About Obama’s meager record defended mightily by talk show host Letterman.
In an interview with NBC News anchor Brian Williams, Letterman asked, “What more do we want this man [Obama] to do for us, honest to God?”
Here’s how the folks at Commentary answered Letterman’s question:
For starters, something better than the weakest economic recovery in the modern era,
the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era,
the highest sustained unemployment rate since the Great Depression,
a housing crisis worse than the Great Depression,
unprecedented deficits and debt,
a standard of living that’s fallen longer and more steeply during the past three years than at any time since the government began recording it five decades ago,
a downgrade in the United States’ credit rating for the first time in history,
and a record number of people in poverty.
_______________
None of this means anything to Letterman, the overpaid,ignoramus who pontificates nightly.
Biden has middle class digs? Nope. $172,000 is the medium price for a home in America. Joe Biden’s home is worth $2.8 million -and that’s not counting the “cottage” [home] the government rents from Biden for $12 K to provide him protection.
Yet, he calls himself middle class Joe (Biden).
While it’s not clear who actually calls the vice president that, it is clear that his house and finances tell a different story. Here’s a picture of his home:
one car in front of Joe Biden's middle class home
Zillow.com, a reliable real estate web site, estimates the worth of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home (pictured above) to be a cool $2,856,950. (This does not appear to include the cottage on the Biden estate, which the vice president rents out to the Secret Service for more than $12,000 per year.)
“The vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, reported assets of between $239,000 and $866,000,” according to Bloomberg.
Biden added: “What do they think we think? What do they think we think in our houses? We’re like the rich guys — we have dreams, we have aspirations.” Indeed.
Elizabeth Warren plagiarized recipes from expensive, French restaurant Le Pavilion and published them as passed down from her Cherokee relatives?
The credibility of Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took another hit today as Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr released evidence that appears to confirm Ms. Warren may have plagiarized at least three of the five recipes she submitted to the 1984 Pow Wow Chow cookbook edited by her cousin Candy Rowsey.
Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.
crab & cognac in Elizabeth Warren's Cherokee recipe
The two recipes, “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing,” appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.
Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe.
_______________
This phoney is the woman who Obama would have had running our lives. Connecticut has its lying senator. Is Mass. far behind?
Intriguing as a possible early sign of autism: Lag in motor development (control of head and neck) found in infants who are more likely to develop autism. This study needs to be replicated before the public puts much weight on this finding.
This is a simple test that any mother can do at home. Any suspected delays can lead to early intervention by Early Start services. Parents who suspect motor delays can seek assistance from the Early Start program funded by the federal government.
“Typically, red flags that might lead to an autism diagnosis are issues with social and communicative traits, such as avoiding eye contact or not playing with others. But Dr. Rebecca Landa, the study’s author and director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, says certain disruptions in a child’s motor development may provide important clues.
“For the study, researchers assessed infants in a simple “pull-to-sit” task that measures posture control by firmly – yet carefully – pulling a child’s arms from a position of lying flat on his/her side back into a sitting position (as seen in the videos below). Typically infants achieve this type of posture control by the time they are four months old.
“In one experiment, researchers gave this task to 40 infants who were considered to be genetically high-risk for the disorder because a sibling has autism. They researchers were looking specifically at “head lag” – the inability to control head posture – at 6, 14, 24 and 30 months of age.
“The researchers found 90 percent of subjects eventually diagnosed with autism exhibited head lags as infants, and 54 percent of kids who met social and communication delays criteria exhibited head lag, while 35 percent of children who did not meet that criteria exhibited the lag.
“In a second experiment, Landa and her team examined only six month olds at a single point in time to check for head lag, and found 75 percent of the high risk infants displayed head lag compared with 33 percent of low-risk infants, further emphasizing that head lag is more common in infants that may develop autism.
Landa’s study is to be presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research on May 17 in Toronto.
“While previous research shows that motor impairments are linked to social and communication deficits in older children with autism, the field is just starting to examine this in younger children,” she said in an Institute news release. “Our initial research suggests that motor delays may have an important impact on child development.”
“If some parents try the test at home and are worried, Landa emphasized to The Baltimore Sun that a head lag at six months does not mean a child is definitely going to have autism, but rather is a potential sign that a pediatrician should explore further. http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/blog/bal-poh-autism-test-for-infants,0,1502094.story
“We don’t want to scare parents,” she said. “If I go to the doctor because I’m having problems with balance, he’s not going to assume I have a brain tumor. When a baby shows a head lag there are so many other things it can be. But this is a very real indicator of something wrong with development and easy things can be done to help.”
Dr. Alycia Halladay, director of environmental research for the advocacy and research group Autism Speaks, told WebMD that the findings are “intriguing” but a head lag’s diagnostic value remains uncertain.
“The first step is to replicate these outcomes in larger studies in multiple sites,” she said.
The study adds to recent research aimed at diagnosing autism at an early age. A recent study found differences in nerve connections seen in infants’ brain scans might signal autism, CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reported.
About 1 in 88 children has autism, according to recent government estimates.
Individual conscience and service or a proletarian struggle?
personal conscience of each individual
What makes the individual matter?
For Obama it is the collective force that individuals can exert through mass action such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not the individual but the collectivity of individuals subsumed to some greater goal that causes important change according to Obama. Life is a proletarian struggle.
For Romney, “the call of service is one of the fundamental elements of our national character. It has motivated every great movement of conscience that this hopeful, fair-minded country of ours has ever seen.”
Recently, Gov. Romney told graduates of Liberty College that “the great drama is always personal, individual, unfolding in one’s own life… and that Men and women of every faith — and good people with none at all — sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.”
Life is politics says Obama. Obama tells college graduates at Banard College that the road ahead is a fairly grim proletarian struggle and that they need to be ready to occupy everything. Mass political action is the way to make significant change says Obama.
The contrasting world views of Romney and Obama as to how change occurs through individual actions could not be starker.
What say you as to why individuals matter?
treat all terrorists alike -- whether captured in a cave or shopping mall
Tell Adam Smith and Justin Amash that they are ‘losing it’ to seek to remove the legal authority granted by Congress after 9/11 to fight terrorists on every front.
If you live in Adam Smith’s district it is easy to contact him. He is on Facebook so you can leave him a note there. Adam Smith’s FAX is 202 225-5893 and voice is 202 225-8901.
Smith and Amash have proposed an amendment to next year’s defense authorization bill that more or less revokes the legal authority granted by Congress to fight terrorists on every front.
Let’s not reward terrorists with better treatment for having the wits to get out of their caves and sneak in to America to blow up civilians in shopping malls. Whether discovered in a cave in Yemon or Time Square New York all terrorists must be dealt with through legally approved military methods.
Obama refuses to transfer terrorists to Gitmo. Obama gave the protections that criminals have — Miranda rights — to terrorists. Obama has treated terrorists as though they were common criminals.
Obama is wrong. Terrorists are terrorists and not simply criminals. And that’s why the military must have the freedom to use military methods to deal with terrorists.
no more forced SEIU union dues win-win for political free speech
Let’s take the wind out of sails of the SEIU?
How? Through state legislation, stop automatic deductions of union dues from SEIU workers pay checks.
Let workers be free to choose yes or no whether to pay union dues. Many government union workers will opt out of automatic dues removed from their checks. No automatic dues flowing into the SEIU results in less political clout that they can exert.
Why should any worker just to hold a job have to pay SEIU union dues so that the SEIU can use dues to flow into other organizations like Change to Win which seeks to intimidate private companies such as Wellpoint from making political contributions?
Look at who runs Change to Win. The President of SEIU, the Vice President of the SEIU and the Treasurer/Secretary of the SEIU are all key players of Change to Win.
Union front organization such as Change to Win seek to know and limit the political donations made by private corporations. Why? So that the unions are the only big players in who make large donations.
The unions such as SEIU want to control the political free speech exercised by of private corporations.
The SEIU seeks to grow government unions to grow their power.
Recently, in Michigan the SEIU suffered a setback to their political clout. In states including Michigan and California home health care workers were forced to pay union dues.
Persons with developmental disabilities are frequently cared for life long by family members.
It is good news that developmentally disabled persons can stay in their homes thanks to health care provided by parents and relatives. Those who best know and love a relative with disabilities provides care at a fraction of the cost if the person had to be placed in a government run facility.
To deem home health care workers as “government employees” and force them to pay SEIU union wrongfully categorizes people and allows the SEIU to skim off millions of dollars. Home health care workers seek to care for their loved ones — not to do a government job. Recently Michigan has changed their laws. No more taking of union dues from Michigan home health care workers.
Can California wake up and follow Michigan’s lead? Let’s hope so. The necessary labor and employment laws are already in place to protect jobs.
In a big change, the state-run Keep Your Home California program will use federal money to reduce an eligible homeowner’s mortgage balance by up to $100,000 without requiring a matching reduction by the bank servicing the loan.
Many more underwater California homeowners will get principal reductions when the change takes effect in early June, but there’s a catch: The reduction is structured as a forgivable loan. If they sell their house within five years, any profit will go toward repaying the principal reduction. After five years, there is no repayment requirement. Under current rules, the loan is forgiven after three years.
Loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are potentially eligible for principal reduction under this program.
The money is coming from a $2 billion grant the state was awarded in 2010 from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund. The grant provides four types of assistance to low- and moderate-income homeowners who can document a financial hardship.
To qualify under the new rules, homeowners must use the home as their primary residence, owe more than it’s worth, fall below the income limit for their county, demonstrate a financial hardship and owe no more than $729,750 on a first mortgage originated on or before Jan. 1, 2010. (The previous cutoff date was Jan. 1, 2009.)
In San Francisco the household income limit is $121,900. For other counties see keepyourhomecalifornia.org/files/income.pdf.
_______________
This is simply outrageous. If in San Francisco you make $121,901, you have the privilege and honor to pay taxes so the federal government can turn money over to the state government(forget all the carrying charges here and there) to give your neighbor who overextended himself or lied on his loan application a gift of $100,000. This is fair?
“Whatever people think about this issue, we know it’s controversial, there’s no denying when a president speaks out for the first time like that, it is history,” co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” George Stephanopoulos said to Robin Roberts.
And let me tell you, George, I’m getting chills again,” “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts said about her interview with Obama.
“When you sit in that room and you hear him say those historic words. It was not lost on anyone in there right there. You never know what he’s going to say until you ask him,” she added.
_______________
In another courageous move our president said that the states should decide about gay marriage, but he was for it. And if she doesn’t know what he’s going to say she need only read his old speeches which are endlessly repeated.
When it comes to city worker payouts, forget the old $100,000 club or even the $250,000 club – the new elite among San Francisco’s civic workforce are those who got more than $500,000 in pay last year.
Leading the pack is former Muni chief Nathaniel Ford. He was squeezed out of the final year of his contract to make room for Mayor Ed Lee’s pick, Ed Reiskin.
Ford received a buyout of $400,184, plus $167,411 for the part of the year he actually worked, for a total takeaway of $567,595.
_______________
Ralph Kramden should have such a Honeymoon. jaj48@aol.com