonight, I wish she'd be part of history in the making.  But, when asked by a guest tonight, she said she'd never run for office.  "When I stumped with George Bush on his campaign trail, we'd make five stops in a day and in the evening he'd be raring to GO and I'd be raring to go to bed!"

Condi Rice is one terrific woman.

z

A Mexican Citizen warns America....

If only this could be shown on television.  As I said on a comment on Mustang's excellent post below this, every single Mexican I know who can legally vote is a Republican....this Mexican has it right.
By the way, I'm going to hear Condi Rice speak at a dinner tonight....really looking forward to it.
z

Is this HEALTHY, America?

Fraudulent voting is a serious problem in the United States today, unless you happen to be a progressive—and then it’s simply part of the game. Not long ago, three Wake County, North Carolina Democrats admitted to voter fraud, casting two ballots each in recent elections. All three individuals also admitted to voting twice in 2008.[Source]

But wait: there’s more. The head of the NAACP in Mississippi was also recently sent to prison for ten (10) counts of voter fraud.[Source]

But wait: there’s more. In an effort to promote North Carolina as one of the healthiest states in the nation, 410 individuals over the age of 110 voted by absentee ballot … but that’s just in Charlotte, North Carolina. Statewide, there are over 2,660 people who have registered to vote absentee, all of them over the age of 110.[Source]

We’re impressed; we thought for certain, given the direction this country has taken over the past 20 years that patriotism was dead. Thank goodness, we still have the centenarians to keep us focused on what’s most important. The number of elderly patriots who vote Democratic is utterly amazingly, but we suppose this makes sense if one considers that North Carolina was a Jim Crow state under the Democratic Party for well over 100 years.  Of course, there MUST have been 110-year-old Republicans who committed fraud, too, right? Who would believe that dead peo, er … centenarians only vote for democrats? So if they end up voting for a few Republicans, it appears plausible —to progressives, we mean.

In spite of these problems, North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue doesn't think voter fraud is a problem in her state.  No siree ... there is absolutely no basis for imposing “voter identification” standards. Of course, Beverly is a democrat. She’s one of those thoughtful progressives who think denying the vote to people who want to cast more than one ballot violates their civil rights.

But there is another point of view. Posthumous voting impugns the integrity of our most sacred right: to select our leaders honestly and fairly. And while we are on the topic of voting, why is it that prisoners are able to receive absentee ballots (they aren't even allowed to vote), but our soldiers serving overseas, who are entitled to absentee ballots, are denied them? No matter. We should regard ourselves fortunate to have members of the New Black Panther Party guarding our voting precincts … you know, in case a conservative wants to vote.

Z&M

Romney: A Good Man...say liberals?

Normally, Republicans would have to have been crucified in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago AND have a triple-A rating with Standard and Poor’s, which is one rating higher than the entire United States of America, before liberals could say anything nice about any of them, right?   Particularly shortly before an election?
BUT...the following video is an astonishing conversation with CBS’ Charley Rose, Jeff Benedict, who recently wrote a book about Mitt Romney, Oprah's friend Gail King, and other liberals... Imagine that bunch absolutely glowing about Romney?   Well, you don't have to imagine anymore...here goes:

Gail King even quotes David Checketts, someone she obviously thinks a lot of, as saying 'Mitt Romney is one of the five smartest people I know'!    I don't know if this group was out drinking before they taped this conversation and forgot their goals in life, but they were sure drunk on Romney!
We are pleased to see that liberals finally agree with us:  Mr. Romney is a good man.  We also believe he is well qualified to become President of the United States.

-Z and Mustang

no voter fraud?

I'm so glad there's no VOTER FRAUD, aren't YOU?  geeeeZ
Did YOU know that twice as many Democrats live to 110 years old as Republicans?
Do you know anybody who's 110 years old?
z

New recipe at Mac n' GeeeZ.....mmmmmmm

Sunday Faith Blog

Imagine VISITING HEAVEN?   A neurosurgeon did...and lived to tell quite a story.

Do you believe in heaven?  What do you think it looks like?  If you don't believe in an afterlife, what are the near-death experiences about and how can so many be so similar?   Tell us your thoughts on this subject, please!

Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Revelation 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Have a heavenly Sunday!

Z and Mustang

IRAN AND AMERICA...OH, the TIMING! :-)

Two nights before the Foreign Policy debate, Obama's agreeing FINALLY to TALK TO IRAN...FACE TO FACE!  Oh, happy day!   (not)

I am trying to Google, but can't find anything yet;   just heard it on FOX.   I suppose FOX was first because they haven't the added burden of adding such astonishing kudos and ravings about Obama's brilliance and wonderfulness in their reportage....FOX is able to just TELL US THE NEWS, as usual.   I just made it easy for some "journalist" to get this on line sooner by writing the text in red.....what do you think?:

"Barack Hussein Obama, beleaguered as the race gets tighter and tighter in these last days before the November 6 election, has decided that now is just the time to meet face to face with Ahmedinejad.  This president has put aside the fact that Iran stood in our way of really succeeding in Iraq, put aside the horrible names this regime's called America, put aside all those devilish little details which are not optimal and is now, in his WONDERFUL all-understanding way, going to MEET IRAN!  Of course, GOPers will call this 'playing politics' but Democrats never do that, only Republicans do.   This is pure genius and Obama will now save the world and Israel from nuclear holocaust single-handedly!  What a man, what a guy, what a Commander in Chief!"

HA!  I'm SO glad this isn't about playing politics, aren't you?   :-)


Does he really think we are THAT STUPID!?   My GOSH...a month before the election and housing costs go down, retailers are saying this will be a better Christmas than last in retail sales, joblessness goes down a tiny bit, and now this?  It's a MIRACLE, as Eddie Murphy said.......a TOTAL MIRACLE!   It's SUCH a miracle that maybe I should put this on as my Sunday Faith Blog instead of here? 

heh!

By the way, the more I think about this......couldn't this backfire on Obama?   I mean, how many Americans respect or trust AHMEDINEJAD?   How many are thinking "is Obama NUTS?"   I am.

By the way, this will be up on Monday;  let's talk about this in depth, I'm really curious about whether you think this is a good thing for Obama's election hopes or a terrible idea.

z

Who LIED? Check this out........

The Second Presidential Debate featured repeated claims by each candidate that the other was not telling the truth--as well as at least one claim of fact by the moderator that turned out to be false. There were even questionable claims by the audience itself. Here are the top ten worst lies told during the Second Debate:

10. "I told you I would cut taxes for middle-class families, and I did. I told you I’d cut taxes for small businesses, and I have." President Barack Obama has made this claim repeatedly during the campaign, but it is not true, as even the liberal Huffington Post acknowledges. The few tax cuts that Obama did enact--such as the temporary payroll tax holiday--were short-term, or conditional. Furthermore, as the Romney campaign has often pointed out, Obama has raised many taxes on the middle class, including the infamous Obamacare "penalty," and his taxes on "millionaires and billionaires" would hit small businesess.

9. "...[H]e was asked, is it fair for somebody like you, making $20 million a year, to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse or a bus driver....And he said, yes, I think that’s fair." Obama was referring to Romney's recent 60 Minutes interview. But the transcript reveals Obama was not telling the truth. Romney was not saying it was fair that higher income should be taxed at a lower rate. He was referring specifically to the principle that capital gains should be taxed lower than other income because it has been taxed once already--a principle, incidentally, that Obama agrees with in his own tax policy.


8. "He called the Arizona law a model for the nation." Obama tried to knock Romney's immigration policy while at the same time accusing him of flip-flopping on the issue. But as Romney pointed out, he was referring specifically to the e-Verify part of the law--the requirement of instant verification of workers' legal status. That provision is even favored by unions. Obama made it seem Romney praised the law as a whole--which he had not. He went on to say that he himself objected to the provision that allowed police to check suspected illegal immigrants' documentation--but that provision survived a challenge at the Supreme Court.

7. "I want to make sure our timekeepers are working here." For the third debate in a row, the Democratic candidate complained that he was not receiving as much time to speak as the Republican. And for the third debate in a row, the Obama/Biden ticket actually spoke for longer--much longer--than the Romney/Ryan ticket, a testament to the ability of the incumbents to pressure the moderators, and the susceptibility of the left-leaning moderators to such pressure. Obama received a full three minutes more time in last night's debate--and the percentage difference was even higher at one point in the proceedings.

6. "They rely on it for mammograms." Obama attacked Romney's proposal to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood by claiming that the organization provides mammograms to women to help prevent breast cancer. It's been a repeated claim made by the left for months. The problem is that it's just untrue--and even left-leaning mainstream media fact-checkers have acknowledged that. What is perhaps worse than Obama's misleading claim about mammograms is the unsupported implication that Romney wants to deny life-saving health care to women--a cheap shot to which Romney was given no chance to respond.


5. "You can ship jobs overseas and get tax breaks for it." We have heard the same lie for eight years from Obama. In 2004, he ran for U.S. Senate from Illinois on a promise to end such tax breaks. He did it again when he ran for President of the United States in 2008. And yet he has never done anything about it--because there are no such tax breaks. There is merely a deduction that companies can take for moving, even within the U.S.--and which helps offset the double taxation of U.S. businesses abroad, which would make American companies less competitive. Repealing it would ship jobs overseas, actually.

4. "And the production is up....What you’re saying is just not true." Obama contested a claim by Romney that production of oil and gas is down on federal lands. He even accused Romney of not telling the truth. But Romney was right--exactly right, down to the percentage decline. Furthermore, Obama's claim that he has been increasing oil and gas production on federal lands flies in the face of recent policy decisions, such as closing off a large part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to further development. Obama has tried to take credit for expansion on private lands, while opposing expansion wherever possible.

3. "In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?" The false premise from a member of the audience was especially egregious because her question had been selected in advance by the moderator. The supposed wage gap between men and women for the same work is largely a myth. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth pointed out: "Women make about 95 percent of what their male counterparts earn, if the male counterparts are in the same job with the same experience."

2. "He wanted to take them into bankruptcy without providing them any way to stay open." After Obama accused Romney of wanting American auto manufacturers to go bankrupt, Romney pointed out that Obama had, in fact, taken the auto companies through bankruptcy. Obama's retort was to accuse Romney of wanting to take the companies bankrupt in order to put them out of business--a blatant lie. Romney actually suggested in his famous 2008 op-ed: "In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check." 

1. "He did call it an act of terror." The worst untruth told by a moderator in presidential history. Candy Crowley's intervention in favor of Obama caused the president's cheering section to burst into applause, in violation of the rules, and there was little that Romney could say in response. But she was wrong--Obama's reference to "acts of terror" in his Sep. 12 statement was in a general, abstract sense, and came long after he had described the 9/11 attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions as demonstrations against an anti-Islamic video. Even Crowley seemed to realize what she had done: it wasn't long before she walked back her own comment.


What else can we at geeeeZ say?  what would you like to add?

Z and M

Isn't it a shame ...

… we can no longer believe anything our government tells us?

We’ve been hearing about Defense Sequestration for several months now.  No one is quite sure exactly what it is, or what it means, or even its consequences.  To understand this, we have to begin with the Budget Control Act of 2011.  This federal statute was necessary to bring to a conclusion the US Debt Ceiling Crisis of 2011, which had threatened to lead the US into sovereign default by 3 August 2011. 

Mr. Obama signed the act on 2 August 2011.

BCA provides several complex mechanisms to help slow deficit spending by the federal budget.  They are complex because no one in Congress wants us to figure out how worthless these people are.  If anyone demanded a single example of congressional ineptitude, it would have to be the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reductions.  The only words we can use to describe the Super-Committee are, “utter failure.” 

Now because the Super-Committee didn't work, Congress intends to cancel defense contracts.  This means, cutting back on defense armaments, and terminating the employment of people who work for defense industries.

We can only shake our heads when we realize that the Budget Control Act doesn’t actually reduce federal debt; it only slows down the existing rate of debt growth.  This is because the Budget Control Act doesn’t actually reduce federal spending in absolute terms; it only reduces the rate of spending increases.

Instead of spending 25% more next year than last, the federal government may only spend … say, 10% more.  In spite of this, the Congressional Budget Office still projects US debt to grow faster than the US economy —most of this is due to the “cost curve” of Obama Care, which the Budget Control Act does not address.

The bottom line is that Americans employed in the Defense Industries will lose their jobs —after the New Year.  At Lockheed Martin alone, 123,000 people are at risk to lose their jobs due to “Defense Sequestration.”

Enter Mr. Sneaky Man: Barack Hussein Obama.

If Lockheed (or any other major defense industry) intends to lay off employees on 2 January 2013, federal law requires affected companies notify their at risk employees sixty days in advance of projected termination dates.  That would be 2 November 2012 … four days in advance of the general election.  Mr. Obama doesn't want these people notified in advance of his bid for reelection. 

So Mr. Obama contacted Lockheed and told them not to issue layoff notices, even though federal law requires it.  Obama promised to pay all fines and penalties —with taxpayer money.  Yes, it’s true: reelection is that important to Barack Hussein Obama.

But we aren’t done yet.  According to The Hill, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has threatened to block the Obama administration from reimbursing defense contractors for severance costs.

Right now, though, it looks as if Mr. Obama will get his way.  Defense employees will lose their jobs on 2 January, but without the compliance of defense contractors to notify their employees.  House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) called Obama’s tactic politically motivated and illegal … but as with Eric Holder and most other cabinet officials, Mr. Obama doesn't care what lawmakers think.  Or “we the people,” either.

By the way, we aren't just talking about 123,000 Lockheed Martin employees. 

According to the Aerospace Industries Association, as many as 956,181 small business jobs nationwide are among those at risk under the Defense Sequestration provision of the Budget Control Act of 2011. 

Isn’t it amazing how Mr. Sneaky Man can find clever ways to secure reelection, but is unable to find ways to make America prosperous again?

American government is getting worse by the day.

H/T: JonBerg