Obama’s Good for Business: Gun Sales Soar

Business is booming in the firearm industry and considering Obama’s feelings about gun control, the irony is almost too poetic.

Smith & Wesson stock Friday was zooming, thanks to a stellar earnings report. The firearms maker also boosted its outlook for the rest of the year. Because of the strong business, its backlog of orders more than doubled from the same quarter last year, the company is concentrating on boosting production and building inventory.

“We are underserving the market at this moment, we all know that, and that's a great opportunity going forward for us,” CEO James Debney said in a conference call with analysts.

And another gun maker, Sturm, Ruger & Co., also hit a milestone of sorts in terms of meeting consumer demand. It produced its one-millionth gun of the year…well ahead of last year’s pace.

If the president gets reelected some are concerned that an Obama ‘unleashed’ would mean more regulations. President Obama has long been in favor of gun control and since becoming president, his administration has pursued a deliberative albeit subtle approach to that end. Some examples includeFast and Furious, unleashing OSHA on a gun range fining spree and, in 2009, voting to participate in the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty – a dramatic reversal of Bush’s position on the issue. Although there were no curve balls in the 2012 Democratic Party platform, more calls were made for regulations and “improvements” including “reinstating the assault weapons ban” and “closing the gun show loophole.” (Quite ironically, they also removed the reference to “what works in Chicago” perhaps because the city has some of the toughest gun control laws yet is also among the most deadly cities in the U.S.) So the logic is: buy now in case it becomes more difficult later. This is only part of the equation, however. The article also points to broader acceptance of gun use, target shooting and safety concerns.  

“Sure, about a third of it is politics,” said a Maryland salesman, who also didn't want to be named. “But the majority are people concerned about safety. They are worried about crime and looking at the economy and no one having jobs. They want to be protected now. So they’re buying.”

"The biggest new group of buyers now are senior citizens," Larry Hyatt, owner of a North Carolina gun shop, said on CNBC's "Closing Bell." "Ten thousand Baby Boomers a day are turning 65; they can't run, they can't fight, they got to shoot."

Via: Townhall 

GOP's Love: Focus should be on economy, not 'in the weeds' on abortion

Mia Love, the Utah mayor and rising GOP star running for Congress, backed her party’s stance on abortion but said members shouldn’t be “getting into the weeds on this.”

Love told “Fox News Sunday” that she is pro-life and that Republicans are trying to protect the lives of unborn children, but candidates and elected officials should at this point “just focus on the economy.”

She also dismissed Democrats’ argument that Republicans are waging a war on women, saying it is “a way to distract from failed policies.”

Love, who is currently mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, is trying to unseat six-term incumbent Democrat Jim Matheson, who is leading in polls. She won the nomination at the state GOP convention this spring with more than 70 percent of the vote and has national support from such party leaders as Mitt Romney and House Speaker John Boehner.

The first-generation Haitian-American stepped into the national spotlight last month with a well-received speech at the Republican National Convention.

On Sunday, she defended a decision as a city council member to increase taxes, saying the decision in part helped the then-largely agricultural Saratoga Springs prosper and achieve its AA-plus bond rating.

  

Love also argued for her plans to cut federal spending that includes reducing subsides for college tuition, despite still having outstanding loans.

Via: Fox News

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Mark Steyn: A Nation Of Sandra Flukes

According to Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, invited to address the Democratic convention and the nation, America faces a stark choice this November. “During this campaign, we’ve heard about two profoundly different futures that could await women in this country — and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete relic of our past,” she cautioned. “That future could become real.”

In one of those futures, women will be “shut out and silenced,” rape victims will be “victimized all over again,” pregnant women will “die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms,” and “access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it.” If you’re wondering where all that is on your ballot form, just check the box marked “R.”

“We know what this America would look like,” warned Miss Fluke sternly. “In a few short months, that’s the America that we could be. But that’s not the America that weshould be. And it’s not who we are.”

Fortunately, the America that we could be that isn’t the America that we should be doesn’t have to be the America that we would be. The good news is that “we’ve also seen another America that we could choose. In that America, we’d have the right to choose,” said Miss Fluke. This would be “an America in which our president, when he hears that a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters, not his delegates or his donors. And in which our president stands with all women. And strangers come together, and reach out and lift her up. And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here, and you give me this microphone — to amplify our voice. That’s the difference.”

Via: National Review

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Biden Dares ‘Fact Check Me’, Romney Campaign Obliges

Vice President Biden is doubling down on watchdog groups and others  who are saying he made misleading remarks in a speech earlier this week regarding the Romney-Ryan rescue plan for Medicare – daring reporters to “fact check me.”

Biden put down the challenge during a speech Saturday, after saying as he did during his acceptance speech Thursday at the Democratic National Convention that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and running mate Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut benefits immediately for 30 million seniors already collecting Medicare.

 “I say to the press, fact check me,” a smiling Biden said to applause at a rally in Zanesville, Ohio,

The Romney Campaign took up the challenge within hours.

“Today, Vice President Biden said that he should be fact checked, and we agree,” said Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. “The vice president knowingly and deliberately leveled false and discredited attacks. This is further proof that the Obama Campaign is unable and unwilling to talk honestly or substantively about the most important issues driving the country."

"In an attempt to distract from President Obama’s failed record, including unemployment remaining over 8 percent, labor force participation falling to three-decade lows, and our national debt passing $16 trillion, Vice President Biden is once again advancing fabricated and disproven attacks on Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan," Henneberg added.

Biden's comment follows Romney pollster Neil Newhouse saying in late August, "We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

The Romney campaign also on Saturday released a statement with fact-checks on statements Biden made relating to Romney's tax and Medicare plans, and claims from Biden that Romney shipped jobs overseas.

Via: Fox News

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How To Read Political Racial Code

Part of my job when I speak about politics is to speak up for black people and say things black people need said. This mission has rarely felt so necessary as it has when racial code words recently entered the Presidential election. These code words are ancient racial stereotypes in slick, modern gear. They are linguistic mustard gas, sliding in covertly, aiming to kill black political viability by allowing white politicians to say ‘Don’t vote for the black guy’ in socially-acceptable language. Sometimes the code comes directly out of a candidate’s mouth. Sometimes it comes from supporters, or can be found in advertisements.

(MORE: Inside the Racist Mind)

Do not be fooled by the canard that both parties do it. That was former RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s response when I asked him about it on my MSNBC show “The Cycle.” Using certain words to invoke racialized fear and scare white working class voters is a long-established part of the Republican playbook. The GOP is a 90% white party and has been for decades. According to Ron Brownstein of the National Journal, Mitt Romney will need over 60% of white people to vote for him or he will lose. “That,” Brownstein says, “would be the best performance ever for a Republican Presidential challenger with that group of voters.” Given that math, in a base turnout election where Romney has a big lead among white, non-college educated men, it’s understandable why he’d try to motivate those voters with code words that remind them of their racial difference with Obama and stigmatize that difference. In this effort a word like “welfare” is extremely valuable. Sure there are more white than black Americans on welfare, but when a candidate says ‘welfare’ many whites think of their tax dollars being given to blacks.

So when Romney began running ads about Obama “dropping the work requirement from welfare” — ads which are still running even though the claim has been thoroughly debunked — he was merely updating Ronald Reagan’s old “welfare queen” meme. Both are designed to create racial resentment around entitlements. This tactic is bolstered by the classic stereotype of blacks as lazy. A recent Pew Research Center poll, for example, found that 57% of Republicans believe people are poor because they don’t work hard. When a recent Washington Post poll asked “Why do most black voters so consistently support Democrats?” the second reason given by Republicans was “black voters are dependent on government or seeking a government handout” while for Democrats it was that “their party addresses issues of poverty.” (The top answer for members of both parties was “Don’t know”.)

Via: Time Magazine

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Obama: I’ll work with Republicans if they agree to raise taxes

MELBOURNE, Florida - President Barack Obama said in an interview partly broadcast Sunday that he would be "more than happy to work with the Republicans" to trim the swelling national debt — as long as they drop their opposition to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

"You can't reduce the deficit unless you take a balanced approach that says, 'We've got to make government leaner and more efficient,'" the president told CBS's Scott Pelley. "But we've also got to ask people --like me or Gov. Romney, who have done better than anybody else over the course of the last decade, and whose taxes are just about lower than they've been in the last 50 years - to do a little bit more."

Obama said he would be willing to make "some adjustments to Medicare and Medicaid that would strengthen the programs." "The way to do that is to keep health care costs low. It's not to 'voucherize' programs so that suddenly seniors are the ones who are finding their expenses much higher."

That was a reference to Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan. The Republicans have proposed a plan that would transform Medicare by giving the elderly voucher-style payments they could use to purchase health insurance. They say it would rein in runaway health care costs. But Democrats — and the impartial Congressional Budget Office — say it would eventually shift much of the burden of health care costs to the elderly.

"President Obama's latest false attacks are a sign of desperation," Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. Williams charged that Obama had "robbed" Medicare of $716 billion to pay for the health care law popularly known as Obamacare. (Obama's approach does not directly affect benefits — it reduces reimbursements to health care providers and insurance companies.)

Obama is attacking Romney on Medicare because "he can't talk about his record of crushing the middle class and failing to turn the economy around," said Williams.

Obama was to pursue that attack as he wrapped up a two-day bus tour in Florida. (The photo above was snapped as Obama prepared to eat with seniors at the Ossorio Bakery and Cafe while campaigning in Cocoa, Florida.)

Via: Yahoo! News

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STUDY: RECOVERY FOR BURGER-FLIPPERS ONLY

According to new analysis of unemployment data by the National Employment Law Project, while 60 percent of the jobs lost during the 2008-2009 financial crisis were in middle income occupations, the vast majority – 58 percent – of jobs created under President Obama are low-wage. Those jobs include “retail sales, food preparation, home health and customer service.”

“The recovery continues to be skewed toward low-wage jobs, reinforcing the rise in inequality and America’s deficit of good jobs,” said the author of the study, Annette Bernhardt. “While there’s understandably a lot of focus on getting employment back to pre-recession levels, the quality of jobs is rapidly emerging as a second front in the struggling recovery.”

Just half of US adults are currently middle class.

Via: Breitbart

The Real Facts: Unemployment at 19%

Beneath the surface of Friday's jobs report lies the reality of just how disastrous the Obama economy truly is.

Consider the following 11 economic facts:

1.  When you include the underutilized labor figure with the eight million Americans who have lost hope altogether and stopped looking for a job, real unemployment now stands at just under 19 percent.

2.  If the labor force were the same as when President Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate reported on Friday would be 11.2 percent. 

3.  A record 88,921,000 Americans are no longer in the labor force. To be included in that figure, an individual must be over 16 years of age, a civilian, not in a mental hospital or nursing home, and have stopped hunting for a job for at least four weeks.

4.  The average American lost 40 percent of their wealth from 2007 to 2010. 

5.  Every fifth man in America is out of work.

6.  One out of two Americans are now low-income or below the poverty line.  

7.  Over the past four years, 400,000 food stamp recipients a month have been added to the welfare dole. 

8.  In 2006-2007, 90 percent of college graduates landed jobs. Under Obama, just 56 percent find work after college.

9.  A gallon of gasoline cost $1.84 when Obama entered office. Today, a gallon of gas costs$3.77. 

10.  Every fourth home mortgage in America is underwater. 

11.  Under Obama, healthcare costs have skyrocketed 18.9 percent.

The latest Gallup tracking poll shows Mr. Obama leading Republican challenger Mitt Romney 49 to 45 percent.

Recovery? 96K New Jobs, 173K New Food Stamp Recipients

breitbart.com

It's like a corrupt media ritual. The moment a Republican enters the Oval Office, America's homeless are suddenly discovered, dragged before news cameras, and used as props to prove how heartless the current administration is. But as soon as a Democrat assumes office, the homeless suddenly disappear; presumably to a place with chocolate rivers and peppermint trees that only Democrat presidents are able to magically manifest as soon as the oath of office is complete.

The media's been even worse with Barack Obama. Not only have the homeless vanished from news coverage, but so have America's poor. But as NBC's David Gregory made clear, if you even try to bring up the record number of food stamp recipients Barack Obama's failed policies have created, you'll be labeled a racist.

Beyond food stamps, by some reports, the poverty level itself is set to explode to record levels in the fall once a new census report is released. But if past is prologue, you can expect the media to smother that news, because over the last few days, the media has smothered this news:

Via Breitbart

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Fact-checkers find exaggerations in Obama, Biden conventions speeches

President Obama and Vice President Biden made statements in their convention speeches about unemployment, Medicare and other issues that fact-checkers say appear inaccurate or at least misleading.

Among the questionable remarks were Biden's argument that "after the worst job loss since the Great Depression we created 4.5 million private sector jobs in the past 29 months" – a frequent response by the Obama campaign when questioned about the slow economic recovery.

The Associated Press and others point out that statement is misleading because it counts jobs from the recession's lowest point  to where employment began to grow again – excluding jobs lost earlier in Obama's term and masking that overall unemployment has increased over that period.

"Overall, roughly 7.5 million jobs were lost during the recession that began in December 2007 and ended officially in June 2009," according to the wire service.

The Associated Press also points out that Obama said in his speech that he wants to use money saved by ending the wars to build highways, schools and bridges.

However, the wars were largely financed by borrowing "so there is no ready pile of cash to be diverted to anything else," the wire service writes.

The group FactCheck.org listed eight instances in which either Biden or Obama "spun" facts during their speeches Thursday night in Charlotte, N.C.

Via: Fox News

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James Hoffa, Teamsters President, Says Romney 'Wants To Annihilate Organized Labor'

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The way Teamsters President James P. Hoffa sees it, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would be happy if an already weakened American labor movement ceased to exist altogether.

"He wants to annihilate organized labor as we know it," Hoffa told HuffPost outside the Democratic National Convention this week. "It's on his website. I'm not making this up. He's for a national right-to-work law. The Republican Party has veered dangerously to the right. It's rather incredible, in 2012, if you think about it."

Indeed, Romney's official stance on labor isn't kind to unions. His campaign website suggests that unions have outlasted their significance, "driv[ing] up costs and introduc[ing] rigidities that harm competitiveness and frustrate innovation." He supports states pursuing right-to-work laws, which weaken the clout of unions, and his party last week approved a platform pushing for national right-to-work legislation. He'd also like to prohibit automatic union dues-deduction from employee paychecks.

Hoffa isn’t the only labor leader who visited Charlotte this week and sees a hostility toward unions in Romney's positions. Mary Kay Henry, head of the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, told HuffPost earlier this week that Romney "wants to take us out."

The Romney campaign didn't respond to Hoffa or Henry's comments.

Rank-and-file union members said they often feel taken for granted by Democrats in office. Among many labor activists, the enthusiasm for the Obama-Biden ticket appears to stem in large part from a loathing and distrust of the alternative. But Hoffa, like other labor figures who headed to Charlotte, insisted the current White House has been good to unions over the past four years.

Via: HuffPost Politics

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Article On Muslim Brotherhood Website Praises Jihad Against America And The Jews – 'The Descendants Of Apes And Pigs'

In an article published on the occasion of Ramadan on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) website, MB member Hussein Shehata, a lecturer at Al-Azhar University, praises the jihad war against the Jews – "the descendants of apes and pigs" – in Palestine; against the Americans in Iraq; against the Russians in Chechnya; and against the Muslims' enemies in Kashmir, Bosnia, Eritrea, and Somalia. He adds that the Day of Judgment will arrive when the Muslims defeat the Jews and liberate Jerusalem.

The following are excerpts from the article:[1]

Praising The Traits Of The Jihad Fighter

"Fasting [during Ramadan] is one of the most powerful means to educate the human spirit for jihad. Fasting involves a spiritual effort to act in a way contrary to what is accepted, and to completely abandon desires... It also schools the Muslim in patience, resilience, endurance, and sacrifice, which are all traits of the jihad fighter...

"There are similarities between one who fasts to please Allah and one who wages jihad for Allah, and we will mention several of them:

"1. Obedience to Allah is the purpose of both...: A Muslim fasts out of obedience to Allah and in accordance with his decree... [He] asks Allah to forgive his sins in the hope of being released from Hell and attaining Paradise... Similarly, the jihad fighter answers Allah's call for jihad, hoping [to achieve] either victory or martyrdom... The purpose of one who fasts and of one who wages jihad is [one and the same] – to please Allah and to gain Paradise.

"2. Devotion is a trait of both...: Devotion to Allah is embedded in the very act of fasting... Similarly, the jihad fighter wants to please Allah with jihad, and does not do it in order to be perceived as courageous. One who fasts and one who wages jihad both require a high level of faith and fear of Allah...

"3. Patience is a trait of both...: Fasting accustoms the soul to bearing hunger and thirst with patience, and to holding back desires – so much so that the soul becomes immune to weakness, and stronger under pressure... Similarly, we find that the jihad fighter is able to go for long hours without food or drink while fighting the enemy. Apparently, fasting trains a Muslim in endurance and in tolerating [hardship]...

"4. Sacrifice is a trait of both...: One who fasts sacrifices food, drink, carnal desires, and money... During a fast, there is a sacrifice of things that the soul loves, in order to become closer to Allah. Similarly, the jihad fighter sacrifices his life and his money for Allah. Sacrificing life, money, food, drink, and desires are traits of both... and are the basis for victory over both carnal desires and the enemies of Islam. He who cannot conquer his own desire cannot conquer his enemies.

"Ramadan is the month of victory for those who wage jihad for Allah. Ramadan has seen the following battles, conquests, and victories: the great Battle of Badr [624 CE],... the conquest of Mecca [630 CE],... the Battle of Hattin [1187], the Muslims' entrance into Al-Andalus [Andalusia, 710 CE], the conquest of Constantinople by Muhammad the Conqueror[2] [1453 CE], and the battle of 'Ein Jalut [1260 CE], in which the Muslims defeated the Mongols..."

Via:Memri

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The Second Coming of Cap and Trade?

The Obama Administration, at this sensitive time, is playing down its expansive regulatory agenda, but some insiders are predicting a new onslaught of costly rules—including the imposition of cap-and-trade schemes on industry.

Although Congress rejected cap-and-trade legislation in 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) remains intent on effectively rationing the use of fossil fuels. A court ruling earlier this year upheld the agency’s “finding” that emissions of carbon dioxide pose a threat to public health. The ruling has only emboldened the EPA’s regulatory impulses. According to Carol Browner, former administrator of the agency, the EPA is now poised for “piecemeal progress on cap-and-trade.”

Browner’s forecast came Wednesday during a panel discussion on “Energy and the Presidency” sponsored byPolitico this week. As reported by The Hill, “Browner offered that Obama would use the [Clean Water Act] and the [Clean Air Act] to go even further in his attempts to regulate air pollution.”

Such talk is certainly bad news for the energy and manufacturing sectors, which have borne the brunt of Obama’s regulatory hyperactivity. But revived prospects for cap-and-trade might well hearten the environmental lobby, which has criticized President Obama for (supposedly) ignoring global warming despite his declaration that the 2008 election “was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

While the President may appear to avoid direct reference to the global warming issue, his regulatory record bespeaks allegiance to drastic and unwarranted cutbacks in emissions of carbon dioxide—the supposed source of looming environmental cataclysm.

For example, the consulting group ICF International estimates that 20 percent of America’s coal power plants could be retired as soon as 2020 because of the Administration’s regulatory actions. Indeed, the EPA’s newestmercury and air toxics rule alone could cost as much as $100 billion per year, according to the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.

Whether the President overtly pursues a costly cap-and-trade scheme remains to be seen. But there’s no question that his Administration is aggressively imposing regulations that have much the same effect—i.e., inflating the cost of fossil fuel energy in order to reduce some of the disadvantages of solar and wind power.

One might hope that today’s disappointing jobs report—and all the others like it during the previous three years—would persuade Obama that his regulatory agenda is doing more harm than good. But hope for such wisdom from this Administration appears to be in vain.

VIa: The Foundry

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Job creators to Obama: Not this time

As the Democrats leave Charlotte, N.C., after rallying behind President Obama, they face an uphill battle. Americans are concerned about jobs, entitlements and the growing federal deficit — the three things that Obama and the Democrats don’t want to talk about. But they must if they’re going to have any chance of keeping the White House.

Democrats surely can’t take much comfort from the national and battleground state polls that show a close race. Americans are only starting to pay attention to the campaign, and their natural instinct is to support the candidate they know (Obama) over the candidate they’re just learning about (Romney). But one group of voters has been paying attention for quite some time and that should concern all Democrats.

I’m talking about job creators — the entrepreneurs, CEOs and other business owners whom President Obama mostly ignores, when he’s not criticizing them. Two recent polls of this group should be sending waves of panic through the president’s re-election team. For instance, an August 20 Rasmussen poll found that Romney leads Obama by 20 points among entrepreneurs (56 percent to 36 percent). Another poll from Manta, released on August 24, shows that 61 percent of small business owners support Romney, compared to just 26 percent who support Obama.

At least among this group, there is no contest: America’s job creators support Mitt Romney by overwhelming margins. This comports with my own informal survey of business leaders in consumer electronics and other industries. I have yet to meet a CEO who supports the president’s re-election. Indeed, in an August 8 column I wrote for Forbes, I asked if there were among my readers any business owners who support Obama. I wasn’t just trying to make a political point: I was completely serious. I want to hear the argument for why job creators should vote for Obama. I repeated this challenge on national television in August.

Via: The Daily Caller

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THE AUDACITY OF CRONYISM: JARRETT, PLOUFFE, AND DONILON

It’s hard to know which is worse: the arrogance of the Obama administration in assuming that its White House staffers can get away with anything, or the apathy of the media in not holding those staffers accountable.

Actually, let’s scratch the word “apathy” and call it what it really is: abjectness. The media have been abject in their willingness, even eagerness, to serve the political interests of this administration and its re-election effort.

Let’s consider the cases of three staffers, all at the top rung of the White House ladder: Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, Senior Adviser David Plouffe, and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.   

Valerie Jarrett has been a mentor and ally of Barack Obama for two decades; by all accounts, she has an unshakable bond not only with him, but also with Michelle Obama. And now her clout is apparent to all: aprofile of Jarrett, written by Jo Becker and appearing in Sunday’s New York Times, was headlined, “The Other Power in the West Wing.” As in, there’s the President, and there’s Valerie Jarrett.   

The Times story, all 3300 words of it, was one of those stories that everyone in DC thought they had to read; as another Times reporter, Jodi Kantor, tweeted on Sunday, “The political world pauses as one to dissect Jo Becker’s profile of Valerie Jarrett."

Indeed, Becker’s story was full of grist for Beltway mills. One anonymous presidential adviser (who sounds a lot like re-election campaign guru David Axelrod) pronounced that “Valerie is effectively the chief of staff... She’s almost like Nancy Reagan was with President Reagan, but more powerful.” And a “former senior White House official” (who sounds a lot like ex-White House chief of staff Bill Daley) added, “She is the single most influential person in the Obama White House.” Whoa. Wait a second. Did the former official really mean to say that Jarrett was “the single most influential person in the Obama White House”? If so, where does that leave the President? Is it possible that Jarrett, working with Michelle Obama, is more powerful than Mr. Obama? No, that doesn’t seem possible--unless, of course, it is possible.

Via: Breitbart

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Hollywood Moonbat Ashley Judd: Mooch Is “Breathtaking”…

And Lawrence O'Donnell said she The Best Speechmaker in the History of the First Ladyship'

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Eastwood says his convention appearance was 'mission accomplished'

AFTER A week as topic No. 1 in American politics, former Carmel Mayor Clint Eastwood said the outpouring of criticism from left-wing reporters and liberal politicians after his appearance at the Republican National Convention last Thursday night, followed by an avalanche of support on Twitter and in the blogosphere, is all the proof anybody needs that his 12-minute discourse achieved exactly what he intended it to.

“President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”

Breaking his silence
For five days after he thrilled or horrified the nation by talking to an empty chair representing Obama on the night Mitt Romney accepted the Republican nomination for president, Eastwood remained silent while pundits and critics debated whether his remarks, and the rambling way he made them, had helped or hurt Romney’s chances of winning in November.
But in a wide-ranging interview with The Pine Cone Tuesday from his home in Pebble Beach, he said he had conveyed the messages he wanted to convey, and that the spontaneous nature of his presentation was intentional, too.

“I had three points I wanted to make,” Eastwood said. “That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.”

Eastwood’s appearance at the convention came after a personal request from Romney in August, soon after Eastwood endorsed the former Massachusetts governor at a fundraiser in Sun Valley, Idaho. But it was finalized only in the last week before the convention, along with an agreement to build suspense by keeping it secret until the last moment.
Meanwhile, Romney’s campaign aides asked for details about what Eastwood would say to the convention.
 
“They vet most of the people, but I told them, ‘You can’t do that with me, because I don’t know what I’m going to say,’” Eastwood recalled.
And while the Hollywood superstar has plenty of experience being adored by crowds, he said he hasn’t given a lot of speeches and admitted that, “I really don’t know how to.” He also hates using a teleprompter, so it was settled in his mind that when he spoke to the 10,000 people in the convention hall, and the millions more watching on television, he would do it extemporaneously.

“It was supposed to be a contrast with all the scripted speeches, because I’m Joe Citizen,” Eastwood said. “I’m a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.”
Eastwood is a liberal on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, but he has strongly conservative opinions about the colossal national debt that has accumulated while Obama has been president, his failure to get unemployment below 6 percent, and a host of other economic issues. 
“Even people on the liberal side are starting to worry about going off a fiscal cliff,” Eastwood said

Via: The Carmel Pine Cone

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Unemployment Drops To 5.1%-For Government Workers, Lowest Among All Industries

(CNSNews.com) - There was good news for American workers in August—if government was their employer.

The unemployment rate for government wage and salaries workers dropped from 5.7 percent in July to 5.1 percent in August. At the same time, the number of government wage and salary workers counted as unemployed dropped by 123,000 people from 1,182,000 in July to 1,059,000 in August.

The overall national unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in August.

A year ago, in August 2011, there were 1,271,000 unemployed government wage and salary workers. So, the number of unemployed government workers has dropped by 212,000 since then.

The unemployment numbers for government workers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are not seasonally adjusted.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts someone as a government wage and salary worker if they are not in the military and they are currently employed by any level of government—local, state or federal—or they are unemployed, they are looking for work, and their last job was for any level of government.

The 5.1 percent unemployment rate for government workers was the lowest unemployment rate for any of 17 different categories and subcategories of industries for which employment is tracked and published on a month-to-month basis by the Department of Labor. These include nonagricultural private wage and salary workers; mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction workers; construction workers; manufacturing workers; durable goods manufacturing workers; nondurable goods manufacturing workers; wholesale and retail trade workers; transportation and utilities workers; information workers; financial activities workers; professional and business services workers; education and health services workers; leisure and hospitality workers; workers in other services; agricultural and related private wage and salary workers; and self-employed, unincorporated and unpaid family workers.

Via: CNSNews

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OBAMA: DEMONIZING TAX CUTS

So Barack Obama is on his soapbox, demonizing tax cuts. He didn’t stop after last night at the DNC, when he said:

Now, our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn't have much to say about how they'd make it right. They want your vote, but they don't want you to know their plan. And that's because all they have to offer is the same prescription they've had for the last thirty years: Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!

Today on Obama’s Twitter account, it read:

POTUS on the GOP’s plan: Tax cuts when times are good, tax cuts when times are bad. Tax cuts to cure your love life.

Hmm . . .  JFK cut taxes. Bill Clinton, once he got his head out of his liberal posterior, cut capital gains taxes in 1997, spurring an economic ascension. (Obama will have to forgive me for using that word; people around him only use it in reference to his messianic destiny.)

There has only been one candidate who ever made raising taxes the centerpiece of his campaign: Walter Mondale.

He won one state: his own. He also won Washington D.C. That was it.

For those who would think tax cuts are an integral part of economic recovery, Obama’s patronizing attitude is insulting.  But then, virtually everything Obama does conveys a basic contempt for the kind of common sense that most Americans have about their finances. It’s all smoke and mirrors for him.

But the smoke is clearing fast.

Via: Breitbart

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