Obama Grades the United States: 'Incomplete'

In a recent interview with Glamour magazine, President Barack Obama gives the United States an "incomplete" grade. Obama's grade is based on how women are treated in America. 

"I think the way I’d grade the United States right now is incomplete," says Obama. "There are more opportunities for women than ever before. I think women excelling in school is now translating into greater opportunities in their professional lives. Some of the steps that we’ve taken have helped to open up additional access, but I’m not going to be satisfied until every young person who is willing to work hard and take responsibility can fulfill their dreams. I think this campaign is going to be so important because it really presents two fundamentally different visions about how we expand opportunity for all people."

Obama was asked about this because, according to the interviewer, "Back in 2008 [he] told Glamour that your mother once said, and I’ll quote, 'the best indicator of whether a country does well is how it treats its girls and its women.'"

Obama said, "Still believe it."

"So, by your mother’s standards, give me a thumbnail sketch of how America is doing," said Glamour to the president.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Poll: 'Not Falling Behind' the American Dream

Four years into the presidency of Barack Obama, a poll finds that the "American Dream" for many is now just treading water economically and not falling behind.

According to an Allstate/National Journal/Heartland Monitor Poll, “an overwhelming majority of Americans still define the U.S. as ‘the land of opportunity,’ but “nearly as many agree that getting ahead is more difficult for workers today than it was for previous generations.”

A majority of respondents said “‘because of the recent economic downturn,’ getting ahead these days in essence means not falling behind: ‘holding a job, being able to pay bills, avoid debt, and save some money for the future.” And only one-fourth of those surveyed thought they would “get ahead consistently over the next five or ten years.” 

Eighty-percent of respondents said “being free of debt” and “being able to save for a comfortable and secure retirement” were signs of getting ahead. 

The poll found 56% of respondents said they would prefer a job that “‘offers a great deal of job security but only modest pay and little opportunity for advancement’ over one that offered more opportunity ‘and the possibility of high pay but little job security.’”

In addition, 70% of those surveyed said “having a secure job that you can rely on, even through tough economic times” was a sign of getting ahead, and only 45% said they defined getting ahead as “advancing in a job and achieving greater financial success each year.”

Via: Breitbart

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The Miracle that would save America from Obama-imposed American Marxism

Falls to 77.7 million Catholics to save America from Obama imposed U.S. Marxism

There’s a promise made over an unbeknownst open mic to outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on March 26, 2012, that awaits the outcome of November 6.

“This is my last election…after my election I have more flexibility,” President Barack Obama told Medvedev, indicating a chilling confidence that he would win a second term.

Prime Minister Medvedev, his replacement President Vladimir Putin, the reelection-bound Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Obama-propped Egyptian president Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi await the fulfillment of that not meant to be heard promise.

They are the enemy at the gate who will goad Obama on to the continuing destruction of America should the worst happen on Tuesday, Nov. 6.

We have been in the dark before but never has the dark been so dangerous as now when Marxism and radical Islam have joined forces to deliver world populations over to the One World Order-driven United Nations.

The world thought the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall ushered in the end of communism.  Few knew back then that Communism would join radical Islam to begin in earnest smothering the freedom of the West in 2008.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Docs Suggest Gov-Subsidized Solar Company Was Selling Faulty Product

Seven months after calling themselves the “anti-Solyndra,” the Colorado-based solar panel manufacturer Abound Solar announced it was filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation, arguing that cheap Chinese solar panels flooding the market caused their demise.

“With over $30 billion in reported government subsidies, Chinese panel makers were able to sell below cost and put Abound out of business before we were big enough to pose a real competitive threat to China’s rapidly growing market share,” according to the prepared congressional testimony by Craig Witsoe, former CEO of Abound.

Abound Solar was given a $400 million loan guarantee by the Energy Department, and drew on about $70 million dollars of the guarantee before DOE cut them off in September 2011 — the same month the Solyndra scandal began.

After the massive failure of the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, Energy Department loan guarantees came under increased media and congressional scrutiny. Other loan recipients felt the public pressure as well.

Internal documentation and testimony from sources within Abound show that the company was selling a faulty, underperforming product, and may have mislead lenders at one point in order to keep itself afloat.

“Our solar modules worked as long as you didn’t put them in the sun,” an internal source told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The company knew its panels were faulty prior to obtaining taxpayer dollars, according to sources, but kept pushing product out the door in order to meet Department of Energy goals required for their $400 million loan guarantee.

“The DOE hurt us more than anything,” another source told The DC News Foundation, speaking of DOE production and revenue metrics.

The faulty solar panels would routinely burn up and virtually all of the panels Abound manufactured underperformed, meaning they did not put out the promised amount of power. Sources say that Abound panels would only put out between 80 and 85 percent of the promised wattage.

These problems led to tens of thousands of panels having to be replaced, especially towards the end of the company’s life.

Burning up and underperforming

In October of 2010, the company discovered that their panels were catching fire. One source said that this problem was brought to the company’s attention during a meeting in October 2010 with some company executives present and the suggestion was made to shut down the factory in order to address the problem.

“Our lead quality engineer… blew the whistle in a manager’s monthly review meeting, and he was basically told to shut up and sit down,” said another source.

Via: The Daily Caller

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The Fannie and Freddie Fee Machine Federal government now collecting Fannie and Freddie profits

The federal government, in order to wind down mortgage giants, is collecting all profits generated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—a move some say may backfire by providing the federal government a source of revenue that Congress will be hard-pressed to let go.

The Treasury announced in August that it would take all profits from the two housing giants in “a quarterly sweep of every dollar of profit that each firm earns.”

This “quarterly sweep” is an effort to recoup money that the federal government has loaned Fannie and Freddie, starting with the 2008 bailout. The federal government took over Fannie and Freddie in September of 2008, in the middle of the housing crisis that brought down the economy. Since then, the two firms have struggled to regain profitability, only recentlymaking money on their investments.

The federal government has loaned the two firms almost $200 billion, with the expectation that they would eventually repay the money. The Treasury argues that the policy shift, along with mandatory portfolio reductions, is a step toward ensuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will “not be allowed to retain profits, rebuild capital, and return to the market in their prior form.”

However, a former Fannie Mae official pointed to a potential problem in the “quarterly sweep”: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could become a revenue source for the government, making it very difficult politically to end the two institutions.

Edward Pinto, former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae and a housing finance expert at the American Enterprise Institute, warned that because the money will be flowing into the Treasury, “If you don’t do something quickly, Congress could get used to this.”

Congress has used Fannie and Freddie’s profits to fund their legislation in the past, Pinto said. He pointed to legislation from Congress late last year that raised fees at Fannie and Freddie for 10 years in order to fund a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut.

Via: WFP

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REPORT: JP MORGAN MAKES OVER HALF A BILLION DOLLARS OFF FOOD STAMPS

A new report by the Government Accountability Institute finds that JP Morgan has made at least $560,492,596 since 2004 processing the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards of 18 of the 24 states it has under contract for the food stamp program.

Indeed, JP Morgan’s Christopher Paton told Bloomberg News that food stamps are big business for the big bank: 

“We are the largest processor of food stamps in the country…[the EBT program] is a very important business to JP Morgan. It’s an important business in terms of its size and scale…. Right now volumes have gone through the roof in the past couple of years or so. The good news from JP Morgan’s perspective is the infrastructure that we built has been able to cope with that increase in volume.”

While some may be glad that a private company—not a government agency—is tasked with EBT transactions, the GAI report reveals that JP Morgan does not use the same fraud detection systems commonly used by today’s credit card companies.  In fact, federal and state agencies—not EBT processors—are the ones tasked with policing food stamp fraud. 

That means EBT processors enjoy multiple pathways to profits that run counter to efficiency and strong oversight.  For example, writes GAI president Peter Schweizer:

 Any time TANF recipients withdraw their cash benefits or make balance inquiries through out-of-network ATM machines, the user may incur ATM transaction fees generally ranging from $.75 to $1.50. In addition, most states allow EBT processors to charge card replacement fees. Arizona cardholders, for example, are permitted one free replacement a year, after which a $5 per card fee is imposed. The same goes for customer service calls: After an EBT cardholder exceeds the state’s maximum number of free calls, EBT processors typically tack on a $.25 per call fee.

By making welfare inefficiency and abuse lucrative, the poverty industry has created a potentially toxic brew of corporate cronyism and government inefficiency that lets food stamp abuse enforcement slip through the bureaucratic cracks:

 According to the USDA’s website, the federal food stamp program has “over 100” inspectors to police the nearly 200,000 retailers nationwide that accept EBT cards. For its part, the state of Florida has 63 positions allocated to police over 3 million EBT users. JP Morgan is currently involved in an eight-month pilot project with Florida focused on EBT fraud and abuse. The total staff? Just one JP Morgan employee and five to ten state employees, according to Florida officials.

So how did EBT processors like JP Morgan land its lucrative half-billion dollars worth of contracts? 

Via: Breitbart

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Democrats running country off road into the ditch, Just Like They Run The Country

A few weeks ago, as I sat in front of my TV watching the three ring circus, otherwise known as the Democratic National Convention, I couldn’t help but think: The democrats were running their convention much as they have tried to run the country.  They promptly ran it off the road and into a ditch.

They spent money they didn’t have.  They promised grandiose and splendid events that did not happen.  They planned a bodacious speaking event in a humongous area which would seat upwards of seventy thousand persons, only to realize they were not going to have enough people interested in what their candidate for President had to say to come anywhere near to filling up that stadium.

To TRY to save face, they announced the event would be moved to a much smaller venue which would seat only twenty thousand persons. That’s about a third of the crowd they had promised the media would be in fawning attendance to listen rapturously to their Messiah—Barack Hussein Obama. 

Of course, they spent money as if there were no tomorrow and—quickly ran out of funds.

They railed against Big Business and Corporate America while standing on a stage in a convention hall that had been paid for by one of the largest corporations in America.  Talk about hypocrisy! 

They removed any mention of God from their party platform and then refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel only to be forced to return that language on “orders,” we are told, from President Obama.

Those who presented speeches seemed to all hail from the far left of their party, which indicated they had written off the independent voters and were hell-bent on trying to overcome the GOP with only their base consisting of minority and special interest groups.

And they lied ... a LOT!  Even when the truth was shown and heard over and over on video tape and on audio tape.  They lied when they did not have to lie.

In an article by Alan Caruba entitled: “The DNC’s Orgy of Lies and Hypocrisy”  Mr. Caruba said:  “So far there is little to be believed in the course of the Democratic Party convention. It is a great concoction of half-truths, distortions, and outright lies. The hypocrisy fills the convention hall like the musk of a dead, decaying animal corpse.” 

Via: Canada Free Press

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CHURCHES USING 'SOULS TO POLLS' TO RALLY VOTE

It's not just the collection plate that's getting passed around this fall at hundreds of mainly African-American and Latino churches in presidential battleground states and across the nation.

Exhorting congregations to register to vote, church leaders are distributing registration cards in the middle of services, and many are pledging caravans of "souls to the polls" to deliver the vote.

The stepped-up effort in many states is a response by activists worried that new election rules, from tougher photo identification requirements to fewer days of early voting, are unfairly targeting minority voters _ specifically, African-Americans who tend to vote heavily for Democrats. Some leaders compare their registration and get-out-the-vote efforts to the racial struggle that led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

"In light of all this, we are saying just let our people vote," said the Rev. Dawn Riley Duval, social justice minister at the Shorter Community A.M.E. Church in Denver. "The people are being oppressed by these measures. It has ignited a sense of urgency and collective power that we can take by engaging in the process."

In key swing states such as Florida and Ohio, proponents of the new election rules deny they are aimed at suppressing the minority vote in hopes of helping Republicans win more races. Reasons for their enactment vary between rooting out fraud and purging ineligible voters to streamlining the voting process.

But to some African-American leaders like the Rev. F.E. Perry, a Cleveland-based bishop in Ohio's Church of God in Christ, it's as if the 1960s barriers to black civil rights have returned all over again.

"We've come too far to sit idly by and watch that happen," Perry said. "We want to get souls to the polls. Whatever it takes to get them there, that's what we're going to do."

Via Breitbart

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Households Face $3,446 Tax Increase From Fiscal Cliff

U.S. households are facing an average tax increase of $3,446 in 2013 if Congress doesn’t avert the so- called fiscal cliff, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said in a study released today.

The top 1 percent of households face some of the largest tax increases in 2013 and would see their after-tax incomes fall by 10.5 percent if Congress does nothing. That would translate to an average tax increase of $120,537 for that group.

A typical middle-income household earning between about $40,000 and $60,000 would face a tax increase of about $2,000.

After the Nov. 6 election, Congress is scheduled to return to Washington to debate the automatic spending cuts and tax increases starting in January unless lawmakers act. For calendar year 2013, taxes would increase by $536 billion, or about 20 percent.
“This is a very large tax increase,” Donald Marron, the center’s director, told reporters in Washington today.

If Congress does nothing, tax rates on income, capital gains, dividends and estates would increase, and the alternative minimum tax would spread to 21.7 million households, up from 4 million this year.

The top statutory tax rate on ordinary income would reach 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent, and the top rate on capital gains would be 23.8 percent, up from 15 percent. A 2 percentage point payroll tax cut is set to expire at the end of 2012.

Expired Provisions

The estimated $536 billion tax increase doesn’t include provisions that expired at the end of 2011, including miscellaneous corporate tax breaks. The provision that prevents the alternative minimum tax from expanding also expired last year.

Lawmakers agree they should continue the income tax cuts for most households. Republicans want to keep all of the income and estate tax cuts for 2013 and begin overhauling the tax code. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, want to let most of the tax cuts lapse for the top 2 percent of households, or income exceeding $200,000 for individuals and income above $250,000 for married couples
.
The political stalemate over what to do about those top rates has prevented agreement on everything else.

Each piece of the fiscal cliff has varying effects on people at different income levels. Low-income households have the most at stake in expiring expansions of the child tax credit and earned income tax credit. Middle-income households are affected most by the payroll tax and income tax.

Via: Newsmax

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Opinion: Why ObamaCare Has Doctors Depressed And Discouraged

Wednesday night the first presidential debate will take place in Denver. The focus will be on domestic policy. But it’s a safe bet, while you’ll likely hear about ObamaCare, you won’t hear about the doctors on the front lines of medicine in the United States today. President Obama has said he likes the term ObamaCare because it signifies that "Obama cares," but if he does, why has he failed to consider life here in the medical trenches, where me and my fellow physicians are discouraged and concerned about how we will care for you and your family in this brave new world of health insurance expansion.

You may remember the famous ad that took aim at Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan (now the GOP’s vice presidential nominee) and his proposed privatizing of Medicare -- that showed the congressman pushing an elderly woman off a cliff. The hard truth is that it is we doctors who are going off the cliff, not granny.

President Obama and Congress should have checked with the country’s physicians before passing a law that relies on our efforts to handle health insurance expansion to more than 30 million more people.

A new on-line survey by the non-profit The Physicians Foundation, one of the largest doctors surveys ever performed, confirms that over two thirds of physicians are pessimistic about the future of medicine, over 84 percent feel that our profession is in decline, and a majority would not recommend it as a career for their children. (The survey was sent to over 600,000 doctors and over 14,000 responded).

If you ask my three children you will find that neither my wife or I (also a physician) are recommending a medical career to them despite the fact that we still manage to find ways to enjoy what we do.

We are overburdened, underpaid, ill equipped to handle what we already have on our plates let alone the expected expansion under ObamaCare.

-

Survey after survey from Deloitte, Sermo.com, the Doctor-Patient Medical Association, and Investors Business Daily have all previously shown that doctors are not happy with the direction of medicine and that it is impacting how we practice. 

Over the past two years I’ve taken my own informal survey as have my patients and patients all across the country. 

Doctors everywhere are complaining. We are overburdened, underpaid, ill equipped to handle what we already have on our plates let alone the expected expansion under ObamaCare. Technology provides us with more complex tests and treatments that we are paid less for administering to an increasing volume of patients.

Via:  Fox News

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ACLU: Phone Tracking, Wiretaps Spike Under Obama

The instances of the Justice Department monitoring electronic communications such as phone calls, emails and even social network updates without a warrant has increased by as much as 60 percent in recent years, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The surveillance tools – known as either a “pen register” or a “trap and trace” – record such information as phone numbers and the time and length of calls, but not the content.

Orders to track phone calls increased 60 percent -- from 23,535 in 2009 to 37,616 in 2011 -- according to Justice Department documents, including ones recently acquired by the ACLU.

Orders to track emails and computer network data increased by 361 percent over the same period, though the number of orders was less compared to those for phone calls.

The ACLU argues the legal standard to use the devices is lower because they don’t capture content -- unlike wiretaps, which require a judge’s permission. And the government needs submit only to a court a certification stating that it seeks information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.

However, the Justice Department said that in “every instance cited” in the documents a federal judge authorized the law enforcement activity.

“As criminals increasingly use new and more sophisticated technologies, the use of orders issued by a judge and explicitly authorized by Congress to obtain non-content information is essential for federal law enforcement officials to carry out their duty to protect the public and investigate violations of federal laws," the agency said in a statement.

Still, Naomi Gilens, writing in a blog for the ACLU, says the information in the documents “underscore the importance of regulating and overseeing the government’s surveillance power.”

She also calls both devices “powerfully invasive surveillance tools” and points out that nowadays no special equipment is needed to record such information because it is part of phone companies’ call-routing hardware, unlike 20 years ago.

Via: Fox News

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Debt Jumped $1.2759T in FY 2012; Up $10,855 Per Household in Just 12 Months; Beats 2011

According to the U.S. Treasury, the debt of the U.S. government climbed by a total of $1,275,901,078,828.74 in fiscal 2012, which ended yesterday.

That means the federal government borrowed approximately an additional $10,855 for each household in the United States just over the past twelve months.

The total debt of the United States now equals approximately $136,690 per household.

In fiscal 2011, the debt increased by about $10,454 per household--$401 less than the $10,855 per household increase of 2012.

The $1.2758 trillion that the debt increased in fiscal 2012 was about $47.18 billion more than the $1.2287 trillion that the debt increased in fiscal 2011.

The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30.

At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2011, the total debt of the U.S. government was $14,790,340,328,557.15, according to the Treasury. At the close of business on Sept. 28, the last business day of fiscal 2012, it was $16,066,241,407,385.89

That meant the debt increased in fiscal 2012 by $1,275,901,078,828.74.

At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2010, the debt had stood at $13,561,623,030,891.79.  Over the course of fiscal 2011, it increased by $1,228,717,297,665.36 before closing at 14,790,340,328,557.15 on Sept. 30, 2011.

The fiscal 2012 increase of $1,275,901,078,828.74 exceeded the fiscal 2011 increase $1,228,717,297,665.36 by $47,183,781,163.38

The Census Bureau estimated that there were 117,538,000 household in the United States in 2010. The $1,275,901,078,828.74 that the debt increased in fiscal 2012 equaled about $10,855 for each one of those 117,538,000 households.

Via: CNS News

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Obama Makes 10th Las Vegas Trip Since Telling Bankers Not To Visit The City “On The Taxpayers Dime”…

(CNSNews.com) - Less than three weeks into his presidency Barack Obama warned executives of banks that had received federal bailout money that they better not take business trips to Las Vegas. Since then, Obama himself has made 9 trips to Vegas—and is making a tenth today.

“You can't get corporate jets,” Obama said at a Feb. 9, 2009 townhall meeting in Elkhart, Ind. “You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas, or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime.”

By May 27, 2009, Obama was in Las Vegas to tour a “solar photovoltaic array” at Nellis Air Force Base with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

According to an archive of the president’s official schedule maintained by the Chicago Sun Times, Obama has frequently returned to Vegas for purposes ranging from pushing his jobs bill, to campaigning with Reid, to attending fundraisers.

Via: CNS News

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Planned Parenthood To Hold Anti-Romney Protests In Denver Ahead Of Debate…

Part of Campaign to Mobilize Voters to “Ask Mitt”
 

Washington, DC — Today, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Votes announced they will paint Denver pink in the days leading up the first presidential debate. The Action Fund will hold a rally in Denver on Tuesday and Planned Parenthood Votes will run a series of ads targeting Colorado voters spanning TV, mobile, and online. The blitz is part of a wide, sweeping campaign to mobilize voters to “Ask Mitt” about his domestic policy positions, which would have real consequences for women, women’s health and women’s economic security.

The centerpiece of the campaign is “Ask Mitt” — an online voter engagement campaign that has already generated thousands of submissions via twitter and through the website http://www.ask-mitt.com. In the days leading up to the debate, supporters are being asked to vote for their favorite “Ask Mitt” questions (top five below).

Additionally, the groups are rolling out the following in Denver:

• an Action Fund “Ask Mitt” rally for women’s health on Tuesday, October 2, with Planned Parenthood Action Fund president, Cecile Richards;
• a new 30-second ad, “Ask Mitt,” from PPVotes on local Colorado television, that you can view here: http://youtu.be/GjZcbFml9JE;
• two Planned Parenthood Votes geo-targeted “Ask Mitt” 15-second mobile / tablet ads targeting Colorado voters, that you can view here:http://youtu.be/emFT0ao-ANU, and here:http://youtu.be/8oewPkpgQJo;
• takeover “Ask Mitt” Planned Parenthood Votes advertising on the politics section of the Denver Post online all day Tuesday and Wednesday of next week; andan “Ask Mitt” giant movable chalkboard where pedestrians can paint their questions that will be placed around different locations in Denver in the days leading up to the debate.

• Via: Planned Parenthood
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WH Aide Involved in Fast and Furious Was 'Suddenly' Transferred to Iraq; Issa Threatens Subpoena

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.) (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(CNSNews.com) - Kevin O’Reilly, a member of the White House National Security Staff who regularly communicated about Operation Fast and Furious with the Arizona-based ATF agent responsible for running the operation that allowed guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels, was suddenly transferred out of the White House and into Iraq in July 2011.

The transfer took place shortly after the ATF agent had testified in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the White House had provided the committee with a series of emails that O’Reilly and the agent had exchanged while Fast and Furious was underway.

Since then, the White House has declined to allow O’Reilly to be interviewed either by the committee or by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who conducted the administration’s internal investigation of Fast and Furious. The White House also refused to give the inspector general access to internal White House communications relating to Fast and Furious.

Under Fast and Furious, the ATF and the Justice Department deliberately allowed known straw purchasers for Mexican drug cartels to buy about 2,000 guns at U.S. gun stores. In December 2010, two of these guns were found at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Many more of the guns were found at crime scenes in Mexico.

In Sept. 20 testimony before the Oversight Committee, Horowitz said that the White House’s refusal to let O’Reilly speak and to provide the IG’s office with access to relevant internal White House communications “made it impossible” to “pursue that aspect of the case.”

Via: CNS News

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PEROT: FISCAL NIGHTMARE MEANS USA COULD BE TAKEN OVER

“In it, Perot talks about his fear of the United States being taken over.

“If we are that weak, just think of who wants to come here first and take us over and the last thing I ever want to see is to see this country, our country taken over because we’re so financially weak we can’t do anything and we’re moving in that direct. … We could even lose our country if we don’t get this fixed and straightened out and nobody that’s running really talks about it, about what we have to do and why we have to do it. They would prefer not to have it discussed.

Perot chimed in on some other topics, including:

The prosperous Clinton years: “We were just lucky, going through a period where we had the money flowing. … It was just good luck that made it happened. Right now we’re going through a period of bad luck.”

The Tea Party: “It’s had an interesting impact. … It’s not the solution but I think it was a healthy thing to happen. … It wakes up everybody running for office.””

Via Politico

Democratic National Committee predicts Romney will win first debate vs. Obama

It's a further lowering of expectations ahead of the first debate in Denver next week. Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse tells Fox News he thinks Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will win.

Woodhouse says the way the DNC sees it, challengers win the first debate when they are up against incumbents.

"Mitt Romney has had a lot more time to debate, the president has not debated in the past four years in terms, of a campaign debate. I think the president will hold his own, but he's not known for sound bites. And these are 60 second, 90 second responses."

AFP/Getty Images

Mitt Romney

'THE AMATEUR' AUTHOR EDWARD KLEIN: ROMNEY HAS AN ADVANTAGE IN FIRST DEBATE

Woodhouse says Democrats are "trying to be realistic about expectations" because the president is "lucky to be able to devote three consecutive hours to debate preparation."

Woodhouse also paints Romney as a good debater and gives him credit for "dispatching Newt Gingrich" who Woodhouse considers a pretty good debater.

Woodhouse said he wants to see Obama "talk from his heart about where the country was and where he wants to take the country."

He's looking to see the president connect with Americans during the debate, the way Woodhouse thinks Obama was able to do in Charlotte during the Democratic National Convention.

Via: NY Post

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“Another Broken Promise, Mr. President?”

Right now, President Obama and Mitt Romney are looking for the one line that will stand out as the defining line of the debate, a line that encapsulates the candidate’s reason for running and all his frustrations with the other guy. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a solution for the nation’s problems. But it does have to immediately resonate with voters. 

In 1980, the quip that stood out was challenger Ronald Reagan’s dismissive, “There you go again...” to President Carter. Folks knew exactly what Reagan meant: that we had seen through Carter’s attempts to attack Reagan’s supposedly “radical tendencies” as a dodge to distract voters from Carter’s responsibility for an ever-weakening America.

This time around it’s a safe bet that President Obama will try out another quip to further characterize Romney as an out-of-touch millionaire. It’s much less clear what quip the Romney team is looking for. His campaign has suffered from lack of clarity all along. The debates would be the perfect moment to fix on one. And frankly, we think we have one, based on the president’s own record.

During the debate on Wednesday night, President Obama will undoubtedly be asked to defend his record. Mr. Romney will be asked to respond. When he does, Romney should wait a beat -- as Ronald Reagan knew how to do so well -- and ask: “Another broken promise, Mr. President?”

Most Americans need to be reminded of just how many promises this president has broken. When you truly believe the government can fix almost anything, you’re bound to promise much more than can be fulfilled. Thus, Romney has a rich field to plow. The only problem will be brevity, because there are so many examples. But allow me to mention a few, each one of which could be condensed and followed by the refrain: “Another broken promise, Mr. President?”

Via: Fox Business

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MSNBC’s Toure: Forget 2008; Obama Must Be Re-Elected To Show Racial Progress In America

From his spot on the Time Ideas blog, the MSNBC anchor Toure admitted "If President Obama had to run against Senator Obama of 2008, he’d probably be crushed. Back then, Obama seemed superhuman; today he is merely mortal. His victory in 2008 was historic, breaking the race barrier in the nation’s highest office."

Guess what came next. Re-electing Obama is a greater test of whether America is racist than it was in 2008: "But an Obama victory in 2012 would say something even more profound about how far our country has come. Granted, Obama’s election (or not) is merely one of many factors that will tell us where we are on race in America. But it is a big one." Toure put Obama into the metaphor of The Matrix:

In 2008, Obama was Morpheus and America was Neo, a nation of great potential that had lost its mojo and did not understand reality. Obama offered America the red pill — the chance to vote for him — and we swallowed it. In The Matrix, the red pill took effect immediately, and it wasn’t long before Neo revealed himself to be the One — the Jesus-like figure Morpheus had thought he was. In the real world, change happens much more slowly. When Obama took office, it felt as if the sky were falling and we were close to a depression. We avoided that fate. But it has been a rough few years marked by problems (not all of his making) that include a historic recession, Washington gridlock, the passage of controversial health care  legislation, the failure to close the Guantánamo prison, the Middle East explosion and the rhetorical blunder of “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” by which the great orator handed the GOP a gift it could mangle into a slogan. After all that, it’s impossible to view Obama as a superhuman magical-Negro figure anymore.

Toure raised the "magical Negro" stereotype as the image Obama needed to win -- and he has to shed that to prove America isn't racist. So far, he's impressed that America is putting Obama ahead of Romney in the polls:

All incumbents have natural advantages, but for Obama, incumbency is a double-edged sword. Given the super-human expectations placed on him when he took office, it’s not surprising that he has disappointed some of his followers.

So those poll numbers suggest something very interesting about this country in terms of racial progress. They show American voters embracing a non-magical black man. The magical Negro concept arose from a need to rectify supposed black inferiority with the undeniability of black wisdom by suggesting that wisdom is so alien that its origins cannot be explained by normal scientific methods.

While some may think it complimentary to be considered “magical,” it is infantilizing and offensive because it suggests black excellence is so shocking it can only come from a source that is supernatural. To accept a black leader who is extraordinary yet so human that he cannot be magical is an entirely different prospect than electing a black superhero. Anyone would vote for a superhero who lived up to my mom’s standard of having to be twice as good. But for it to embrace a nonmagical black person who cannot promise anything but hope, intelligence, sweat and experience, now that comes closer to equality. Equality is freedom from having to be twice as good to get ahead.

This is the racial con game that's being presented this time. He doesn't promise anything but "hope, intelligence, sweat, and experience" besides his atrocious record of routine incompetence. So America is pressured: prove you're not a bigot by voting for Obama.

Via: Newsbusters

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DeMint joins national effort to keep feds from bailing out state pension systems

Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is getting hit with a nationwide backlash over his suggestion that the federal government bail out the state employees’ pension program

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Critics have in the past several days pounced on the suggestion, made last year when Quinn, in announcing the state’s fiscal 2012, said part of Illinois' long-term effort to reduce the estimate $167 billion in under-funded liabilities would be to seek “a federal guarantee of the debt.”

Among those leading the charge is Republican Sen. Jim DeMint. The South Carolina senator has joined the Illinois Policy Institute’s national “No Pension Bailout” campaign -- an effort to stop Congress from attempting to rescue failing state and municipal pension plans.

“Our greatest concern is states will assume they can run their pension systems into bankruptcy and then turn to the federal government for bailout,” DeMint said Thursday.

He also suggested the problem is the result of state legislators trying for decades to win over voters through pension promises based “on accounting methods that would put any business in jail.”

The conservative policy group estimates the total amount of under-funded pension liabilities in states is at least $2.5 trillion, with Illinois leading the nation.

The basic plan floated by Quinn would be for the federal government to rescue the pension program through buying the state’s bonds, which critics say are too financially risky to attract investors.  

Quinn said after announcing the budget that seeking the federal guarantee was only a precaution, then later called the related wording a “drafting error,” according the non-partisan Citizens Against Government Waste, which nevertheless gave the governor its September 2012 “Porker of the Month” award.

Via: Fox News

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