So, besides being inept and completely unqualified to fulfill any aspect of his office we can add dishonest to the list. Who would have thought?
When you read reports like that you wonder just how much fantasy is in the unemployment numbers that the labor dept. releases every week.
Under Obama: 30 Worst Months of Employment Over The Past 25 Years… Hope and change! Via Weekly Standard: The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes monthly tallies for the employment-population ratio. That stat shows something rather straightforward: Among those who are living in America and are free to pursue employment, what percentage are employed? (The bureau excludes those who are under 16 years old, are active-duty military, or are — in the bureau’s own words — “inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities, homes for the aged),” from its tallies.) 1. (tie) July 2011, 58.2 percent, President Barack Obama 1. (tie) June 2011, 58.2 percent, Obama 1. (tie) November 2010, 58.2 percent, Obama 1. (tie) December 2009, 58.2 percent, Obama 5. (tie) August 2011, 58.3 percent, Obama 5. (tie) December 2010, 58.3 percent, Obama 5. (tie) October 2010, 58.3 percent, Obama 8. (tie) April 2012, 58.4 percent, Obama 8. (tie) October 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama 8. (tie) September 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama 8. (tie) May 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama 8. (tie) April 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama 8. (tie) February 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama 8. (tie) January 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama 15. (tie) March 2012, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) January 2012, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) December 2011, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) November 2011, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) March 2011, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) September 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) August 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) July 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) June 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) March 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) February 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) January 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) November 2009, 58.5 percent, Obama 15. (tie) October 2009, 58.5 percent, Obama 29. February 2012, 58.6 percent, Obama 30. (tie) May 2010, 58.7 percent, Obama 30. (tie) April 2010, 58.7 percent, Obama 30. (tie) September 2009, 58.7 percent, Obama
So 42% of able bodied and available Americans make little or no effort to support themselves in any fashion. This election will be about voter turnout; it;s the Makers v. the Takers.
Oh My: Police Accuse Al Sharpton And Wyclef Jean of Laundering Money For Drug Kingpin… Hmmmm Via Daily Mail: Police suspected singer Wyclef Jean and activist and TV host Reverend Al Sharpton of being involved in laundering drug money, Brooklyn federal court has heard. Mr Jean allegedly received a $60,000 loan from hip hop manager James Rosamond, who is currently on trial for drug charges, and Mr Sharpton was allegedly given a $10,000 donation by the suspected drug kingpin, according to thesmokinggun.com. Testifying on Wednesday, Internal Revenue Service agent Marc Van Driessche described how federal investigators also quizzed Mr Rosamond about his relationship with Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs during meetings to try to strike a cooperation agreement. On October 4, during the first of nine grilling sessions, Mr Rosemond was asked about Mr Combs, also known as Puff Daddy, because ‘we had information through other witnesses that the defendant many have made an admission to Sean Combs,’ Mr Van Driessche said.
Obamanomics: Half of U.S. Lives In Household Getting Government Benefits… Obama’s goal of a giant welfare state now within reach. Via WSJ: 49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011. Cutting government spending is no easy task, and it’s made more complicated by recent Census Bureau data showing that nearly half of the people in the U.S. live in a household that receives at least one government benefit, and many likely received more than one. The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008. The increase in recent years is likely due in large part to the lingering effects of the recession. As of early 2011, 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits. Families doubling up to save money or pool expenses also is likely leading to more multigenerational households. But even without the effects of the recession, there would be a larger reliance on government. The Census data show that 16% of the population lives in a household where at least one member receives Social Security and 15% receive or live with someone who gets Medicare. There is likely a lot of overlap, since Social Security and Medicare tend to go hand in hand, but those percentages also are likely to increase as the Baby Boom generation ages.
LOST at sea, Senate Dems put Law Of The Sea Treaty on hold until after election Home - by Cardigan - May 29, 2012 - 13:30 America/New_York - 6 Comments WyBlog Show of hands. Who here thinks giving the UN veto power over US sovereignty is a swell idea? OK Frank Lautenberg, you can sit down now. You too Bob Menendez. After getting back from the shore this weekend, marching in the Memorial Day parade, and enjoying some lovely barbecues with friends, I open my web browser and see the Democrats are trying to sell us out to the United Nations. Again. A real stinker of a global conspiracy called LOST has been banging around in the US Senate since Ronald Reagan’s time. LOST stands for Law Of The Sea Treaty and it’s a globalist’s wet dream. Here’s what the globalists are trying to do: - Take away the right of Congress or the president to go to war unless the United Nations approves (that is unless we get Russia and China not to veto the resolutions. - Hold American presidents and cabinet members criminally responsible for going to war without UN approval. - Limit the right of the US Navy to keep the seas open. - Require half of the royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling and mineral mining to go to a UN body to distribute as it wishes with no real control by the United States. - Require us to share our offshore drilling technology with all other nations. - Require us to assure, through registration and other intrusive methods, that none of the gun owners in America export their weapons to other countries. - Establish international jurisdiction over firearms in the United States. Barry and his minions have been working overtime to get this nonsense passed in the Senate. The Republicans have threatened to turn it into an election issue. Because US sovereignty isn’t something we should be messing around with.
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CBO: Obama Stimulus Plan May Have Cost As Much As $4.1 Million Per Job… Via AEI’s James Pethokoukis: The Congressional Budget Office in a new report: When [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] was being considered, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would increase budget deficits by $787 billion between fiscal years 2009 and 2019. CBO now estimates that the total impact over the 2009–2019 period will amount to about $831 billion. [...] •They increased the number of people employed by between 0.2 million and 1.5 million, •They increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 0.3 million to 1.9 million. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.) OK, so without the stimulus, there would be anywhere from 200,000 to 1.5 million fewer people employed right now? That means the current cost-per-job created is somewhere between $4.1 million and $540,000.
Report: “Obama Flies His Barber In From Chicago Every 10–14 Days”… I wonder how much this is costing us? Never mind the hypocrisy of Obama railing against global warming then spewing countless tons of CO2 into the atmosphere so he can get a haircut. Via German public radio (Google translation): Zariff. No surname, just Zariff only.That’s the name of the barber of Barack Obama. “I only just arrived by plane,” he told a customer in his barber shop in Chicago. Also at 21:30 clock is Zariffs shop still open. Lined up in it are eight black hairdressing chairs – four left, four right. The lights on the ceiling to light up, not flatter, we quickly became clear. Finally, customers want a haircut here, not art. “If you find a good hairdresser, you will stay with him” So it was Barack Obama when he was 17 years ago to Zariff into the store. “I just waited on a customer and asked Obama: ‘Do you have to do?’ I said, ‘Not now’, and since then I cut his hair, “says Zariff of time. They shared a lot: They are around 50 years old, black and married. With their now 17-year relationship they have done it more than some marriages. “In our culture it is so. If you find a good hairdresser, you stay at this barber” Zariff has estimated its famous customers already, when nobody could do anything with the name Barack Obama. And of course, full of praise. “He’s just a cool guy overall I feel good when I talk to him That was already in our first meeting..” About the contents of their talks said Zariff not say a word. Perhaps one reason why Obama feels safe with him. Otherwise he would let fly his hairdresser, not all ten to 14 days from Chicago to Washington. “Feel with a good haircut at any good. I watch that I can make the visits. A great privilege for me. It makes me proud.” Here’s a pic of Zariff cutting Obama’s hair in Chicago:
Chicago Jesus Turns Democrats Into Republicans, Dozens Defect To GOP Over Gay Marriage Backing And HHS Mandate… Nice job, Barack. JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, May 31, 2012 — Five months ahead of the presidential election, the Democratic Party is already losing seats to Republicans, as a growing number of elected officials are changing parties over issues like the right to life, the definition of marriage, and the Obama administration’s mandate that religious institutions cover abortion-inducing drugs in their health care plans. Wednesday afternoon, seven local office-holders from three Mississippi counties announced they had voted with their feet. Each official had different reasons, but Leake County Sheriff Greg Waggoner “specifically said when [Obama] came out in favor of gay ‘marriage,’ that was the last straw,” Brett Kittredge, communications director of the Mississippi Republican Party, told LifeSiteNews.com. “I’m a Christian, and my first allegiance is to Jesus Christ,” Sheriff Waggoner said. “God established marriage, and He established it between a man and a woman. Those are my beliefs. The Republican Party reflects my beliefs.” His concerns echoed those of Pennsylvania Democrat-turned-Republican Jo Ann Nardelli. A lifelong Democrat, Nardelli has been active as a pro-life Democrat at the state and local level. As Matthew Archbold wrote, “She met with Hillary Clinton, gave a rosary to Joe Biden, and appeared on the cover of U.S. News and World Report going to Church with then Senate candidate Bob Casey Jr.” But after seeing Vice President Joe Biden, who is Roman Catholic, endorse same-sex “marriage,” she said she could no longer stand by the party. “I talked to our priest,” she said. Soon she penned a resignation letter citing the party’s conflict with Catholic teaching. “Due to personal matters and faith beliefs at this time, it is only fair to resign,” she wrote. “It is time to move forward with my life in a direction that is more in line with my faith.” At a press conference, she endorsed Mitt Romney, then switched parties. State and local officials are not only ones to defect from an increasingly left-wing party. Former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, an early Obama supporter who ran for governor in 2010, hinted on Tuesday that he may run for office in his new home state of Virginia. “If I were to run, it would be as a Republican,” he wrote.
“Mobster” Speaks Out During Shovel Ready Job Discussion Home - by BigFurHat - June 1, 2012 - 11:01 America/New_York - 2 Comments The Friday numbers on unemployment are grim. They are so bad lefties are having a tough time spinning it. So things are getting tense. Now threats are being made over the few opportunities available out there. This is Obamamerica. Chicago Sun Times An influential alderman warned Metra’s executive director on Thursday that “people are going to get hurt” if the commuter rail agency fails to bolster minority participation on a $133 million South Side railroad bridge known as the “Englewood Flyover.” Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, did not explain who he believed would “get hurt” or who the perpetrators might be. But, he was clearly referring to civil disobedience or maybe even violence at the construction site. “I’m trying to help you help yourself. When I say that, problems could arise. When you look at a community like Englewood [that] is challenged and you have over $1 billion of work coming through and there’s no people of color working on that project, I’m afraid people are going to get hurt,” Beale told Clifford during Thursday’s committee hearing. “When you look at the make-up of the community — when you look at the unemployment rate … in that particular community, it’s probably 35, almost 40 percent. … To have a contract come like this in the African-American community with less than one percent minority participation is an insult.”
Name of AFL-CIO’s Super PAC Will Sound Rather Familiar If You’re A Communist… Via Media Tracker: Workers’ Voices, a front group for the AFL-CIO, has been billed as the “largest union super-PAC,” even though its own website declares it is not an exclusively union-oriented organization. “Workers’ Voice represents and fights for all working families, union and non-union,” the site proclaims. [...] Their name, however, may not be the best-conceived political label for a group seeking to sway voter opinion in an election. As it turns out, Workers’ Voices is a fairly routine and common name for propaganda newspapers and broadsides affiliated with the Communist Party. In Detroit, a group calling itself the Communist Voice Organization has for a long time published the Detroit Workers’ Voice. Worker’s Voice was also the name of an Irish newspaper with ties to the Communist Party there. Other Communist Party groups in other nations have also used the name frequently
Passing Obamacare the Chicago Way Home - by Cardigan - June 3, 2012 - 18:30 America/New_York - 7 Comments PJ Media Here’s an outrage: sleazy government officials approach a major business interest and want to enter into “negotiations.” The officials casually mention, “You’ve got a nice little business here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.” Both sides know the business needs permits to operate, current regulations could be changed or delayed and the bureaucracy’s normally glacial pace could begin to approach that of plate tectonics. All it takes is a little ill will on the government side and costs and delays start to escalate for the business side. And there’s no one to complain to for obvious reasons. The government officials say this doesn’t have to happen. We can all cooperate for “the greater good.” Spend a little money now and it will pay off tenfold in the future. Everybody’s happy. It’s just a cost of doing business in this locale. The Washington Times reports that internal Obama administration documents just released by House Republicans reveal “those negotiations violated the promises of transparency Mr. Obama made during his 2008 campaign.” My question is: why didn’t those “negotiations” violate the law? Let’s compare the two stories. In “progressive” circles all cultures are relative until a non–union U.S. corporation decides to “go native,” so to speak, and conform to the cultural norms where it’s attempting to do business.
House GOP Obtains Wiretaps From “Fast And Furious” That Prove Holder, Top DOJ Officials Have Been Lying About What The Justice Department Knew… Giddy up! (CBS News) — The lead House Republican investigating Operation Fast and Furious, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), today said senior Justice Department officials had specific information that their federal agents were using controversial “gunwalking” tactics. Justice Department officials have consistently denied that was the case. But today in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Issa revealed that he has reviewed sealed wiretap applications in the case, which were signed off on the authority of Holder’s Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. Issa wrote Holder “having seen the wiretap applications, we now know that the information coming from the (Justice) Department has been misleading. That must stop.” Issa and others familiar with the wiretap applications say they contain a “remarkable level of detail about these objectionable tactics.” That appears contrary to Holder’s testimony to Congress on Nov. 8, 2011 when Holder stated, “I’d be surprised if the tactics themselves about gunwalking were actually contained in those, in those [wiretap] applications. I have not seen them, but I would be surprised [if] that were the case.” Holder later made a similar statement to Congress on Feb. 2, 2012. “The wiretap applications obtained by the [House Oversight] Committee show such statements made by senior [Justice] Department officials . . . to be false and misleading,” said Issa’s letter. He added the applications “detail specific actions taken by agents in Fast and Furious. This includes conscious decisions not to interdict weapons that agents knew were illegally purchased by smugglers taking weapons to Mexico,” also called “gunwalking.” The Justice Department provided no immediate comment. Neither have Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. Issa said Democrats have been provided copies of the wiretap applications for their review.
Report: FBI Launches Investigation Into White House Leaking Details Of Cyberwarfare Attacks On Iran To The NY Times… You know it’s bad when even liberal Dems like John Kerry and Dianne Feinstein are pissed at the Obama administration for compromising national security to make Obama look better. (CNN) — The FBI has launched an investigation into apparent leaks of classified information involving a U.S. cyberwarfare program against Iran, a U.S. official said Wednesday. FBI spokesman Paul Bresson had no comment on the reported investigation. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was informed that an FBI inquiry is under way. The senator from Georgia and other leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees issued a joint statement Tuesday deploring the apparent leaks. “In recent weeks, we have become increasingly concerned at the continued leaks regarding sensitive intelligence programs and activities, including specific details of sources and methods,” said Chambliss; Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-California; Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan; and Ranking Member C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Maryland, in the statement. “These disclosures have seriously interfered with ongoing intelligence programs and have put at jeopardy our intelligence capability to act in the future. Each disclosure puts American lives at risk, makes it more difficult to recruit assets, strains the trust of our partners and threatens imminent and irreparable damage to our national security in the face of urgent and rapidly adapting threats worldwide.”
Brace Yourself: Holder Claims Emails Using Words “Fast and Furious” Don’t Refer to Operation Fast and Furious Genius. (CNSNews.com) — Attorney General Eric Holder claimed during congressional testimony today that internal Justice Department emails that use the phrase “Fast and Furious” do not refer to the controversial gun-walking operation Fast and Furious. Under questioning from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who read excerpts of the emails at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Department oversight, Holder claimed that the phrase “Fast and Furious” did not refer to Fast and Furious but instead referred to another gun-walking operation known as “Wide Receiver.” However, the emails refer to both programs — “Fast and Furious” and the “Tucson case,” from where Wide Receiver was launched — and reveal Justice Department officials discussing how to handle media scrutiny when both operations become public. Among three of the emails (see Jason Weinstein Email Fast, Furious.pdf), the second, dated “October 17, 2010 11:07 PM,” was sent by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein to James Trusty and it states: “Do you think we should have Lanny participate in press when Fast and Furious and Laura’s Tucson case [Wide Receiver] are unsealed? It’s a tricky case, given the number of guns that have walked, but it is a significant set of prosecutions.” In the third email, dated Oct. 18, 2010, James Trusty writes back to Weinstein: “I think so, but the timing will be tricky, too. Looks like we’ll be able to unseal the Tucson case sooner than the Fast and Furious (although this may be just the difference between Nov. and Dec).” “It’s not clear how much we’re involved in the main F and F [Fast and Furious] case,” reads the email, “but we have Tucson [Wide Receiver] and now a new unrelated case with [redacted] targets. It’s not any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX [Mexico], so I’m not sure how much grief we get for ‘guns walking.’ It may be more like ‘Finally, they’re going after people who sent guns down there.’” (See Jason Weinstein Email Fast, Furious.pdf) Operation Wide Receiver was run out of Tucson, Ariz., between 2006 and 2007 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), a division of the Justice Department. In his testimony, Holder said that the emails only referred to Operation Wide Receiver. Holder told the committee: “That refers to Wide Receiver, not to Fast and Furious. The e-mail that you [Rep. Chaffetz] just read [between Trusty and Weinstein] — now this is important — that email referred to Wide Receiver, it did not refer to Fast and Furious. That has to be noted for the record.”
Holder Vows To “Vigorously Use” Anti-Jim Crow Laws To Target Voter ID Legislation, Voter Roll Purges… What does Jim Crow have to do with dead people voting? (CNS News) — Attorney General Eric Holder told the House Judiciary Committee Thursday that the Justice Department will “vigorously use” anti-Jim Crow provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to prevent some southern states from purging ineligible voters from their rolls and enacting voter-I.D. laws. “It is the position of this Department of Justice and certainly this Attorney General that we will vigorously defend and vigorously use Section 5. The need for it is still there.” Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires several southern states and counties in states such as California and Florida to get federal “pre-clearance” before they change any voting eligibility laws or voting requirements or procedures. Originally, the provision was designed to combat the legacy of racist Jim Crow laws passed in some states to prevent black people from voting.