November 20, 2012

AMERICAN THINKER

Is 30 the New 50?

by Scott Mayer

November 20, 2012

With ObamaCare in the wings, the traditional forty- or fifty-hour work week will soon be replaced with a less than thirty-hour week for many American workers. To wit: many businesses, including ones that previously received ObamaCare waivers, are trying to avoid paying onerous fines for not providing employees with health coverage as mandated by the new law.

President Obama recently said that he won't allow the budget to be "balanced on the backs of the middle class." He sure did give the appearance of truly caring about these "folks," but he failed to disclose the fact that, even if taxed at 100%, there simply aren't enough rich people to pay for all of his big-government plans. But as Thomas Sowell points out, even at a rate much lower than 100%, higher tax rates don't necessarily translate into higher tax revenues. So where will all this needed money come from? While Obama is targeting the group of Americans who already pay the most in taxes, the burden of his policies will ultimately break the backs of those he claims to be trying to protect.

The Obamacare mandate is just one example of how the middle class will be forced to shoulder a heaver burden, which flies in the face what Obama had promised to the American people. But in addition to this mandate (now officially a tax), a reduced work week will in essence have the same effect as a huge tax increase for those affected. Take-home pay is what ultimately matters, and losing 25% of one's gross pay based upon a forty-hour week or about 45% based on a fifty-hour week when overtime is factored in represents an enormous hit. This hit comes before anything is even earned to tax at regular rates. And there are plenty of other hidden ObamaCare taxes that will also take a huge bite out of Americans' pocketbooks in one way or another.

And the hits just keep on coming. ObamaCare will also take a bite out of middle-class buying power when it comes to one of America's most popular foods -- pizza -- by imposing complicated national menu-labeling standards, the costs of which will no doubt be passed along to the consumer. This added cost will be in addition to any other expenses that businesses will need to add to their products due to the hefty burden of ObamaCare. (Hat tip: KSFO Morning Show with Brian Sussman)

Margaret Thatcher once said: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." The problem with Obama's socialism is that we're already running out of other people's money -- and Obama is just getting started.

By the time Obama and Democrats are finished with us, perhaps thirty will be the new fifty -- or maybe even seventy, in terms of age and health. I suppose we can call it Extreme Makeover: Obamacare Edition.

Read more: http://goo.gl/qkB4T

THE NATIONAL REVIEW

Oh What a Tangled Web - Libyagate won't end like Watergate

by Victor Davis Hanson

November 20, 2012

Supporters of President Obama have dubbed those who question administration statements about Libya as either partisans or conspiracy theorists, on the premise that the administration had no reason to dissimulate. But in fact, it had plenty of political reasons not to be candid, as the following questions make clear.

Why was the administration hesitant to beef up security at the vulnerable Benghazi consulate ahead of time, or to send in military assistance during the seven-hour attack on the consulate and the CIA annex, or at least to be candid after the attack?

The Obama reelection campaign had established a catchy narrative about foreign policy. “Leading from behind” had rid the world of Qaddafi without the loss of American lives, and had prepped Libya for the arrival of the Arab Spring, which would lead to a postbellum reform government. Barack Obama had killed Osama bin Laden and scattered al-Qaeda, dispelling slurs that he was somehow soft on Islamic terrorism. His reset diplomacy had brought a cool professional approach of quiet competency to foreign policy, consistent with a new lower-profile American posture abroad.

The idea of a preplanned hit by al-Qaeda affiliates on a vulnerable and unprepared American diplomatic post had the potential to shatter that narrative right before the election. Susan Rice summed up best the administration’s positive take on the supposedly spontaneous riot:

This is a turbulent time. It’s a time of dramatic change. It’s a change that the United States has backed because we understand that when democracy takes root, when human rights and people’s freedom of expression can be manifested, it may lead to turbulence in the short term, but over the long term, that is in the interest of the United States. The mobs we’ve seen on the outside of these embassies are a small minority. They’re the ones who have largely lost in these emerging democratic processes, and just as the people of these countries are not going to allow their lives to be hijacked by a dictator, they’re not going to allow an extremist mob to hijack their future and their freedom. And we’re going to continue to stand with the vast majority of the populations in these countries.

Had we, as our people on the ground had requested, beefed up security at the annex with Marines, attention at some point might have been focused on the chaotic situation in Libya and the vulnerability of the very Americans who supposedly had done so much to free Libyans from Qaddafi. Ambassador Chris Stevens was the sort of new diplomat — low-key, cool, a career professional, fluent in the local language and customs, able to blend in with the locals — that typified the new soft-power approach. He was hardly the sort of ambassador who would need, or want to be associated with, a sandbagged, barbed-wired, Marine-laden traditional compound.

Likewise, sending in air support to the beleaguered defenders — in the manner that Bill Clinton allowed the Blackhawks to strafe whatever was necessary to save a trapped American outpost in Mogadishu — would have reminded Americans that once more we were fighting al-Qaeda or its affiliates — all very much alive after the death of bin Laden. It would also have had the potential to result in a nasty high-profile firefight in a supposedly friendly reforming country on the eve of the U.S. election — a sort of mini-version of Mogadishu or the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon. This was at the very time the president on the campaign trail was telling the country that we were leaving wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not starting one in Libya.

Second, the alternative explanation — blaming a crass right-wing anti-Islamic filmmaker and the notoriously Islamophobic Florida pastor Terry Jones — was just too attractive an antithesis between a few bigoted Neanderthals and the majority of reform-minded liberal Americans. Blasting reckless hate speech, arresting the filmmaker for his insensitivity on the pretext of a minor parole violation, and delivering Cairo-speech-like reassurances about ruffled Muslim feelings would all showcase the president’s natural forte on the global stage: ecumenical reaching out, zero tolerance for bigotry, and singular sensitivity to wounded Muslim feelings.

Obama simply could not resist that, even though on September 12, the day after the attack, he let slip in an interview with 60 Minutes (of which this segment was not aired till weeks later) that he suspected it might have been a preplanned terrorist hit. After all, the notion that on 9/11 hundreds of people would show up at an obscure American consulate in a secondary Libyan city in order to protest a two-month-old video produced by an obscure American, and then suddenly get out of hand and use heavy weaponry such as machine guns and mortars to attack Americans, was as preposterous as it was apparently still preferable to the inconvenient truth.

Read more: http://goo.gl/BuWfz

CVN EDITORIAL

This Will Not be a Quick Fix

by Conservative Sue

November 20, 2012

Thomas Paine once said, "These are the times that try men's souls."  We live in a crazy world where what is right is now declared wrong, where good men and women are vilified by our government, where instant gratification and selfishness are guiding principles. 

I've said, for years, that restoring American exceptionalism will require a lot of hard work by dedicated patriots who are willing to withstand the onslaught of ridicule to educate those who have fallen asleep on our watch. Our government and our culture are slipping into an appalling state of lethargy and insolence. Those who are in leadership are not held to account while those who insist that we must respect our Constitution and founding principles are blamed for the failures of others who have taken this country down a dark path.

I have worked in education all my life. It hasn't been an easy profession for me, but a long hard battle to change a system that is designed to reward those who submit to the status quo while simultaneously thwarting the efforts of those who believe that exceptionalism in education (as in  any other endeavor) is the only real and lasting success.  

I have worked in good school districts and bad ones, but, without exception, the school districts that were willing to look at the hard facts and tackle their problems head-on were the only ones who made a real difference in improving education for the students and changing the culture of their schools and communities for the better. 

I liken the situation we see in America now to that of a faltering school district. Today many school district officials put out glowing reports of success to the public while students sit in classrooms devoid of engagement and true learning. Test scores are manipulated, data is parsed to put a positive spin on what might otherwise be seen as failure in our students. The school officials work day and night to get around accountability measures while wallowing in mediocrity and insisting that the status quo is wholly acceptable. Instead of taking poor results as a warning signal or a call for change, they ignore the results and look for a quick-fix or simply misrepresent what those negative results really mean to a naive community.

To change a culture of a school district is very difficult.  I have been very fortunate to work in school districts alongside some great teachers and administrators.. who believed, like me, that failure is simply not acceptable. That bad data is simply that, and any spin to make it look better than it is ... isn't serving any good purpose.  Years of hard work paid off as we worked together to instill an attitude of exceptionalism first within our students, then their parents, then within the school leadership teams.  The culture began to slowly change from 'what is the minimum we can do to get by?' to one of 'We will not settle for less than exceptional'. To see those attitudes change has been the most rewarding part of my career.  

Now we need to do the same in this culture.  There is no quick-fix for a culture that has drifted so far from the ideals of exceptionalism that once guided us. We can't expect that our leaders will report data honestly or begin working to restore what has been lost until we stop rewarding those who lie and stop crucifying those who are honest. We need to face the hard realities and begin the hard work of restoration.  Educating a culture that is not only clueless but also uninterested in the affairs in our government is going to take a monumental effort, but the most glorious victories are in those battles which everyone said could not be won.

I will not settle for anything less than exceptional.  Who will join me in the fight?

November 16, 2012

NATIONAL REVIEW

Does Government Need to Grow? - When it grows faster than the economy’s ability to support it, bad things tend to happen.
by Andrew G. Biggs
November 16, 2012

Thomas Jefferson thought that “the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Little in recent history shows him to have been wrong.

The 2012 election cemented in place higher spending, increased regulation, and federal control over the health sector. More broadly, from 1900 to 2012, spending by the federal government rose from less than 7 percent of the gross domestic product to over 40 percent. As the population ages and entitlement spending rises, government outlays — financed by rising taxes, expanding debt, or both — will increase only further. Under President Obama’s budget, government spending as a share of the economy would be significantly higher than post–World War II norms. Even Representative Paul Ryan’s ambitious Roadmap would allow for a small increase in government outlays.

But why?

Does government need to grow in order for the economy to grow? Data from around the world do show that as economies grow, government spending tends to rise even faster. But this isn’t to say that big government causes economies to grow: Another explanation is that countries with large economies are simply able to afford larger governments. Economists Andreas Bergh and Magnus Henrekson have documented that when we look specifically at developed countries, we find a negative relationship between government size and economic growth.
Do social programs require an ever-expanding state? Consider the basic case for these social programs: Without such assistance, it is said, a substantial number of people will suffer significant and perhaps irreparable harm during hard times. For instance, in 1929, the final year before the Great Depression, the average per capita income was around $9,730 in today’s dollars. People living on farms had incomes about one-third the average, and many were even worse off. In other words, if you were poor in 1929, you were really poor. You didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing, and in truly tough times you might not have even had food. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who opposes government programs that prevent Americans from starving.

But shouldn’t the case for activist government grow weaker as economies grow larger and the threat of starvation, homelessness, and other forms of true want recedes? Today, per capita income is around $42,000. Even the very poor are doing better than the average American of 1929, with food, shelter, and modern conveniences far beyond the subsistence levels government sought to maintain during the Depression. Moreover, today’s poor are defined less by misfortune than by bad choices regarding education, marriage, and child-bearing — all abetted by incentives embedded in government social policy. As Ron Haskin and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution have pointed out, for individuals who graduate high school, wait until marriage to have children, and hold a full-time job, the poverty rate is only 2 percent.

Rather than declining as incomes have risen, government spending on social programs has grown. This year we will spend nearly $1 trillion on means-tested welfare programs, an amount that, even when adjusted for inflation, exceeds the entire U.S. gross domestic product in 1929. Government spending will only increase as Baby Boomers retire and swell the Social Security and Medicare rolls, even though the elderly have more wealth than do children or working-age Americans who receive different entitlements.

But government didn’t grow as big as it has through absent-mindedness. Rather, a critical mass of Americans have bought into the idea that they need or deserve ever-increasing transfer payments from other Americans. The federal government’s ability and willingness to borrow only facilitated this trend by shifting the bill onto future generations, who lack a voice in current debates.

This trend can’t continue forever. As Europe currently demonstrates, and as we’re increasingly likely to learn ourselves, when government grows faster than the economy’s ability to support it, bad things tend to happen.

Read more: http://goo.gl/jf0xo

HUMAN EVENTS
Jobless Claims Explode; Media Spinners Blame Hurricane
by John Hayward
November 15, 2012

It's funny how the unemployment data just went haywire as soon as Barack Obama was safely re-elected, isn’t it?  All that ridiculous nonsense about economic recovery and “our plans are working” vanishes in a single week’s worth of data, and we’re right back where we’ve always been: dropping out of the Obama non-recovery into the new Obama recession, if not outright depression.

New jobless claims blew into the stratosphere in the first post-election week, leaping by 78,000 to hit a seasonally adjusted total of 439,000.  The media have almost universally tried to blame that on Hurricane Sandy (which is suddenly “Super Storm Sandy” again, in many press reports.)  As Joel Pollak of Breitbart.com points out, that’s balderdash, and it’s so obviously untrue that no serious economic analysis could possibly have mentioned it by accident:

Some of the new claims, especially in New Jersey, were due to Hurricane Sandy–but these were offset by a decline in claims filed in New York. The highest numbers of new filings came from Pennsylvania and Ohio, where there were thousands of layoffs in the construction, manufacturing, and automobile industries. 

Both states had been targeted by the presidential campaigns. President Obama highlighted his record of job creation in Ohio in particular, focusing on the automobile industry. The state reported 6,450 new jobless claims in the week after the election–second-highest after Pennsylvania, which recorded 7,766 new claims.

(Emphasis mine.)  See?  Any media outlet ignoring the wave of claims from Pennsylvania and Ohio to claim this is a “hurricane surge” is spinning as hard as Sandy did.  They’re trying to keep buyer’s remorse from settling in too quickly after the election.  It can’t be made too obvious that they helped the Obama re-election team sell Americans a bill of goods, especially when the battle lines for the new debt ceiling drama are being drawn.

The crew at ZeroHedge is also on the case, noting that if Super Duper Ultra Mega Storm Sandy was so obviously responsible for the unemployment surge, the numbers wouldn’t be so much higher than what the “experts” predicted:

Get ready for the “it’s all Sandy’s fault” barrage, because the post-reelection status quo sure will desperately need it today. The latest initial claims data posted a multi-year high 104,548 surge in weekly NSA claims from 361,800 to 466,348, and even the Seasonally adjusted number soaring from 361K to 439K on expectations of a 375K print. In other words, a complete disaster for any economic data bulls. 

What is truly amusing is that the same Wall Street “experts” who set expectations were unable to foresee the Sandy effect that every “macrotourist” on Twitter apparently is so very aware of. Also, it is apparently also “Sandy’s fault” (now that the Bush excuse is back in retirement) that the prior week’s claims were revised from 355K to 361K. Basically, just as we said 3 weeks ago, ignore every negative data point: it is Sandy’s fault. However, for the snapback, when there actually is good news to be had, well, “four more years.” 

Finally, to all the Sandy apologists: is the logic here that: if Hurricane, then Fire everyone? Because that is what is implied. To summarize: a hurricane is good for GDP (lots of broken windows), but any actually negative news (surge in firings) is perfectly expected.

Read more: http://goo.gl/5TQ1L

PJ MEDIA

Will Petraeus Set the Record Straight?

by Richard Fernandez

November 15, 2012

Breitbart quotes a tweet by CNN correspondent Frances Townsend claiming information by Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr that David Petraeus will testify that he knew the attack on the Benghazi consulate was terrorism “almost immediately.” The “same source” claims he will say Susan Rice’s talking points ascribing the attack to a video came from the White House.

If Petraeus really does testify to this effect, he will inescapably be alleging under oath that the president was a liar. Even if the testimony is restricted strictly to Benghazi and not its aftermath, the crucial question remains: did the president abandon the men on the ground to their fates?

Of course the purpose of this new leak may be to muddy the waters. In Washington, home to hundreds of newspaper correspondents and reporters, nothing is as it seems. The age of Obama resembles nothing so much as an evil fun-house of mirrors.

There may be a behind-the-scenes effort to influence what Petraeus will say. Charles Krauthammer has already suggested that the administration has tried to use the Broadwell incident to silence the former CIA director. But if Petraeus testifies as advertised, it may mean that he has decided that the administration will destroy him even if tries to go along and that his only remaining option is to fight.

DP’s options are rapidly shrinking. CNN reports that the CIA has opened an internal investigation into Petraeus’ conduct. Does anybody still believe this is about an extra-marital affair? Probably the same people who who believed that Benghazi was about a YouTube video.

The announcement of the internal investigation comes on the eve of closed door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Petraeus is expected to offer his thoughts to the committee members on what the Agency knew and when it knew it in the days after the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on September 11.

For reasons that the public does not understand, the incident in Benghazi has started a full-blown power struggle that is raging beneath the surface of official Washington.

Read more: http://goo.gl/MCIGu

November 15, 2012

NEWSMAX
FBI Agent in Petraeus Hero Who Stopped Terrorist Plot in 2000
by the Associated Press
November 15, 2012

FBI Special Agent Frederick Humphries II played a key role in stopping a terrorist attack aimed at blowing up Los Angeles International Airport just as the year 2000 dawned.

Today, the agent, who also fatally shot a knife-wielding man during a 2010 altercation, finds himself in the middle of the widening scandal that has resulted in CIA Director David Petraeus' resignation.

Humphries, 47, was the agent who initially saw the emails the FBI said Petraeus' biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell, sent to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, a woman she apparently saw as a rival for Petraeus' affections. She also allegedly sent emails to Gen. John Allen, Kelley's friend and the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Concerned about the emails, Kelley contacted Humphries in June. The two had met at a 2011 FBI Citizens Academy, a program aimed at teaching the public and journalists about what the agency does and how it operates. Kelley was in the class, which Humphries lectured one night about terrorism, according to Natalie Shepherd, a Tampa TV reporter who was there.

Humphries, a former Army captain who worked in military intelligence, thought the emails raised serious concerns because the anonymous author knew the comings and goings of Allen and Petraeus, a former general who had preceded Allen in Afghanistan. His report back to the FBI started the investigation that led to Broadwell and uncovered her affair with Petraeus.

The FBI is reviewing Humphries' later conduct in this case, a federal law enforcement official said Wednesday. Specifically, the bureau is reviewing a telephone call he made in late October to Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., to voice concern that the bureau was not aggressively pursuing a possible national security breach. Reichert arranged to convey the information to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, who checked with the FBI at that time. Cantor was assured the bureau was on top of any possible vulnerability.

Lawrence Berger, the general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said in an interview Wednesday that his client, Humphries, did nothing wrong and should not be disciplined. "He's committed no misconduct," Berger said and predicted he would be cleared of any misconduct.

Read more: http://goo.gl/QCnk5

THE WEEKLY STANDARD
Decline and Fall - California votes for more: taxes, spending, debt, government
by Charlotte Allen
November 15, 2012

On November 6 voters in California did something nearly unheard of during the past 30 years: They approved, by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent, a ballot measure raising state income taxes on the most prosperous Californians and sales taxes on everyone, even though the state’s sales tax is already the highest in the nation.

The successful tax-hike initiative isn’t just a hoped-for generator of revenue: a projected $34 billion over the next seven years, which California desperately needs because it is running a $16 billion budget deficit and its cumulative total debt is at least $618 billion, the highest in the nation. That latter amount includes up to $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities for 220,000 state employees plus billions in unpaid bills, delayed payments to schools, and amounts raided from dedicated funds to cover general expenses.

The new tax is also intensely symbolic. It represents the culmination of a two-decade-long process in which the nation’s most populous state, once a prosperous industrial and high-tech powerhouse and magnet for immigrants from elsewhere in the country, has transformed itself into something else: a high-tax, high-spending, highly regulated, and chronically broke welfare state that is fast losing to out-migration both its middle class and the businesses and industries that create jobs. California factories once housed such industries as steel, automobile manufacturing, tire production, and aerospace. Those are now mostly or entirely gone. Silicon Valley employs only tiny numbers of tech geniuses; the actual manufacturing is done elsewhere. California’s unemployment rate tops 10 percent, in contrast to less than 8 percent for the nation as a whole. A full third of Americans on public assistance reside in California, even though it houses only one-eighth of the nation’s population. It is safe to say that only the very rich and the very poor​—​along with the 1.8 million who collect state and local government paychecks (some of the highest in the nation, according to the Census Bureau) and belong to powerful public-employee unions​—​can afford to make their homes in the Golden State these days. In short, California is the new Massachusetts. Or, given that it now has the worst state credit rating in America, thanks to chronic overspending, massive state debt, and the clout of the pension reform-resisting unions, California is the American Greece.

Until the passage of Proposition 30 last week, California voters had for more than two decades consistently rejected every general taxation measure put before them​—​and going directly to the voters on tax measures is fairly common in California, because the state constitution requires a hard-to-attain supermajority of two-thirds for a tax bill to pass the state legislature. The last time a tax measure on the general ballot had passed was in 1988, when California voters approved a cigarette levy​—​essentially a “vice” tax​—​aimed at funding antismoking and environmental programs. This November, however, voters agreed to raise the state sales tax to 7.5 percent from 7.25 percent, which means that consumers in, say, Los Angeles County, which has its own local sales tax, will be paying close to 10 percent in taxes on every item they purchase, save for groceries. Proposition 30 also includes a soak-the-rich so-called millionaires’ tax with an Occupy Wall Street flavor that hits people with household incomes of more than $250,000 a year, the same group that is President Obama’s target for raising federal income taxes. State rates for that 3 percent of Californians, many of whom own small businesses but are taxed as individuals, will rise to anywhere from 10.3 percent to 13.3 percent for those earning more than $1 million a year. Living in California has suddenly become even more expensive than it already was, especially for lower-income people on tight budgets, for whom every dollar paid out in sales taxes is a dollar that can’t be spent on something else. The tax increases are billed as “temporary”​—​if seven years for the income-tax hike and four years for the sales-tax hike can be called temporary.

Read more: http://goo.gl/24HSV

 

THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Don't cry now
by Noemie Emery
November 13, 2012

Yes, it's all sad -- and grim, and depressing -- but is Election 2012 truly the end of the GOP universe? Perhaps. But before giving way to unseemly hysterics, here are some thoughts to peruse:

* Timing is everything: This year, the Republicans needed new and appealing young talents to take on Obama, and that, as it happened, was just what they had. The upside was that in 2009 and 2010 they had a crop of new stars, all born to run on a national ticket. The downside was that they would be ready to start running in 2014 at the earliest. And so the most crucial of all nominations would go to one of a number of has-beens or retreads, whose experience was either old or irrelevant, and whose talent at best underwhelmed.

Mitt Romney, the best, left office six years ago, and had a liberal past, a financial career that had netted him millions, and, as the son of another ex-governor, seemed the image of white and upper-class privilege, minus the military heroics, medical problems, or personal tragedies that humanized the Roosevelt cousins, the Kennedy brothers and the elder George Bush.

Near the end, Romney became a good candidate, but he was always less than a good politician; a speaker in tongues that were not his first language, and a technocrat in a profession in which visionaries tend to win the big prize. His loss deprives the country of an effective executive, but it allows the next generation of the GOP, which would have been pushed aside for eight years or more if he had triumphed, to step forward now and make over the party -- a moment that can't come soon enough.

* The country has changed, but the next Republican ticket will have at least one, and possibly two, brownish-skinned children of immigrants, with inspiring stories of rising from nowhere to live the American dream. He and/or she (and "she" must be seen as a real possibility) will never have fired hundreds of people, will not be rich, will not be dogged by multiple changes on issues, will understand modern conservatism from having run and won on it, and also will be a career politician, unlikely to make the unforced verbal errors that haunted this campaign just ended. There are few such "diverse" stars in the Democrats' stable. Hillary Clinton, if she runs in 2016, will be 69, and unlikely to get the nation's young in a tizzy. In the next cycle, the dynamic that worked this year in the Democrats' favor -- race, youth and gender -- may be turned on its head.

Read more: http://goo.gl/z5rjC

November 14, 2012

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR
Does Obama Doom America?
by Quin Hillyer
November 14, 2012

The refrain started many weeks, even months, before the election, but its frequency and intensity has increased nearly exponentially since Nov. 6.

"I don't know if we can survive another four years of this," people say. Or, "do you think we can survive four more years of this?" Even Bill Kristol, not prone to defeatism, speculated on what might happen "even if America can survive the next four years of Obama." [Emphasis added.] The words aren't coming from alarmists. They come in face-to-face conversations, or in emails, or on the phone. They come from Washington, from New York, from New Jersey, from Minnesota, from Alabama, from New Orleans -- from all over. Serious, ordinary people, some of whom live and breathe politics and some of whom pay almost no attention to current affairs, aren't panicking or exaggerating. They are really worried about what this man in the White House will do now. And they're really worried about whether America as we know it can survive.

It is not an idle worry. Barack Obama and his minions play for keeps. And they are playing for a vastly different America than the one with which we have been accustomed for 224 years of this constitutional republic. Fight a war in Libya without even asking for a congressional resolution? No problem. Appoint executive officers without Senate approval, when the Senate is still in session? Sure. Issue executive orders directly contrary to law, on multiple occasions? Of course. Refuse to enforce duly constituted laws? Check. Repeatedly question the very legitimacy of the Supreme Court? Check. Refuse to honor congressional subpoenas and legitimate Freedom of Information requests? Ignore court orders (about offshore drilling) so flagrantly that you are found officially in contempt of court? Insult or even abandon allies? Whisper to foreign leaders of traditionally adversarial lands that you will have "more flexibility" after re-election? Deliberately cover up deadly mistakes on the Mexican border and in North Africa? Check, check, check, check, and check.

This man runs a vote-fraud-enabling, military-vote-suppressing, domestic-energy-destroying, debt-exploding, credit-limit-undermining, defense-gutting, abusive-regulation-promulgating, power-centralizing, religious-liberty-attacking, crony-corporatism-expanding, Constitution-trampling administration. He politicizes everything and demeans politics and the presidency simultaneously. His opponent (according to his closest political associates) was a "felon." The opponent was proximately responsible for a woman's cancer death, deliberately outsourced jobs, and led a "war on women." Women, meanwhile, should look to government for sustenance from cradle to grave, should vote as if giving up their virginity, and should "vote like [their] lady parts depend on it." Attack, attack, attack; demean, demean, demean; trivialize, trivialize, trivialize; and never once outline a second-term agenda other than demonizing the wealthy and confiscating their wealth. This is a man using the presidency to serve his own power, no matter what the cost, rather than honoring the power of the presidency by the restraint inherent in treating the office as greater than the man who holds it.

Obama discards promises with astonishing regularity, prevaricates about the past with impunity, uses race as a cudgel while claiming to unite us, taxes the middle class (e.g., on medical devices) while saying he would never do so, and guts welfare reform while claiming he's strengthening it. His mentor was a Communist; his top aide's in-laws and grandfather were major Communist activists; his chief political strategist worked for Communist-linked journalists; he started his political career with a fund-raiser at the house of domestic terrorists; he repeatedly and enthusiastically said the man who most deeply influenced his faith was a preacher in whose pews he sat for 20 years while the preacher spread racial hatred and anti-American venom (after which, according to the preacher himself, a close Obama associate offered to "buy" the preacher's silence); he got a sweetheart deal on his mansion via a financial alliance with a crook named Rezko; and he himself wrote that he made a conscious decision while still a very young adult to embrace racial grievances and hang out with hard-left counter-culturists.

Is there the slightest thing in that background to suggest that he loves the same America most Americans love?

"Voting is the best revenge," he said. How instructive. Revenge for what? Is it revenge against "bitter," middle class Americans who "cling" to "guns and religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them"? Is that why we need to "spread the wealth"? Or why we must not reform America but "transform" it?

And that's just Obama's person. His policies are worse. This nation absolutely cannot survive much more of his deliberately created debt. Our economy is being stifled by 68 regulations per day -- 6,125 regulations or regulatory notices in just the 90 days leading up to Nov. 12. Our medical system cannot survive Obamacare -- with doctors retiring at record rates, or refusing to accept Medicare or Medicaid patients, with premiums rising through the roof, with medical-device companies already cutting back on research and development, and with increasing numbers of companies dropping insurance coverage of their employees.

And that's not even to mention the horrifying dangers of a desperately weakened defense force, a refusal to call terrorism by its name or fight it accordingly, and a betrayal of allies combined with kowtowing to powers antagonistic to everything about the American nation.

Can we survive all this? Well, as Ronald Reagan would say, we are, after all, Americans. We are a rather hearty people, and an inherently decent people too. But never, ever, not even under Jimmy Carter, were we led by a president who thinks the United States has been anything but an overwhelming force for good in the world. Until now. And that should frighten us.

Read more: http://goo.gl/2JMjM

BREITBART
1.6 Trillion? Obama Doesn't Want a Deal
by Joel Pollak
November 13, 2012

President Barack Obama has responded to House Speaker John Boehner's gesture last week towards reaching a deal to avoid the Jan. 1 "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts, putting a specific demand on the table: $1.6 trillion in new tax revenues, reached by raising tax rates on the wealthy in addition to other "tax revenues." The offer is twice as high as a deal Obama scuttled last year, suggesting he may be prepared to let talks fail again.

Last week, Boehner proposed raising "revenues," but not "rates"--the same position he took during negotiations on raising the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011. Then, Boehner had agreed on raising revenues by $800 billion--all without raising tax rates. The White House had been prepared to agree on the deal, until President Obama decided to demand an additional $400 billion from increased tax rates, destroying the "grand bargain."

The day after the 2012 election, Boehner essentially repeated his principles for a deal, without offering a specific number. In a stage-managed speech in the East Room of the White House, complete with a standing ovation by and a multicultural tableau of staffers behind the President, Obama welcomed the gesture and repeated the word "revenues" without mentioning "rates," suggesting that he might be prepared to accept Boehner's terms quickly.

Obama's actual offer, however, indicates that he is spoiling for a fight. He clearly hopes to use his re-election to assert greater leverage within the talks--though Boehner's Republicans, too, were returned to power by the same electorate. His goal is not merely to reach a compromise at a higher number than the $800 billion deal that fell through last time; rather, his aim is to force Republicans to agree to the higher tax rates necessary to reach that number.

Read more: http://goo.gl/v0Jnt

THE BLAZE
Is One of the Women in the Petraeus Scandal a Spy? You’ll Never Believe Who’s Making the Case
by Erica Ritz
November 13, 2012

Ever since it was revealed that Jill Kelley, the woman arguably at the center of the currently-unfolding drama rocking the U.S. government, is of Lebanese origin, Twitter users have asked whether she and CIA Director Petraeus’ mistress Paula Broadwell should be investigated for potential national security leaks.

Kelley first came into the public eye after Broadwell began sending her “threatening” emails regarding getting too close to Petreaus. But she really piqued the public’s interest after it was revealed that General John Allen also sent her thousands of pages of “inappropriate” emails, and an FBI agent even sent her shirtless photos of himself.

Now, Orcas George at the extremely left-leaning Daily Kos has begun building the case that Kelley’s actions are suspicious at best, and that if she was not in the employ of a foreign intelligence service, “the world’s spy agencies have collectively suffered a dereliction of duty.”

Mind you, The Daily Kos is the same site that called Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s investigation into Huma Abedin a “witch hunt,” despite tangible connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The article explains:

It probably goes without saying that both General Petraus of the CIA and General Allen would be top targets for foreign intelligence operations — especially by countries in the Middle East.   Knowing details of US actions there would be of benefit to many countries; some allies, some nominal allies and some considered to be enemies. The fact that socialite Jill Kelley’s maiden name is Khawam and that she was born in Lebanon to Maronite Christian parents should raise eyebrows a bit.   (Note that the Maronite Christians were allies of Israel in the Lebanese Civil War/Lebanon invasion.)   The fact that she and her husband were willing to go into debt to throw lavish parties for high level officers who are involved in the Middle East should make even the most resolute anti-CTers among us pause.   The further fact that she is identified as an unofficial liaison between top American Generals and unspecified Middle Eastern contacts, well…​[Emphasis added]

Using supplementary details from a Washington Post article, the Daily Kos then proceeds to detail Kelley’s access, motivations, connections, opportunity, and ability.

Read the entire Daily Kos article here.


Again, that comes from one of the most liberal sites out there — not some wild conspiracy theory outlet.

“OK, this is getting weird,” the article notes. In so many ways.


Read more: http://goo.gl/h3lkR