American Thinker gives the right answer: After spending nearly a quarter of an hour at the recent Republican presidential debate discussing a hypothetical scenario where a state might want to ban contraception, Sawyer put on her trademark pained countenance and, continuing the transparently obvious moderator pledge to direct all issues away from Barack Obama, challenged, "If I could come back to the living room question...what you would say sitting down in your living room to a gay couple who say...we want gay people to form loving, committed, long-term relationships? In human terms, what would you say to them?"
But none of the candidates answered the question as they should have. I don't think I was alone in hoping that one of them would lean into the microphone and, after starting off by incredulously asking, "Are you kidding me?," unleash the following:
Diane, we are living in a country with 9% unemployment, and let's cut the bull -- everyone knows that number doesn't include the enormous number of people who every week throw up their hands and leave the job market. If those were added, we've got closer to 1 in 5 Americans desperately looking for good, steady work.
We've got a record number of American families subsisting on food stamps. We've wasted a trillion taxpayer dollars on a government stimulus that brought no substantive job growth, but added more crushing debt to the backs of our children.
[I encourage you to open this article to read it all. It is well worth your time - and a blueprint for conservatives when speaking about Obama.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBS Detroit writes: U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, speaking Wednesday at the North American International Auto Show, sounded very tentative about a loan program aimed at helping auto companies become
more fuel efficient.
That program was part of a law passed during the Bush Administration to give automakers low interest loans, to help cover the cost of meeting new fuel economy rules.
Using loan money from the program, Ford has already completed the conversion of the former Michigan
Truck Plant, into a factory that builds the compact Focus and electric vehicles.
Chrysler has been waiting on its request for a $3.5 billion dollar loan for three years.
The Energy Department has only awarded $8.4 billion of $25 billion authorized by Congress in 2008. It’s become a political hot potato, with some Congressional Republicans looking to end the program before more loan money is allocated.
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/01/11/energy-secretary-no-promises-on-chrysler-loan-request/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBS NY reports
[in a great example of why parents must oversee what is happening in the schools]: Parents in a Connecticut suburb are outraged over disturbing disciplinary actions at a local elementary school.
They claim
students are being locked in unsupervised “scream rooms,” where some children have harmed themselves, reports CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez.
The Middleton School District is on the hot seat as furious parents are demanding to know what’s going on behind closed doors at Farm Hill Elementary School.
“My daughter is telling me that there’s kids being taken out in ambulances, by stretcher,” parent Sean Archer told CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez on Wednesday.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/01/11/parents-furious-over-apparent-use-of-scream-rooms-inside-middletown-conn-elementary-school/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Salon writes with an example of the law of unintended consequences: To see where the enormous sums of humanitarian aid directed to Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake in 2010 went, a good place to start is the ocean harbor.And, like the grains of rice aboard, the dollars mount into the hundreds of millions; even
billions. According to some reports, the United States government, American individuals, families and humanitarian groups donated approximately $3 billion. That’s just from America with a total of something like $12 billion coming from all donor nations for funds to be disbursed.
At the time of publication, President Bill Clinton, the UN Special Envoy to Haiti and the co-chair of overseeing the nation’s re-construction for the last two years, hasn’t responded to repeated requests by GlobalPost regarding specific aid and cash donation figures.
Where those billions went following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that left a government-estimated figure of 220,000 people dead — and at least 1.6 million more homeless — remains a confounding mystery. Inside of the recovery effort, however, are unquestionable successes along with the failures. And, to be fair, because the money came in so quickly and in such great volume, much of it has been wasted or lost like so much rice spilling on the docks. Or stolen, like the sacks of rice from here which will end up in Haiti’s black market for food.
But the economy of rice in Haiti says everything about the condition the country is in. The U.S. government subsidizes and “donates” ton after ton of rice in Haiti and in so doing has through the last several decades completely undercut Haitian rice farmers and left them destitute and migrating into cities where they live in hovels that were destroyed by the quake.
There is perhaps some bitter irony here that the subsidies were promoted in large part by President Clinton to help his home state of Arkansas, the largest rice producing state in the U.S., thereby crippling a sector of the economy in Haiti where Clinton has worked so tirelessly to help with the recovery.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/11/haiti_where_did_the_aid_go/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daily Caller reports: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., speaking in New Hampshire this morning, reminded her audience of the tragic Tucson shooting last year — and also insinuated that the Tea Party, which she said regards political opponents as “the enemy,” has enhanced divisiveness in Congress and had something to do with the shooting, at least indirectly.
"The discourse in America, the discourse in Congress in particular . . . has really changed, I’ll tell you. I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement.”
[
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GovTrac.US: Enemy Expatriation Act - Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to include engaging in or purposefully and materially supporting hostilities against the United States to the list of acts for which U.S. nationals would lose their nationality. Defines "hostilities" as any conflict subject to the laws of war. [What this bill will do is to take away the citizenship of Americans who fall under its parameters. I ask who will decide?]
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3166&tab=summary -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney W. James Young went toe-to-toe with a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer at the United States Supreme Court.
In the class-action lawsuit covering tens of thousands of employees, Foundation attorneys are providing free legal aid to eight California government workers, including two former union members, challenging a corrupt SEIU political fundraising scheme.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michigan's Republican Delegation Halved Again
Michigan's delegation to the Aug. 27-30 Republican National Convention in Tampa will be cut from 59 to 30 for holding its presidential primary days before March 1 under action taken by a Republican National Committee (RNC) panel today.
The decision, if it stands, will be the second-straight convention where Michigan's delegation is halved for holding an early primary.
South Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire and Arizona also were punished for violating national party rules in holding a primary before March 6, said Michigan National Committeeman Saul ANUZIS.
Anuzis said Michigan and Arizona would appeal the decision to a different RNC committee. The Feb. 28 primary date for both states is on the same date as its regularly scheduled election dates under statute and only one day before the cutoff.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Personal Liberty reports: A Federal appeals court decided Tuesday that an amendment that would ban Oklahoma courts from considering international or Islamic law discriminates against religions and a Muslim community leader has the right to challenge its Constitutionality.
According to
CBS News, the Denver-based court upheld U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange’s order blocking implementation of the amendment shortly after it was approved by 70 percent of Oklahoma voters in November 2010.
Part of the amendment read: “The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia law.”
http://www.personalliberty.com/news/appeals-court-upholds-sharia-in-oklahoma/?eiid=
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expose Obama writes: Now seems an unlikely time for handing out bonuses at
bankrupt Solyndra LLC,but that’s the plan of company attorneys intending to dole out up to a half-million dollars to persuade key employees to stay put.
Nearly two dozen Solyndra employees could receive bonuses ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 each under a proposal filed by Solyndra’s attorneys in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
The attorneys say
the extra money will add motivation at a time when workers at the solar company
have little job security and more responsibilities because so many of their colleagues have been fired.
http://www.exposeobama.com/2012/01/12/bankrupt-solyndra-wants-to-hand-
out-bonuses/
-----------------------------------------------------
Posts
