To The Liberals Who Think Romney Insulted Half of The Country

Liberals and the media (same dif.) are pushing a meme that Romney’s remarks on the Mother Jones tape insulted half of the country. You guys are so cute when you’re angry. Mitt responds to your concerns here.
First of all, everything Romney said was true but then… you can’t handle the truth.
The second thing is is that 47% is not half of the country but we know you’ve never been good at math – (see Obama’s $16 TRILLION dollar national debt).
Third, we conservatives are more than half of the country – (see the ass kicking we gave you in the 2010 mid-term elections and your failure to recall Scott Walker).
Finally, I’d like to address insults to half of the country.
There are just three terms I’d like to remind you about so try to stay with me.
Ready? Here we go…
TEABAGGERS
BITTER CLINGERS
RACISTS
Those three terms are real insults to more than half of the country and you’ve used them to describe us repeatedly.
See you at the polls!

CRS report: number of able-bodied adults on food stamps doubled after Obama suspended work requirement

Obama administration officials have insisted that their decision to grant states waivers to redefine work requirements for welfare recipients would not “gut” the landmark 1996 welfare reform law. But a new report from the Congressional Research Service obtained by the Washington Examiner suggests that the administration’s suspension of a separate welfare work requirement has already helped explode the number of able-bodied Americans on food stamps.

In addition to the broader work requirement that has become a contentious issue in the presidential race, the 1996 welfare reform law included a separate rule encouraging able-bodied adults without dependents to work by limiting the amount of time they could receive food stamps. President Obama suspended that rule when he signed his economic stimulus legislation into law, and the number of these adults on food stamps doubled, from 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2010, according to the CRS report, issued in the form of a memo to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

“This report once again confirms that President Obama has severely gutted the welfare work requirements that Americans have overwhelmingly supported since President Clinton signed them into law,” Cantor said in an emailed statement. “It’s time to reinstate these common-sense measures, and focus on creating job growth for those in need.”

Under the rule adopted in 1996, food stamps for able-bodied adults without dependents were limited to three months in a 36-month period unless the participant in the program “works at least 20 hours a week; participates in an employment and training program for at least 20 hours per week; or participates in a (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) ‘workfare’ program for at least 20 hours per week.”
Obama’s economic stimulus legislation suspended the rule for all states starting April 2009. Delaware continued to enforce the rule anyway, along with New York City and parts of Colorado, South Dakota, and Texas. This suspension expired at the end of the 2010 fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2010) and Congress rebuffed Obama’s requests to extend it in his fiscal years 2011 and 2012 budgets. However, Obama used his regulatory authority to effectively extend the waivers to nearly all states over the past two years. (The law grants the executive the authority to do this in states where the unemployment rate is above 10 percent or there’s a “lack of sufficient jobs.”)

Though the weakening of the economy would have led to an increase in food stamp usage with or without a waiver, the doubling of the use of food stamps by the able-bodied population without dependents exceeded the 43 percent increase in food stamp usage among the broader population over the same 2008 to 2010 time frame. This gives more weight to the idea that the waiver fueled the food stamp growth among the population it affected, beyond where it would have been even in a weak economy.

The CRS report does not have data for the 2011 and 2012 fiscal years.

COVER-UP: Hillary Scrubs State Department Memo Downplaying Threat of 9/11 Anniversary Attacks

Isn't this what Third World dictatorships do? That is: flush inconvenient reminders of their failings down the memory hole?

Wednesday night, one day after the 9/11 anniversary protests/attacks in Cairo, Egypt and Benghazi, Libya, I wrote about a September 6, 2012 memo issued by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State...

...in retrospect the memo is an embarrassing reminder of how the United States and its overseas embassies were caught flat-footed on Tuesday.  The phrasing of the last sentence of the memo ("these concerns are the result of increased media attention to the issue, rather than credible evidence" [emphasis mine]) could have even inspired complacency with its rather glib assessment of the potential threat.

There is now evidence that someone at the State Department drew the same conclusion about the memo, because as of today, it is no longer listed on the OSAC website.

Since then, of course, the Libyan government and other sources have indicated that the State Department was indeed warned of the possibility of 9/11 anniversary attacks.

It is plainly obvious that we have not been getting straight answers from Obama officials about what they knew and when they knew it about the dangers facing our consulate in Benghazi and throughout the region. It may be deception, or they may be so incompetent they still don’t know.

There is credible information that there were warnings of trouble to come, and 9/11 itself should have put a consulate in a dangerous section of Libya on high alert with substantial protection afforded the Ambassador. The story told by Susan Rice and Jay Carney the attack was spontaneous is becoming laughable.

There also is evidence emerging that the Ambassador was left with minimal protection... In essence, the Obama Administration tasked an unarmed British firm with security responsibilities that should have been handled by armed American servicemen, and it was all approved by the Secretary of State. Needless to say, the plan failed and an Ambassador was murdered, along with several others.

The cover-up is underway. It will be up to new media to continue to unpeel the layers of this story, since antique media is asleep at the wheel.

If Mitt Romney is Thurston Howell, Then Obama Must Be…

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip….
For the record, The Minnow was a boat from Hawaii.


UPDATE: The Skipper

UPDATE: Ginger

UPDATE: Maryman

UPDATE: The Professor

MITT HAMMERS OBAMA OVER SHOCKING TAPE! “He Wants Redistribution – I Disagree!” (Video)

 That was quick…
Less than an hour ago Drudge posted video of Barack Obama telling an audience in 1998 that he believes in redistribution of wealth. Mitt Romney was just on Your World with Cavuto and hammered the president over this shocking admission.
“He wants redistribution of wealth. I disagree.”



 Mitt Romney on Barack Obama:

“Frankly we have two very different views about America. The president’s view is one of a larger government. There’s a tape that just came out today where the president is saying he likes redistribution. I disagree. I think a society based upon a government-centered nation where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money, that’s the wrong course for America. That will not build a strong America or help people out of poverty. I believe the right course for America is one where government steps in to help those who are in need. We’re a compassionate people. But then we let people build their own lives… We believe in free people and free enterprises.”

Nice answer, Mitt.

Good News: Another Coal Mining Company Slashing 1,200 Jobs

The destruction of the coal industry is one of Obama’s most successful endeavors:

Coal miner Alpha Natural Resources Inc said it would cut about 1,200 jobs, or 9 percent of its workforce, by early 2013 as weak demand forces it to halt production at some mines that produce coal used to generate power.

The company, which is shifting focus to more lucrative steel-making coal, will temporarily close eight mines in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania immediately, affecting about 400 jobs.

Alpha Natural in June said it would stop production at four mines in Kentucky, reduce thermal coalproduction and slash 150 jobs.

Obama’s EPA issued new regulations which directly lead to a loss of jobs in the coal industry.
And it will only get worse:

All these regulations are likely to weigh heavily on existing coal plants and to make the construction of new ones difficult or impossible. It is probably no exaggeration to say the EPA has declared a “War on Coal.” The map shows that, except for the Upper Midwest, nearly all shutdowns will occur east of the Mississippi. Western states have never invested that heavily in coal, even though half the nation’s coal now comes out of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. The vast hydroelectric resources of the West plus the construction of nuclear power plants have made up the difference.
The only interesting anomaly is that shutdowns will not be so intense in the nation’s oldest “Coal Country” – Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. The reasons seem to be: 1) many urban areas in these states are now served by nuclear power, and 2) many new coal plants have been constructed with pollution equipment that will meet the new EPA standards.

Coal miners, however, will still be out of jobs

Barack Obama Cannot Be Serious

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of self reflection, and all I could reflect on was this picture and what it symbolizes:

An American citizen exercised his First Amendment right to produce a crappy film.  In response, the President of the United States sent “brownshirted enforcers,” as law professor Glenn Reynolds put it, to “voluntarily” take that man in for “questioning,” thereby trampling on the Constitution overtly enough that Reynolds called on Obama to resign.
That thought kept bumping against another thought: Tomorrow night, the same president who couldn’t find any time to meet with Netanyahu for a strategy session on keeping nukes out of Iran’s hands will be flying to New York to raise perhaps millions of dollars for his own reelection campaign at an event with Jay-Z.
Did you ever wonder who Jay-Z is?  In case you don’t know, he’s a renowned hip-hop artist and entrepreneur who began his rise to .1 percent status by writing, uh, lyrics like this (caution: bad language ahead):

Motherfuckers wanna act loco
Hit ‘em wit, numerous shots with the fo’-fo’
Faggots wanna talk to po-po’s, smoke ‘em like cocoa
Fuck rap, coke by the boatload
Fuck that, on the run-by, gun high, one eye closed
Left holes through some guy clothes
Stop your bullshittin’, glock with the full clip
Motherfuckers better duck when the fool spit
One shot could make a nigga do a full flip
See the nigga layin’ shocked when the bullet hit

Make room in the Great American Songbook.  No wonder Obama lavished such praise on him:

Every time I talk to Jay-Z, who is a brilliant talent and a good guy, I enjoy how he thinks.

And what about how Jay-Z acts?

In early December of 1999, Jay-Z was charged with first-degree assault and second-degree assault after Untertainment Records executive Lance “Un” Rivera was stabbed once in the stomach and once in the shoulder. According to Newsweek, Jay-Z suspected that Rivera had released bootleg copies of his fourth album, an act that would lead to the loss of millions of dollars in rightful profits.

Jay-Z later pleaded guilty, and in a deal with prosecutors served three years probation for acts of violence that had been motivated by what Democrats like to call “greed”—which, come to think about it, pretty much describes the whole fundraiser.
If Barack Obama consciously intended to demonstrate his contempt for this constitutional republic and its citizens—and who knows, maybe he does—he couldn’t do it any more dramatically than tonight’s event.
Think about it.  Just a few days after trying to deprive a man no one had ever heard of from enjoying his free-speech rights because some foreigners claim they were offended, the President of the United States flies off to party with another man who’s earned a pasha’s fortune exercising his own free-speech rights with language that offends many more Americans than not.

The Greatest Enemy To Liberty

The American people are a political body, they are not just citizens. One might be a citizen of a prison, so it is not the act of being a citizen that gives them rights, their rights are derived from being part of the political process. During election time the political body of the American public is being lobbied by those holding seats on one side of the aisle or the other. It is a political act, so when the media acts not to inform that political body (the people), but to help one side or the other become successful in their lobbying efforts, it has committed a form of treason.

The cover-up of the reason for the assassination of the Ambassador to Libya is among the most dastardly and un-American acts I have witnessed the American media commit. We need the truth about American foreign policy, we need the truth to make good decisions about our leadership. The truth is that the attack on the Libyan and Egyptian embassies was about 9/11, but more importantly to remind Barack Obama that no matter how many bin Laden's he kills there will always be more. On the heels of the Democratic Convention where having killed bin Laden was a major theme to appeal to the independents who may be watching, we have this attack on our embassies and there is NO connection in the media? Instead it is some obscure video on YouTube?

Everyone knows that the media is in the tank for the Democrats, that most supposed "news" organizations are mere propagandists for the liberal cause and that is one of their justifications, i.e. "if you know that, if it is widely understood, then that should be taken into account as all other things political are taken into account." That they present themselves as neutral observers is all part of the ruse.

In many discussions with liberty-minded folks and those who would act to secure liberty, it is always pointed out that the greatest stumbling block to action is how it will be portrayed by the media. There would be no support for "freedom-fighters" in America by the American press.

Ever since the destruction of the Nixon Administration the media has been emboldened to take on their powers with malice. I do not deny that Nixon deserved to go, but if he did, so have many others on the liberal side.

Obamacare will fall of its own weight, it is too big of a drag on an economy already suffering from the liberal policies of both Democrats and Republicans, but the media ignored its un-Constitutional provisions and cheerleaded for the work-arounds. They forgot to mention all of the waivers offered to large corporations which supported it. If that doesn't say something, I don't know what does. Think about that for a second: the companies and organizations who were the most vocal in supporting Obamacare received waivers from it. Huh? That's not a story most people would have had an interest in knowing?

The media is not just a stumbling block to liberty, it is an enemy combatant against liberty. It is a supporter of the liberal dictator and an enemy to the people for whom it claims to speak. The press is given its freedom only so that it can better inform the populace, read any discussion in the federalist papers on the issue and it becomes clear that was the intent.

From my perspective, an agenda-driven media is the greatest enemy to liberty. It is the most powerful and enduring political force in America and should be recognized and treated as such. In any interview, this should be made clear by the interviewee before answering questions. If the political voices on the right were to preface each answer by stating: "from your liberal perspective I can see the value of that question, but here's the answer..." I think eventually the tie would be made to them before the public that otherwise pays no attention, or does not have the sophistication to understand the dynamic at play during one of those interviews.

 Posted by T.L. Davis

Thrill Is Gone: Obama Loses Convention, Media Bounce

 

This afternoon, Gallup reported its latest presidential tracking poll, finding Obama's lead had slipped again. Today, he leads Romney, among registered voters, by 1 point, 47-46. This is the same level of support he had before the Democrat convention. More importantly though, it represents a 6-point swing in Obama's support in one week. Last week he led by 7 points. Clearly, the media will tell us this is trouble for Romney. 

Like most modern candidates, Obama got a modest bump out of his convention. What was unique for Obama, however, is that the Democrat-media industrial complex used every available tool to amplify and sustain this bounce. All last week, the media pushed the "campaign is over" theme and obsessed over every perceived misstep made by the Romney campaign.
The entire political universe began convincing themselves--and broadcasting to viewers and readers--that Romney was fading away. And yet, Romney gained ground as Obama lost ground. Obama's approval rating slipped today under 50% to 49% and his disapproval rose. Expect the media to get very nervous now.
It should be noted that Gallup is still using a Registered Voter screen, which has a well-established bias towards Democrats of 2-5 points. Most other polls have by now switched to a Likely Voter screen and, even in heavily-skewed polls, Romney picks up support in changing to the more reliable screen.
Gallup is also still using a 7-day rolling average in its tracking poll. So, this poll doesn't fully factor in reactions to the embassy riots and the emerging knowledge that the Obama Administration had advanced warning of the attacks, yet failed to provide extra security. The media have done their best to avoid this story, but items of this magnitude tend to get out.
In the political word, we have a term for a campaign that loses 6 points in just one week; trouble. Unfortunately for the media. This applies now to the Obama campaign, not the Romney campaign.

Rick Wilson: It's The Facts, Not The Daily News Cycles, That Determine Elections

 Stories about surreptitious videos and of Romney’s campaign being on the precipice of destruction from internal tension and fights over strategic messaging are missing the most important point: there’s only one campaign at real risk of destruction right now, and it belongs to Barack Obama.

Process stories are easy. They're fun. They play who's up-who's down game using simple signifiers and narrative shortcuts.... But process stories – on either side, as “bitter clingers” proved – don't win elections.
Of the dozen or so Romney gaffes in the primary and beyond, each has been greeted by a media more intent on declaring it to be the fatal moment....
Now, everything about Barack Obama's brand – which is what has replaced the Democratic Party, to its future peril – relies on what John Hayward called “...a manufactured political narrative that bears little resemblance to reality.”
The delta between the world as Obama and his legion of fanboys describe it and the world as it is grows more spectacular and more impossible to sustain by the day.
...
Which is why process stories and Obama's considerable self-regard can't paper over an economy teetering on the precipice. Process stories can't make the fiscal crash that's coming any less catastrophic or record unemployment less systemic.
Process stories can't stop the video of burning U.S. Embassies and of the beaten, violated corpses of American diplomats being dragged through the streets. Process stories can't stop the grim sight of Al Qaida flags proudly flying over what were once U.S. diplomatic compounds...

You know how I knew John McCain would lose in 2008?
It wasn't Sarah Palin. It was that he was running (in the public mind) as the third term of Bush and the facts in 2008 were not so good.
We had a financial crisis, and the world seemed to be going to hell.
That's a tough environment to win an election in.
Now, Obama has something McCain didn't -- a media desperately in love with him and willing to embargo important news in order to push minor stories to distract away from the big ones.
In the Obama/McCain contest, the media was, get this, quite willing, even eager to note the bad facts in 2008.
Now they are determined to discuss everything except that.
That's something. That's a big chit for Obama.
And yet, the news got around even in the Soviet Union, didn't it?