Bad News. Pew poll review.

 

These men could be disappointed  in 2012

The Polls are out , and it's not good NEWS for EITHER PARTY .Polls have shown for weeks that voters are upset with Washington, and not just in a normal partisan bickering way. Congressional approval ratings are at historic lows after the almost-default and President Obama, who had maintained an approval rating around 50 percent throughout his presidency despite some major legislative battles, has seen his rating hit a low of 38 percent just a few days ago.President Obama’s disapproval rating reached its highest level to date Sunday, according to Gallup’s daily presidential tracking poll.Based on the latest data, 55 percent of Americans say they disapprove of the job President Obama is doing. Just 38 percent of Americans say they approve of Obama’s performance as president. (RELATED: Obama’s approval rating reaches lowest point of his presidency)Gallup’s polls are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 adults and carry a margin of error of ±3 percentage points.But a new Pew poll out on (1a)Wednesday provided a more in-depth look at Americans' frustrations: namely, very high unfavorability ratings for the Republican Party, and lower ratings on President Obama's ability to lead.

The poll shows problems for the GOP in two ways. First, the GOP has seen a more severe fall in its rating after the debt fight, as its approval now sits at 34 percent against 59 percent disapproval, a large shift from the closer split that Republicans had the first month they controlled the House: 43 - 48 in February. The Democratic Party had a slim positive rating in February of 47 - 46, but has also slipped in all the Washington brinkmanship, to 43 - 50.

Secondly, the approval of GOP leaders by Americans has slipped to 22 percent, with 69 percent disapproval. "Ratings for GOP leaders have fallen sharply among the Republican base - and the change has been particularly dramatic among Republicans and Republican leaning-independents who agree with the Tea Party," the Pew report reads. "Among all Republicans, 46% now approve of the job performance of Republican leaders, down 23 points from January."

Then, there are the consequences. The new data shows that Americans would vote for a Democratic candidate over a GOP rival for Congress at a 48 - 44 split, meaning almost a majority. That's the lowest number of undecided voters since April of 2006, before the Democrats took over Congress that fall.

Pew shows that the President's approval is down to 43 percent against 49 percent disapproval, a drop from the 49 - 42 split from a Pew poll in February. The President's lower approval rating is not news: other polls have shown it dropping. But some of the more specific findings show a public that is becoming less confident in his leadership qualities. In May, Pew found that 55 percent of Americans thought that Obama is "able to get things done." But in the current poll that number has dropped to to 44 percent, and his "strong leader" perception has dropped from 58 percent in May to 49 now. Put together, the GOP unfavorables and Obama leadership numbers suggest that the down-to-the-wire debt debate has exposed both a feeling on Americans' part that the extreme partisanship is unseemly, and a frustration about the functionality of government in an era of said partisanship.

On the Democratic side, the poll exposes some frustrations with party leaders, with 61 percent of Dem voters saying their party is "doing only a fair or poor job of standing up for its traditional positions.

 NOTES TO ARTICLE:

 (1a) Democrats express fairly positive views of their party's congressional leaders - 53% approve of their job performance. But Democrats are increasingly critical of the party's advocacy of its traditional positions, such as protecting the interests of minorities, helping the poor and needy and representing working people.
Currently, just 38% of Democrats and Democratic leaders say the party is doing an excellent or good job of standing up for its traditional positions; 61% say the party has done only a fair or poor job. Last November, following the party's dismal showing in the midterm elections, Democrats and Democratic leaders expressed more positive views of how well the party was standing up for its traditional positions (48% excellent or good/ 50% only fair or poor).

Pecking at Beck

When Glenn Beck was a Radio Talk show host before he came to FOX NEWS he already had built up a noteworthy personnality on the similar lines of Howard Stern .

I have read almost every book Glenn Beck had written .  (1) I find his three great books , each of them are like School Collage Text books with illustrations that connect every facet of Government to some grand scheme of  secretive operations . I admit that the books he writes are intriguing how to books on fixing America . I have grown over the years to listen to what he says , but some circumstances now Glenn Beck has begun to annoy me .   I have respect for him  , but I will explain .For most Mormon's Beck is an icon in the media . Here we would like to caution  Latter Day Saints on Beckism .

For years now, Glenn Beck has been warning us that we are hurtling toward a point of no return. Time and again, he has said that we're in an “Archduke Ferdinand moment,” one shot away from a global conflagration. On other occasions he's changed analogies from World War I to World War II; in March he announced on his radio show, “We have become the Weimar Republic. The warning signs are here and the enemies are within the gates.”

Glenn Back has made outrageous statements over the years his most recent Beck called Hurricane Irene a "blessing" on his Friday radio show, saying it would teach people to be prepared for disasters.

As the hurricane barreled towards the East Coast, Beck said that it would be a valuable lesson for people who have not heeded his warnings. He said he has long told his followers to stock up in case of "global disruption in food." He said that, even though people had mocked him for it, disaster preparedness was key to him.

"If you've waited [until now], this hurricane is a blessing," he said. "It is God reminding you, as was the earthquake last week...you're not in control." Here you have a hurricane that could kill thousands , what's got me pecking at Beck is that he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ( Mormon ) , if the hurricane and earthquake were from G-D sent to punish the unrighteous , and I'm sure that the righteous would be swept away as well . Acts of G-D don't discriminate, and I hate to see any Mormon killed in the hurricane  .

 

So perhaps it's not surprising that Beck is now preparing his followers for Armageddon. On Monday, in the first of three rallies he's holding in Israel, a mostly American audience gathered in the ancient Roman amphitheater in the northern seaside town of Caesarea to hear from Beck and leading end-times preachers like John Hagee and Mike Evans. I don't believe that the Mormon church sanctions Glenn Beck's actions as a member of the Church . Though I've often 'wondered' what the head of the Latter Day Saint ' church often thought of Beck . (2)  The Head of the Mormon Church is a according to the Churches theology is a 'living prophet' ,  he for the most part can be equated to the Pope . He receives 'revelations' from on high ( please I am not mocking here ) , each Mormon claims that they can receive personal revelations from G-D . Getting closer to my point here I believe that Beck has not openly claimed that he has 'received' personal communications from the Almighty . (3)  Yet he acts as if he has , and the many statements he has made recently has turned him into a straw prophet In his broadcasts, Beck uses all the tools of a showman propagandist: he makes absurd comparisons, uses false analogies, tells whopping “stretchers” (Huckleberry Finn’s term for statements with little regard for fact or truth), weeps on cue (You Tube footage shows him swiping Mentholatum under his eyes to induce tears), and lapses into sophomoric lampooning, mocking, ridicule, sarcasm, taunting, and joking. At times, his TV show resembles a circus side show. Alex Koppelman observes, “He laughs and cries; he pouts and giggles; he makes funny faces and grins like a cartoon character; he makes earnest faces yet insists he is a clown; he cavorts like a victim of St. Vitus’s Dance. His means of communicating are, in other words, so wide-ranging as to suggest derangement as much as versatility.”5.

Here at one of his rallies Glenn Beck goes into his preacher mode:

His voice grew more and more urgent, sounding rather like Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka narrating the Wondrous Boat Ride: “There's going to come a time when there's nothing but freeway and a cliff!” Then, suddenly oddly calm, he said, “We're there.” From the crowd, there were scattered assents. “While there may not be a political solution, the good news is, the God of Abraham ain't running for office!” The cheering crowd leaps to its feet. “Be not afraid! Know who he is! Know his face! Know that he is a God of covenants and a God of miracles! We are leaving the age of man-made miracles of spaceflight, and we are reentering the age of miracles of God.”What’s particularly seductive about Beck’s performance is that he wears many masks, which he deftly changes, alternately engaging, mesmerizing, and en-flaming his audience, making them laugh one minute and inciting them to storm the Bastille the next. This mixture of clownish behavior and apparent deadly seriousness accounts for Beck’s appeal to a certain portion of the United States populace. His charm, boyish good looks, adolescent pranks, and jokes keep viewers entertained so that when he takes aim at the latest “progressive” crime or whatever he sees as the most recent threat to freedom and free enterprise, his audience is ready to follow him to the outer edge of outrage. Beck describes his shtick as a “fusion” of entertainment and enlightenment. And it’s effective. When he shifts into his latest example of evil or corruption in the White House or Congress, his followers are ready to beat their plowshares into swords and join his crusade. In fact, he used to open his show by repeating the words of Jesus to his disciples: “Come, follow me.”

NOTES TO THE ARTICLE:

Here's a reading of Beck's big three books in order to understand "BECKISM" 

•  (1) An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, Simon & Schuster 2007. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8

• Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4165-9501-4

•  BROKE
• Broke : The Plan to Restore our Trust, Truth and Treasure by Glenn Beck
   

 (2) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, often not in the main stream of Christian sects . Today it headed by President   Thomas S Monson .The church has 14 million members world wide . Latter Day Saints are generally good people who believe in family values and helping others . Not mocking the 'church' . I am only critical of Glenn Beck as a person .For the last year or so, Beck has been transforming himself from a political commentator to an unlikely religious leader, a Mormon who has mastered the style and idiom of evangelical Christianity. “Restoring Courage” marks the completion of his evolution into a messianic preacher. It's a multiday Israeli extravaganza set to culminate Wednesday evening with a rally beside the southern wall of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, all devoted to showing solidarity with the most hawkish elements in Israeli society. He's recast himself as a great champion of the Jews, united with Israel in a coming global war with the Islamist and socialist hordes.

  (3) Beck is an enigma, a chameleon, a shape-shifter, continually reinventing himself. He has gone from “zoo radio”cut-up, to stand-up comedian, to political commentator/entertainer, to Fox News firebrand, to cheerleader of a populist anti-government movement, to a modern-day Cassandra prophesying doom and destruction for a nation allegedly in the thrall of progressivism. A Latter-day Saint friend of mine calls him “a cross between a professional wrestler and a televangelist,” and some critics see him as the Barnum and Bailey of right-wing broadcast media (4) Although Beck’s broadcasts often neglect  Mormon beliefs, practices, jargon, and symbols, he has positioned himself to speak the same language to Mormons as to conservative Christians (many of whom consider Mormonism a non-Christian cult). Beck's radio shows often go over the edge that reminds one of some of the antics of the post modern radio shock jocks .

Schwarzeneggerism has taken over GOP and TEA PARTY.

The attitude that former Governor Schwarzenegger displayed while Governor in California has spread to the Republican GOP , and has crept into the Tea Party Movement .  

We know that the strategies proposed by the GOP’s gubernatorial candidates won’t work because they are essentially a retreat of the last seven years of failed policies –  of Schwarzeneggerism without a human face.The GOP has become the party of NO and the Tea Party began in California way before it was brought to national spot light by FOX NeWSes like Glenn Beck . It's no wonder to me that much of the current Republican attitude comes right out of the rule book of Arnold Schwarzenegger who was really  **BAD as  governor from the start (@). He was elected by a mob of angry American voters who ousted Gray Davis .Schwarzenegger’s political success. In 2002 the California Republican Party, still suffering from the anti-immigrant fervor cooked up by former Gov. Pete Wilson, failed to win any statewide offices for the first time since 1882. Yet just one year later Schwarzenegger led a recall effort against the fiscally reckless and managerially incompetent Democratic governor, Gray Davis, beating out the nearest Democratic challenger for the newly vacated position by a margin of more than 2 to 1. Even as Republicans nationwide took a drubbing in the 2006 elections, losing both houses of Congress and the majority of governorships for the first time in 12 years, the bodybuilder-turned-actor, running in an increasingly blue state, smashed Democrat Phil Angelides by a ridiculous 17 percentage points. (For more on how Angelides still managed to push California closer to fiscal disaster, see Jon Entine’s “The Next Catastrophe,” page 20.) (@3) How to pay for all this during what the governor has declared a “financial emergency”? Partly by rattling the tin cup outside the White House. Schwarzenegger was one of the first governors to hit up Washington for some of that fat bailout money gushing from the Oval Office.

Republicans in 2009 are in a mess of their own making. If they interpret the Democrats’ sweeping victory as a clarion call to foray further into religiously inspired, Terry Schiavo–style politics that uses government as a lever to manipulate and control other people’s lives, then they will deserve their exile from power.

But it will take more than just eschewing cultural conservatism and adopting the Democrats’ interventionist economic approach to refresh the Republican brand. There is room right now for an opposition party that emphasizes what the governing party does not: freedom, as both the ultimate goal and the means to achieve it.

Back when he was taping testimonials for Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, Arnold Schwarzenegger looked like the kind of person who would indeed choose freedom if given a chance to govern. Instead, he punted on the radical, government-reducing reforms offered to him by his own box-exploding California Performance Review and learned to love—or at least perpetuate— (@ 2) the very bureaucracy he was elected to confront. That’s not a blueprint for 21st-century Republicanism. It’s just George W. Bush’s big-government conservatism with a Hollywood face.

   Schwarzenegger may have also "inspired" Wisconsin's own Governor to lash out at the Unions by going over the People and taking away bargaining rights of Unions  . In December 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faced a group of nurses protesting his decision to maintain large staffing ratios in hospitals. He blithely called them “special interests” and said, “I always kick their butt.”  Soon he was facing a challenge from the 5-foot-tall and very effective head of the nurses’ union, Rose Ann DeMoro, who ultimately made him eat his words. The governor learned that conservative rhetoric against unions was no match for the public’s approval of police officers, trash collectors, nurses and others who keep the lights on and the doors open..

Chief among the things Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg have accomplished is winning elections. Republicans took an even worse drubbing in November 2008 than in November 2006, and as I write are neck deep in a civil war over the party’s future, with cultural conservatives rallying behind controversial Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to represent what is now the largest voting bloc remaining inside Ronald Reagan’s diminished big tent. To the less-than-casual observer who has a distaste for social conservatism (i.e., the average journalist), the only way forward for the Grand Old Party in the 21st century is a kind of moderate Schwarzeneggerism. “Pragmatic Republicans like [Florida Gov. Charlie] Crist, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and even conservative Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal,” Time’s Tim Padgett wrote after the 2008 elections, “will likely be the phoenixes that rise from the GOP ashes of 2008.”

If that’s true, Republicans may be worse off than we thought. It’s not that Schwarzenegger is wrong about de-emphasizing or even rejecting elements of social conservatism. Expending political energy on making sure same-sex couples cannot be legally recognized as married, as  (@4) Republicans continue to do with short-term success in California and elsewhere, is both bad policy (by consciously restricting the freedom of a disfavored minority) and lousy politics. The under-30 generation does not much comprehend political animus toward gays and ethnic minorities. As a result, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 are abandoning Republicanism in near-record numbers. Forget the youthful, cross-cultural Barack Obama; the 18-to-29 vote went 63 percent Democrat to 34 percent Republican for the House of Representatives. If Republicans aren’t careful, they’ll go the way of newspapers, becoming something only old people are interested in.

 NOTES TO ARTICLE: 

 ** How does Schwarzenegger defend this sorry record? In part, by blaming Republicans. “I think the important thing for the Republican Party is now to also look at other issues that are very important for this country and not to get stuck in ideology,” he said on CNN five days after the election. “Let’s go and talk about health care reform. Let’s go and…fund programs if they’re necessary programs and not get stuck just on the fiscal responsibility.”

 (@)The 'angry mob of voters' this is an allusion to the TEA PARTY MOVEMENT. This 'movement'  was in it's infancy in California when the 'recall' election got it's shot in the arm . I blame the voters for the Mess in government . The Tea Party is not your ordinary folks who want to change the system , but it's a right wing movement that has crippled the national government from functioning . As a conservative I don't ascribe to the ideology of the TEA PARTY as of this writing  The Tea Party  has  fallen under the wing of the RELIGIOUS RIGHT which echos the the same mob mentality that shook California into a recall election . (@2) This is the Tea Party (@3) Gov. Schwarzenegger should have asked Obama for more, MONEY  when President Obama shelled out the stimulus money . During the many budget debates with the Democrats , and his calling them "Girl y Men" Arnold stood the ground as an anti-tax Governor cutting money from Education , But the spending splurge also requires new taxes, according to the governor: a “temporary” 1.5-percentage-point increase in the 7.25 percent sales tax, an increase in the number of services covered by the sales tax, higher taxes for alcohol and oil production, and so on., If you note this vary same ploy was being carried out in WASHINGTON D.C.by President Obama while trying to negotiate the Debt ceiling .YES using the Vary Gimmick used by Schwarzenegger in California . (@4)  I am sure the Tea Party is a force we will hear about in the next decade if American Politicians don't fix the nations economic problems...which was taken at an early tea party and thus suggests that a single clueless demonstrator might be responsible for everything. But if anyone heard the word in this context before that picture started circulating in late February, 2012  I'd be interested to see your citation.

Let's go a Hiking shall we.............................

Dumb things happen to dumb people because they did not look before they leaped .....In the Case of the three (now two ) hikers I share no sympathy that the fact that they both got 8 years in an Iranian prison . I am going to say it like it is. Just what were these people doing hiking into 'dangerous territory during a war.' ?  The State Department has issued warnings to Americans and others traveling abroad about going to and fro in Iraq with special attention to the Iranian boarder .

*Bauer and Fattal, now twenty-eight, along with fellow Berkeley grad Sarah Shourd, were hiking in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan near the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009 when they unknowingly entered Iranian territory and were detained. They wound up in Tehran's Evin prison, where Shourd spent time in solitary confinement, and Bauer allegedly had his head slammed against a wall by a guard, drawing blood.  (2) Shourd (who became engaged to Bauer while in prison) was released in September 2010 after buying off her freedom for $500,000 bail. The Iranians have yet to produce any evidence of spying.  

We have enough looming and present foreign and domestic policy problems to worry about.  We don’t need to add people like Laura Ling and Roxana Saberi . . . and now, three “hikers” who are really left-wing, pro-Syrian, anti-Israel “activist” “journalists” from Berkeley–two of whom chose to leave America and live in the Arab Muslim Mid-East.  They knew the risks when they went “hiking” on the Iranian border.  (Hint:  It’s not like vacationing in South Beach, and I don’t think they were really hiking.)  Two of them chose to live in the Middle East.  Tough luck that they got caught.

Oh, and if you think I believe the “they were just hiking” story, think again.  Here’s a little bit of info about these far-left “hikers.”  It seems that an Iranian prison might be a great place for them to spend some time

*  Sarah Shourd is an anti-Israel “journalist” who lives in the Middle East (probably in Damascus, Syria, from which she’s written some of her articles), writes sympathetic pieces about terrorist-host state Syria, attacking Israel, and taking her Syrian patrons’ false point of view that Israel’s Golan Heights is “occupied territory.”  She also writes about how Israel oppresses the Syrians.  Hilarious.  I mean, no biggie that Bashir Al-Assad cuts his people apart limb by limb, like his father did to journalist Salim Al-Lawzi, that Syria has an atrocious human rights record and tortures dissidents, let’s concentrate on blaming the Jews.  That’s her strategy.

Here’s a tip for Ms. Shourd:  Israel annexed the Golan Heights years ago–you know, when Syria attacked Israel, went to war, and lost.  Shourd lies and claims that Israel forced Syrian inhabitants of the Golan Heights to become Israeli citizens.  Nauseatingly false.  I have many Druze friends with family there.  The Druze Arab inhabitants love the freedom they have as Israelis–of not having to worry if a conversation they have on the street will result in their limbs being amputated without anasthesia.  The formely Syrian Druze of the Golan Heights rue the day when Syria gets it back (as Obama–and before him, Bush–have been pushing).

Shourd describes herself as a “ teacher-activist-writer from California currently based in the Middle East.”  Well, we know for whom she’s an activist and writer–the Iranians-sponsored Syrians and other Islamic terrorists.  I’m just worried about whom she is teaching.

*  Shane Bauer is a UC Berkeley grad who has written for the far-left The Nation and “reported” for the Terrorist News Network a/k/a Al-Jazeera.  He lives in the Muslim Mid-East, speaks Arabic and his Berkeley degree is in “Peace and Conflict Studies”–typical far-left degree for Jimmy Carter groupies.  He lives and is based in Damascus, Syria–a nation for whom he’s toed the party line.  From his Damascus digs, he’s written articles for left-wing media outlets about how Muslims in Syria love Obama but need to see him change American foreign policy toward Israel and the Islamic world.  Sound like an “innocent hiker” to you?

*  Joshua Fattal, also a Berkeley grad is an environmental activist who hosted a “resistance” radio show.  Media reports say his father is Iraqi, and he said he was traveling there to get in touch with his roots.

He earned a degree in environmental economics and policy. He also taught high-school students in Berkeley and worked in New Hampshire.
He most recently worked and lived at Aprovecho Research Center in Cottage Grove, Ore. The nonprofit facility is located on a 40-acre ranch and is focused on sustainable living skills, sustainable forestry and organic gardening, its Web site states.
At Aprovecho, Fattal held a position as internship coordinator. He was a graduate of the program himself and traveled to small towns in Oregon and Guatemala to implement some of the sustainable living ideas taught at the center . . . .
While Fattal was at Aprovecho, he co-hosted a weekly radio show, “Rhythms and Resistance,” on the center’s community station.

These are the three “hiking” Americans who “accidentally” strayed into Iran.  Things are not always as they seem.  But, in this case, one thing’s quite clear.  When you hear about Americans vacationing by hiking near Iran, you know something’s up.  And it’s not innocent at all.  These three were not mere “tourists.”

Sad that our government won’t send the right message to these activist, left-wing Americans who take unwarranted risks:  You’re on your own.

I’d say, “Let ‘em rot in hell.”  But, right now, they’re rotting in Iran.  Close enough.

(Unfortunately, Iran will soon learn what useful idiots these are and set them free, just like they did with Saberi and just like Islamic terrorists did with their friend, Jill Carroll.)

.

_____________________________________________________________________

* NOTE : "unwittingly stepping across a border while on a peaceful hike"...no offense to any of the hikers and their loved ones, but who goes for a peaceful hike on the Iraq-Iran border in 2009 and is then surprised when shit goes wrong?"

(2) Here's one case where it really sucks to be a guy. The woman gets let go (for a lot of money, but hey, she's home now, right? Money can be replaced), and the men get sentenced to eight years. In an Iranian prison. Maybe I'll take the 75 cents on the dollar... it'll take me longer to pay off my 500k bail to the Iranians, but at least I'll be free.

Beware of Wolves in Sheep's Clothing.

 

For the religious right who might be looking for signs of a  GOP hopeful . The warning should be : "Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing"

 

 

Whenever there is politics , so should religion ride the same  horse. Two GOP candidates Gov. Rick Perry and Senator (1) Michele Bachmann both have come out speaking and sounding like two ministers who claim some divine inspiration to lead America back . When you hear any politician speaking from the pulpit using God , (*)and preaching of sorts. I would suspect a deceiving aspect of their crusades . Masking the fact that they are just using the religiously gullible to win the Oval Office Rick Perry, who's the top choice of the Christian Right leadership. One interesting question she veers into is why they haven't flocked to Michelle Bachmann: [W]hile Bachmann has been on a hot streak since the first candidate’s debate, Christian Right leaders continue to be far less willing to embrace her (or Sarah Palin, for that matter) than the rank-and-file or more secular politicos. Is that sexism at work? Possibly. Maybe even probably. But geography is an important factor as well. Many Christian Right leaders think the GOP primary schedule favors a Southern candidate.Perry's record is any better than the most liberal politician. You what? When Perry first became governor of Texas in 2000, total spending by the state of Texas was $49 billion. At the end of 2010, it was $90 billion.Why is it that Republicans always claim they're fiscal conservatives whilst massively increasing government debt? And why do their supporters keep falling for it?.—Michele Bachmann has just won the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, edging out Ron Paul by less than 200 votes. In all, 16,892 voters cast their ballot, with 4,823 going to Bachmann, 4,671 to Paul, and 2,293 to third-place finisher Tim Pawlenty. Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy today in South Carolina and was a write-in candidate here, received 718 votes, finishing sixth; Rick Santorum, who appeared to largely draw voters attracted by his hostility to gay marriage, finished fourth, just ahead of Herman Cain. “Bachmann’s faith-based organization was over the top,” said a campaign staffer who said he was not authorized to speak for the campaign (he donned a shirt embroidered with the phrase, “Jesus is Lord Over America”) and refused to give his name. (Update: he was later identified as Peter E. Waldon, an evangelical organizer who had been charged with terrorism in Uganda.) He said that “members [of churches], pastors, an extraordinary turnout. At the end of the day, the story is going to be the faith-based turnout.” The staffer, who said he’d worked on other presidential campaigns in Iowa, added, “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He attributed her success to a “very effective grassroots operation,” and that religious voters saw her as “genuine. She wasn’t ashamed. She boldly shared everything.”  Rick Perry might have a skeleton haunting him in the good old days (3) his hard earned investments . While Gov. Perry's crusades were Christian Evangelist who is AGAINST pornography and AGAINST a woman's right to choose her own reproductive freedom and AGAINST the teaching of evolution as a fact, I see a Rick Perry who is a MONEY MAKER and JOB CREATOR!  Do you know how much Astroglide these porn distributors buy in the course of a year?  Those pretty-but-stupid teenage girls who would be working at the Sonic making minimum wage in Texas were it not for Perry's investment in their brief careers as porn stars.  And SOMEONE has to mop up those messy movie sets and wash all those stained sheets and clean those stained rugs and fluff those male porn stars so they'll be ready and raring to go when the director says "ACTION . There are two Republican presidential hopefuls who are using their religious inclination to garner support for their candidacies, and unlike politicians who pander to the religious right, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are true believers who, if elected, will transform America into a theocracy and install the bible as the legal standard to govern the country. Each of the fundamentalist Christians share a belief that this country’s problems are rooted in secularism and have resorted to scare tactics and religious fervor set the nation on a course of oppression and imposition of their religious passion. Any religious fundamentalism is dangerous, and the recent terror attacks at the hands of Islamic extremists are testament that left unchecked, an unchallenged religious dogma is a danger regardless of the religion.

 NOTES TO ARTICLE:

(*) To borrow a phrase, theology has consequences. If it continuously preaches that men are designed (by God) to lead, and women are designed (by God) to help, and that a woman's highest calling in to be a mother (in a way that a man's as a father is not) , and that women should not be in authority positions, then this exact situation is something we should expect to observe.

(1) So, when does Palin finally announce she's running? You know there's no way she's going to let Bachman steal the limelight away from her. But my fear is that no matter what fruitcake ends up winning the Republican ticket might win because too many people will figure enough "other people" will vote so they don't have too. (Like my mom.) There's enough evangelical sheeples out there to put Bachmann/Perry/Palin in the Whitehouse if folks that don't vote Republican stay home.

 (2)"Jesus admonished his followers to pray quietly and alone, not to make a spectacle of themselves in a public place. These highly advertised public "prayer" events are nothing but fundraisers for the charlatans journalists continue to identify as Christians."I'm not so sure... "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." - Mark 16:15-16 (King James Version)

Fact of the matter is, some Christians do consider such public prayer events as doing God's work, and they seem to have a solid reason to do so (per Jesus' instructions). So why pretend otherwise?

(3)
Rick Perry! Who invested thousands of dollars in a company called Movie Gallery, Inc. back in 1995. At the time MGI was the largest distributor of porn in the country.
And how can you go wrong with an investment like that?  How can you NOT make money in a company that produces such fine titles as "Teens with Tits, Vol. 1"?  And how did the Academy Awards overlook such a fine piece of work as "Bisexual Barebacking," another Rick Perry investment?  Oh, sure, "Teen Power Vol. 4" and "Teens Never Say No" didn't live up to the high standards set by the "Teens with Tits" series, but they were no slouches in the money-making department.  And isn't that what makes America great?
And to those who might claim Perry a racist, I turn your attention to "Big Tit Brotha Lovers #6".  A fine piece of work promoting racial harmony.
And what good is it being Governor if you can't use (or bend) the rules to your advantage?  Like the time when Gov. Perry pushed successfully for laws to help porn distributors like MGI avoid those frivolous lawsuits and prosecution for illegally distributing porn across state lines?  It's GOOD to be the Governor!
How MUCH has Perry made from his investment in pornography?  It's anyone's guess, as his assets are still protected by a blind trust fund.  But I betcha it was plenty!
And isn't that what America is all about?

It's Nothing but Straw.........................

With Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul leading the Ames Straw Poll and Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain next -- ahead of Rick Perry and Mitt Romney -- only the local buttermilk cows should be holding their heads high.
Sometimes Iowa picks 'em -- and some times not. Today NOT.
In the GOP-sort out straw poll held in Ames, Iowa, Tea Party diva Michele Bachmann bested libertarian favorite Ron Paul as the winner. But more importantly, no one in the top 5 had any real chance of leading a 2012 GOP ticket. Iowa is making itself irrelevant in the hard political choice department.
When Michele Bachmann performed well above expectations in the first Republican presidential candidate debate, she destroyed Sarah Palin's chances for the GOP nod. With Texas Governor Rick Perry's lethally-timed announcement of his candidacy, he has wrecked any real hope Bachmann had of spending time in the political sunlight. She never could have clinched the title.
But what this straw poll really says something about is the State of the GOP in the State of Iowa. This straw poll result shows that a group of people are willing to place bets on people who have virtually no chance of really winning on a national ticket. My view anyway.
Let's look back at butter cow territory history and see what Ames has produced in the past.
In the first straw poll in 1979, most of the straws went to the Kennebunkport-sculpted George H.W. Bush. Ronald Reagan came in 2nd. Both of these guys were legitimate, possible contenders for the top GOP slot, and the Ames poll did what it was supposed to do -- tried to sort out for a Iowan Republicans a serious choice. While Bush did not win the nomination ultimately, he was the real thing....Tea Party diva Michele Bachmann bested . . . no one in the top 5 had any real chance of leading a 2012 GOP ticket . . . Michele Bachmann . . . destroyed Sarah Palin's chances for the GOP nod . . . Bachmann . . . never could have clinched the title . . . people who have virtually no chance of really winning on a national ticket. My view anyway. There's a lot of loaded phrases here, but nothing more serious than hateful wishful thinking, at best. What I don't see is any effort at rational thought or encouraging others to think. There's no "you shouldn't vote for a patriotic fiscal conservative because ___________" (insert logical reason here). It's all slime, which is the writer's profession. Pathetic. .

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...

Institutional Greed

Looking at the last few weeks . We had the debt ceiling debate , then came the rating of America's credit . The downgrade . The stock market slide .The signs of instability are there . What astounds me is how quick the US government goes to save the people on Wall Street . For those on Main Street it is always the runaround . 

The Wall Street CEO's cry : " But you know what?
I'm sick and tired of hearing how “we” caused this … how, according to the mainstream media, “we” somehow did this to our financial system."

Obama said a whole lot using the blame game . You and I may agree that and  let's remember one very important point: The vast majority of the credit problems we're dealing with right now stem primarily from two areas:

• Institutional greed.
• And a near total lack of individual responsibility to live within our means.

There's no question that the institutions (both corporate and government) deserve the lion's share of the blame here. At a time when the government perpetuated artificially low rates, it also cleverly created new financial instruments to get the yields it was looking for (absent government paper that would achieve the very same objective) and went merrily on its way). Wall Street was only too happy to leverage the proceeds. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Two of the most notable instances where a different action could have led to a different outcome were:

• Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan 's refusal to crack down on questionable lending practices – despite being given explicit Congressional authority to do so in 1994.
• And the reality that Freddie Mac ( FRE ) Chief Executive Officer Richard Syron was repeatedly warned that financing questionable loans threatened not only Freddie's financial health, but the nation's, too, as early as 2004, The New York Times reported . That placed the U.S. economy in an incredibly precarious position. Indeed, fears that foreign central banks in China, Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Russia might stop buying our bonds forced the federal government to bail out both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae ( FNM ). [For all the details on these deals, look at the Money Morning report: Foreign Bondholders - and not the U.S. Mortgage Market - Drove the Fannie/Freddie Bailout ].

But all of that is really academic.
Somewhere along the way, the concept of personal responsibility died in this country and is probably buried right next to common sense.
Yes, there were predatory lending practices. Yes, there were huge corporations deliberately skirting the rules to pack on billions in additional profits. But at some point, people had to sign on the dotted line.
While I truly feel sorry for the people who honestly didn't know better, or for whom there was no other option, I cannot extend my sympathies to others like my neighbor who spent through his home equity to buy a Hummer, a new boat, two jet skis, and a lavish European vacation.
He's now about to lose his toys – and his home – not to mention his marriage.
Nor can I extend my sympathies to the modern robber barons like the corporate chieftains of Fannie, Freddie and the other bailout candidates – who pocketed millions while shareholders lost billions.
I don't see any of these guys offering to return their bonuses, or to forgo their “ golden parachute ” severance packages, to help their former employers pay off the debts they helped these companies accrue. And forget about them reimbursing the U.S. taxpayers, who are stuck with the bill for cleaning up this mess.
No, instead these ex-boardroom warriors are now lying low somewhere in Old Greenwich, out at The Hamptons , or out on their yachts somewhere – until the storm blows over. Then they'll receive multi-million dollar advances to write so-called “kiss-and-tell” expose books that document the darkest days of the U.S. financial system. Or they'll go out on the public-speaking circuit – at $100,000 an engagement, or more.
No doubt they'll frame themselves as victims, or as valiant warriors in the capitalist struggle, positioning themselves as financial innovators whose efforts were hamstrung by circumstance, or just plain misunderstood. Whatever the path they choose, you can bet your final 401(k) dollar they'll come off as “heroic,” as they detail the all-night meetings, frantic transatlantic phone calls or eleventh-hour negotiations that were part of the attempts they made to bring their companies back from the brink.
That none of these efforts worked … well, in true U.S. fashion, they'll just say it wasn't their fault.
The whole situation is unbelievably galling.
What I'd really like to see is a book about how everyday families are making it – or trying to – despite the overwhelming irresponsibility of a very small portion of our population, and some financial-market miscreants, who have saddled the rest of us with $14 trillion in debt.
A book like that would really mean something.





 

Engineered To Crash...............

Can it be that the Market's are rigged?

It was suggested 1.5 years ago that the next stock market crash might be one orchestrated by the Fed to  create interest from historic buyers of US debt. The scenario went like this: you let the stock market collapse (i.e. no interference by the infamous “Plunge Protection Team”) to generate a “flight to safety” environment which would push billions, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars into U.S. Treasuries, soaking up its increasing debt issuance and roll-over with little difficulty thereby flooding the bond market with much needed demand. Were the recent dramatic declines in the U.S. stock markets so engineered by the Fed? Words: 852

Graham Summers was the individual who suggested the above back in January 2010 an article* aptly entitled Will the Fed Engineer a Stock Market Crash to Flood the Bond Market With Much Needed Demand? In light of the events of this week Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (It’s all about Money!), has revisited that insightful article and presents it below in an edited ([  ]), abridged (…), updated and reformatted fashion for the sake of timeliness, clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. Please note that this paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement. The gist of Summers’ comments was along these lines:

The U.S. Treasury is facing a debt spiral; a situation where it needs to issue [large quantities] of new debt every month while rolling over trillions in existing debt at a time when investors are willing to lend to it for shorter and shorter periods of time. The big question has always been: who’s going to be buying this stuff ? 

[The events of the past 2 months in Washington, where the underlying dire financial insolvency of the nation was blatantly ignored in favor of expedient short-term political posturing, has clearly demonstrated to the entire world the inability of the U.S. government to resolve the problem let alone even deal with it in a serious non-partisan way. It became very clear that holding the debt of a bankrupt country such as the U.S. was hardly a safe haven for assets.]

Historically, foreign investors and foreign governments were the biggest buyers of US debt… [but,] suffice it to say,] given the juvenile display of total irresponsibility during the debt ceiling debate] foreign governments [were hardly inclined to] step in to pick up the slack in the Treasury market.
The next biggest purchaser of U.S. debt behind foreign governments… is the Federal Reserve itself via its quantitative easing programs. Given that unpopularity [and apparent ineffectiveness] of this approach it is unlikely to be repeated (at least not in a form large enough to pick up any slack in the Treasury markets).
So what about state or local governments, pension funds, or insurance companies (historically decent sized buyers of U.S. debt)?…These groups have been either net sellers or small buyers of Treasury debt of late so the likelihood that these groups suddenly buy hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasuries is minimal…
The same goes for “other investors” …(comprised of “Individuals, Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSE), Brokers and Dealers, Bank Personal Trusts and Estates, Corporate and Non-Corporate Businesses, Individuals and Other Investors)… unless, of course, we have another crash in the stock market.
Think about it. The U.S., if it were treated like a corporation, is effectively bankrupt. It has to issue a massive amount of new debt while rolling over trillion in old debt at the very time that most historic buyers of U.S. debt are losing interest in lending to the US for any period longer than a few years.
Who in the world is currently reading this article along with you? Click here to find out.
So how do you create interest from historic buyers of U.S. debt? Simple, you let the stock market collapse. The “flight to safety” that would follow would push billions if not hundreds of billions of dollars into Treasuries, soaking up the debt issuance and roll-over with little difficulty…
I am not saying the Fed and friends will do this but, given that the Fed is coming under increased scrutiny as public outrage rises, letting stocks come unhinged it perhaps the least politically controversial move the Fed could make as opposed to more quantitative easing which would really get the public upset. [Letting the stock market crash] would do the following:
1) Bring stocks closer to reality…
2) Create great demand for Treasuries (something the US desperately).
3) Have relatively minor political ramifications compared to another quantitative easing program or more bailouts…

Conclusion

Could the Fed be preparing another [indeed, has the Fed engineered the recent] stock crash to flood the bond market with demand? Who knows but it would make plenty of sense to me.

*http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article16321.html  ( Summers’ www.GainsPainsCapital.com provides a free daily newsletter dedicated to providing daily insights to the stock, commodity, currency, and bond markets and telling investors the REAL story behind the moves in the financial markets.)

Why is Obama failing?

 I don't want to criticize our President , after all when he was running for the office he wanted to "change" how government worked .In the end he may have failed like Arnold Schwarzenegger did as California Governor.

The President has a vary unworkable situation from the start . He walks in with trillions  of debt by the last administration  . In stead of curbing spending the first year of his term , he spends and spends . Hoping for "growth" in the infrastructure .Put another way, an unprecedented degree of federal government spending and intervention vis-à-vis the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package, the $81 billion dollar bailouts of GM and Chrysler, and the enactment of health care and financial regulatory and reform bills have done nothing to stimulate our anemic recovery and have fundamentally failed at creating private sector jobs, or generating economic growth necessary for a sustainable, healthy recovery 

The stimulus that was spent was in fact "Capitalist Experiment" to say the least .
While he's been failing every which way in the debt ceiling debacle, President Obama's other failures continue to pile up. The latest via Reuters:

The U.S. economy came perilously close to flat-lining in the first quarter and grew at a meager 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-June period as consumer spending barely rose.

The Commerce Department data on Friday also showed the current lull in the economy began earlier than had been thought, with the growth losing steam late last year.

Note: Sounds like the slowdown started right around the time ObamaCare was passed. Coincidence?

And it gets worse.... Remember how bad the economy has been in the past year? Well, it's even worse than anyone thought:

Growth in gross domestic product -- a measure of all goods and services produced within U.S. borders - rose at a 1.3 percent annual rate. First-quarter output was sharply revised down to a 0.4 percent pace from a 1.9 percent increase.

Economists had expected the economy to expand at a 1.8 percent rate in the second quarter. Fourth-quarter growth was revised to a 2.3 percent rate from 3.1 percent.

"The second quarter disappointed, but the first-quarter downward revision is more disturbing. It advances the pangs of concern. The debt ceiling nonsense is not going to help us. We're already in an economy that is subpar," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.

"Gasoline price increasing from $3 to $4, that really slapped the consumer back considerably."

Of course, none of this is Obama's fault. He's just the President!.

 

As the deadline drew closer, the two sides abandoned a series of efforts to reach agreement, searching for the right combination of policies and personalities to get a deal done. In the end, it fell to two consummate Washington insiders to prevent the talks from collapsing.
A Reuters examination of the months-long showdown over the debt ceiling found that:
* Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell emerged as critical players in the final stretch of the talks, as theirs was the only cross-party relationship built on decades of trust.
* Despite a belief among many rank-and-file Republicans that the government could muddle through a default, party leaders never doubted the Treasury Department's warnings that economic catastrophe was a real possibility if they didn't reach a deal by August 2.
* Although House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top U.S. Republican, was eager to strike a bold deal with Obama, it was ultimately necessary for Boehner to distance himself from the White House to convince his House Republicans to back the final deal.
* The business community played an important behind-the-scenes role, with two White House foes -- Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce -- rallying support for a compromise backed by Obama.
This account of America's journey to the brink of default is based on interviews conducted over the past six weeks with dozens of elected officials, business lobbyists and aides in the House, the Senate and the White House.