A List of The Zero’s Historic “Firsts”
From, A PRINTABLE CHEAT SHEET: A simple one-pager you can give to any undecided voter you know
- • First President to Violate the War Powers Act (Unilaterally Executing American Military Operations in Libya Without Informing Congress In the Required Time Period – Source: Huffington Post)
• First President to Triple the Number of Warrantless Wiretaps of U.S. Citizens (Source: ACLU)
• First President to Sign into Law a Bill That Permits the Government to “Hold Anyone Suspected of Being Associated With Terrorism Indefinitely, Without Any Form of Due Process. No Indictment. No Judge or Jury. No Evidence. No Trial. Just an Indefinite Jail Sentence” (NDAA Bill – Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Have His Attorney General Held in Criminal Contempt of Congress For His Efforts to Cover Up Operation Fast and Furious, That Killed Over 300 Individuals (Source: Politico)
• First President to claim Executive Privilege to shield a sitting Attorney General from a Contempt of Congress finding for perjury and withholding evidence from lawful subpoenas (Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Issue Unlawful “Recess-Appointments” Over a Long Weekend — While the U.S. Senate Remained in Session (against the advice of his own Justice Department – Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case (Source: Gawker)
• First President to “Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions” (Source: DHS documents uncovered by Judicial Watch)
• First President to Sue States for Enforcing Voter ID Requirements, Which Were Previously Ruled Legal by the U.S. Supreme Court (Source: CNN)
• First President to publicly announce an enemies list (consisting of his opponents campaign contributors; and to use the instrumentalities of government to punish those on the list – Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Attempt to Block Legally-Required 60-Day Layoff Notices by Government Contractors Due to His Own Cuts to Defense Spending — Because The Notices Would Occur Before the Election.
(Source: National Journal)
• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts (Source:Wall Street Journal)
• First President to send 80 percent of a $16 billion program (green energy) to his campaign bundlers and contributors, leaving only 20% to those who did not contribute. (Source: Washington Examiner)
See more at http://tinyurl.com/obamafirsts
“The Obama Confession”
I’m not a major fan of those who consult the entrails of goats, read tea leaves and listen to the voices in other people’s heads (primitive village shamans and modern p-sychs alike), but the most perceptive among them do notice interesting things about people, even if they then feel compelled to construct fantastic mythologies to explain their gut-level observations. One contemporary village shaman who, despite his mythology constructed to explain his insights, does seem to at least have some valid insights is Andrew G. Hodges. His latest book, The Obama Confession: Secret Fear. Secret Fury, is a good example, IMO… especially since it agrees with my own gut level observations and reactions to The Zero. A brief sample from the beginning of the book, taking off from where the author recalls an incident in his residency where a young leukemia patient had died:
…Reassuringly as possible, I told the parents, “Johnny passed away about 30 minutes ago. I know you’ve been through a lot, but now his suffering is over and he’s in a better place.” Seemingly undaunted by the news, the mother asked me if I would give Johnny something for his cough. I wondered if the words “passed away” had simply gone over her head. So I gently repeated myself, “I’m sorry, but Johnny just died thirty minutes ago.” Without the slightest pause, the mother now urgently replied, “But doctor, are you going to give him something for his cough?” She simply could not face the loss of her son. It had overwhelmed her. At that point the family members assured me they would handle the problem, and I left having experienced one of the most shocking events in my life. A night I will never forget.
Looking back, the story made it clear that there are two types of people: hearers and non-hearers, seers and non-seers, those who face emotional trauma and those who don’t— and nobody faces it perfectly. Emotional trauma leads to denial, the greater the trauma the more the denial. And in this mother’s story we see the power of denial up close and personal. Let’s be clear— it was denial of reality— a sad reality which failed to escape others in the room.
Shifting to America
America today is on the brink of a similar tragedy. Some people— like the mother living in massive denial— simply cannot face it, and instead they distract themselves with minor concerns. To those people America simply suffers a mild cough which can quickly be cured, while others plainly see America in dire straits, on the brink of real disaster, suffering a crisis that threatens our national life. It’s a shocking story, unlike anything in our history
Moving America’s Secure Boundaries
America finds itself in a crisis which can be directly traced to President Barack Obama’s drastic modifications of our nation’s longstanding foundations of government. He has changed these fundamental stabilizers to suit himself, yet he and his supporters remain in massive denial of that reality…
Hodges MD, Andrew G (2012-07-14). The Obama Confession: Secret Fear. Secret Fury. Village House Publishers.
Working from Obama’s own statements and actions, the author then goes on to reveal what any person who’s been paying attention and who has both better morals than a rabid mink and more active brain cells than are found in the average used Kleenex has already been thinking at least in the back of his mind.
Read the book. It’s free for Kindle today, so all it’ll cost you is an hour or maybe two of your time, unless you’re one of those folks who need to sue all your past teachers for not teaching you how to (and to) read and letting you get away with slacking off in class. If you’re one of those folks, then shame on you. Have someone read the thing to you. (Actually, if you’re one of those folks, you will not have read this post anyway, so I’m just being snarky toward absentees. *heh*)
Do note that despite the author’s proclamation of a method for determining Obama’s true mind, the books seems strangely short of any analytical approach, just plenty of pronouncements based on th author’s and others’ observations. That’s OK, since the observations seem to be astute, but just note that the shaman’s professed techniques are not openly displayed. (My suspicion is that, in the model described in his other books, the guy “sees” things and then constructs his model to explain how he perceived what he did, without any real evidence for his model. Scientology does that–poorly–as does traditional psychoanalysis, etc. Any valid observations are usually the result of inherent talented observational skills honed by experience, not some model, IMO.)
Riffing Off the WSJ
A WSJ slideshow for the developmentally impaired ADD generation pokes holes in the BLS “core inflation” CPI that comes nowhere near real people’s experiences (because it excludes real people’s real essential expenditures for essential things like fuel and food). After all, “feddle gummint bureaucraps” apparently believe we should all just eat cake and fly around in our private jets like the “real” people they know. Or whatever.
Bullet points:
- “[Last month the] price of a gallon of gas was… $3.55. It’s now $3.84.” More importantly to me and my family, in America’s Third World County the day The Zero assumed office, gas was $1.40 per gallon. Now, it’s $3.66. That’s about 266% inflation on one item that is essential. What about
- Bread: White bread, “1st Quarter 2010: $1.71; 1st Quarter 2011: $1.88 (Source: American Farm Bureau–in fact, unless otherwise noted these are sourced from the American Farm Bureau). In one year, that’s nearly a 5% increase in cost. Nah, “Let them eat cake.”
- Milk (gallon) 1st Quarter 2010: $3.15; 1st Quarter 2011: $3.46. You do the math (Hint: it’s not the 1.4% the BLS claims for the CPI but more than double that.)
- Starbucks Ground Coffee (12 oz.) 1st Quarter 2010: $8.99; 1st Quarter 2011: $9.99 (Source: Wall Street Journal) OK, anyone stupid enough to buy Starbucks crap deserves what they get, but this is pretty typical of good coffees, too. And anyone who says coffee’s not an essential good is just itchin’ for a fight. Still, something on the order of an 11% inflation in price? Yep.
- Orange Juice (half gallon) 1st Quarter 2010: $2.98; 1st Quarter 2011: $3.14. 5% inflation.
- Ground beef (pound) 1st Quarter 2010: $2.63; 1st Quarter 2011: $3.10–and that’s not accounting for 2011 and 2012. 17%-18%?!? Shiite, Batman! We’re gonna need to start eating at The Peking Room!
- Potatoes (5 pounds) 1st Quarter 2010: $2.26; 1st Quarter 2011: $2.64. Another 18%-er.
And on and on it goes. Americans having to pay more for essential goods, more to be able to get to their lower-paying part time jobs, while “feddle gummint” cronies are soaking taxpayers to build “golden Solyndrachutes” and administration liars and their cronies, lickspittles and a$$boiz in the media, fellow travelers and co-conspirators are hard at work to build chains to keep more and more former citizens in slavery on the “gummint plantation”.
Tired? Getcherself a “Gummint Job”
Forty years ago or so, I very briefly worked in a real “shovel ready” job using a real shovel on some government contract work. First day, the “feddle gummint” inspector came by and told me I was working too hard and to lean on my shovel for a while. True. Ever since then, I’ve looked askance at “gummint workers” and wondered just how hard they really do work and whether anything they do is really something that the “gummint” needs to do at all.
Do note that I know some government functions are necessary and that some of those employed to do essential work actually do work. I’m just not convinced that very much of what the federal government (or even state governments for that matter) claims it needs to do really needs to be done by government at all–or at that level–OR that most of those in government jobs are actually either working or working at anything that should be done at all, or be done by a government worker.
Further disclosure: Three members of my immediate and extended family are arguably “government workers.” One has for all his adult life worked as an employee of the National Parks Service, or some subsidiary or affiliated agency (he’s a real worker, but I have never approached him with a discussion of why I believe the Parks Service is unconstitutional, regardless what the Supreme Court has tortuously reasoned). Another holds down a state government position that is tasked with something that is constitutional under that state’s constitution. Is the work he does essential? No. Is it needed? Arguable. Perhaps. The last is a community employee who does not work directly for any city, county, state or federal agency but whose salary is funded by county, state and even (wrongly, IMO) by federal funds. The work this person does is work the community needs and indeed requires be done.
*shrugs* Some functions are necessary and proper. ALL government action should be at the lowest level possible–both in impact and in funding/supervision (subsidiary and transparent). That is, any necessary and proper task of government that can be funded and performed by a town itself, should NOT be funded or performed by the county or state or federal governments. Any necessary and proper task that cannot be performed at the lowest level possible should be examined carefully to determine whether or not it is indeed BOTH necessary AND proper for government to perform at all. I suspect that any honest examination of the necessary and proper functions of government would reveal that most things being done by government nowadays, at all levels, are neither necessary nor proper for civil government (at any level) to be fooling about with.
Of course, that’s the rub: honest examination. As Cwazy Unka Joe and his Immoderate “Moderator” demonstrated the other night, something approaching at least half of the country is unwilling to be honest about government–unwilling to the point that they have MADE themselves unable to be honest.
Remember, one of the reasons the Founders tried to moderate democracy with many different republican damping mechanisms is, in my restatement,
“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”
Just sayin’.
Anyone want to check my math?
Obamanoids–dupes in general, the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind (A.K.A. “Bylines for Barry”), The Zero’s campaign mouthpieces (TOTUS, Cwazy UNka Joe and all the other usual suspects) and the whole gaggle of leftard loons have invested tons of disingenuity into the meme that Romney doesn’t pay his “fair share” of taxes. Their argument, such as it is, is that his nominal 14-15% income tax rate on his investment income–the sum total of his income–is “less” than the average person pays. Leaving aside the 47% who receive more in benefits from the “feddle gummint” than they pay in taxes, if they pay any income taxes at all, what about that claim?
The corporations Romney receives his investment income have to make a profit. Those profits are distributed after taxes and reinvestment in the business to investors. So, say a company makes $100 in before tax profits. Yeh, yeh, a ridiculously small amount, but one that makes for easy numbers. After paying JUST the federal corporate income taxes, that number is reduced to about $72 available to return to investors who are then taxed a nominal 15% of that. So, assume only one investor, for simplicity. That investor would then receive about $61. All told, the “feddle gummint” has just gobbled up 39% of the income.
Average Joes don’t pay that sort of income tax rate, unless they’re too stupid to be able to use Turbotax and misfigure everything on their own. (ABOVE average–in income and privilege–“Timothys” however Do use Turbotax and fail to properly pay their federal income taxes for years, but the law only applies to the little people.)
I Want One of These T-Shirts…
…someday. When I get around to it.
Big Bird’s the Only Issue The Zero Has
And Big Bird is a loser of an “issue”. Aside from Big Bird, all The Zero’s campaign has left is lies. Just a standard response from UNliberal leftists.
Always, always, ALWAYS remember: “slanderer”=”devil”. Literally. (“Devil” is transliterated from Koine: diabolos—>devil. “Diabolos” means slanderer, false accuser, traducer. So, anyone choosing to say The Zero and his co-conspirators are “sons [and daughters] of Satan” could be viewed as making an arguably fair statement. Just sayin’.)
Don’t Pi** on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining
In the college town where I spent some of the, urm, more interesting years of my life, there was an old (by that time) doctor of a most eccentric bent. Good sawbones; great “bedside manner” with patients. Nice guy. But… strange sense of humor.
Less weirdly, he raised prize-winning roses and always–always–had a rosebud in his label, in a tiny little vase that was concealed behind the lapel of his coat. He also carried a syringe filled with water to keep the tiny lil vase topped up throughout the day.
One day, I was downtown and ran into Dr. X. We stood talking for a bit on a street corner, waiting for the light change. A woman with a lil “yappy dog” was standing on the other side of him. He gave me w twinkled glance, pulled out his syringe and surreptitiously squirted her on the leg. She kicked the dog, we suppressed our laughter and let her precede us across the street on the light change.
Now, that was funny. But having someone piss on one’s leg for real and say, “Oh, it’s just raining” on a clear blue sky day is worse than insulting. Them thar is fightin’ words, bubba.
I’ll not link to the lying bastards, but the Obama campaign is saying they unequivocally ID all campaign donations, so the huge numbers of donations from foreign sources are legal. This from people who decry voter ID as “racist”.
Liars. Throw the bums out.
Drawbacks of a Long Infancy
Infant product class, that is. eBooks. I read a lot of ’em. So far, very few eBooks seem to take advantage of the medium to expand beyond print format, and many are weaker products than hardcopy books. Here’s a brief blurb of my consumer-of-print viewpoint.
Many books can benefit from maps, tables and other reference materials. With hardcopy books, these are often included, and if not I often have the material to hand (or nearby) to fill the gaps. eBooks that can benefit from such addenda need them even more than print works, because they’re often read in locales where such things are unavailable even to someone like me who has a wide-ranging reference library at hand. Such things should be included in eBooks that would benefit from them, and they should be, at the very least, context sensitive. For example, when maps are called for, scalable, zoomable satellite or aerial maps (with helpful labeling, perhaps) could be included with little more trouble than simple line-drawing maps. Use your imagination to supply supplementary materials lists eBook authors should include. You’ll have to, though, because so far very few authors have used theirs in that manner.
As to those eBooks that are weaker products than corresponding print works. *sigh* One of the worst examples I can think of offhand was a novel written by a very good writer before eBooks had really taken off. I read it expecting not great but good fun. The story was OK, as were the characters, descriptive narrative and dialog, but… he’d apparently just scanned it–or had it scanned–and converted to electronic format and apparently had not even had it proof read. Too many obvious scanning errors ruined enjoyment of the book. But that’s just one of the worst. Self-published, author edited or proofread (or author edited AND proofread) eBooks seem to be about 85% POORLY edited and proofread. Good lord, folks! Execrable grammar, spelling and punctuation just barely scratches the surface of many crap-laden plots, dialog, descriptive narrative and characters crudely drawn in crayon from B-movie central casting descriptions!
Yes, there are a lot of well-written, well-edited/proofread “Indie” published books available, but the numbers of well-written “Indie” books is only because so very much chaff is out there to winnow the well-written books out of. It’s a real pain in the neck (although the pain’s really quite a bit further south of there) to be reading along thinking, “Interesting story–OH CRAP! GETCHER SYNTAX OUTA YOUR ASS!” or “SPELLCHECK, DUMBASS, SPELLCHECK!!” or “WTF! YOU DIDN’T JUST ‘THERE’S’ ME AGAIN! over and over again.
I’m sure both the crap writing and the features blocks will work themselves out in time, though. eBooks are still in a development phase, and some writers, at least, seem to be thinking seriously about some of these things. Thank heavens. *sigh*