WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — Seeking an elusive middle ground, President Barack Obama is proposing a 2014 budget that embraces tax increases abhorred by Republicans as well as reductions, loathed by liberals, in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs.
“What I will say is that this is not the president’s idealized budget,” Carney said. “It is not what he would do if he were king, or if only people who supported his proposals were in Congress. It was what he believes is a fair and balanced approach to our deficit challenges. One that allows us to invest, that protects seniors, that helps secure the middle class–and give ladders to those who want to get into the middle class.”
The plan, if ever enacted, could touch almost all Americans. The rich would see tax increases, the poor and the elderly would get smaller annual increases in their benefits, and middle income taxpayers would slip into higher tax brackets despite Obama’s repeated vows not to add to the tax burden of the middle class. His proposed changes, once phased in, would mean a cut in Social Security benefits of nearly $1,000 a year for an average 85-year-old, smaller cuts for younger retirees.
Obama proposed much the same without success to House Speaker John Boehner in December. The response Friday was dismissive from Republicans and hostile from liberals, labor and advocates for the elderly.
But the proposal aims to tackle worrisome deficits that are adding to the national debt and placing a long-term burden on the nation, prompting praise from independent deficit hawks. Obama’s budget also proposes new spending for public works projects, pre-school education and for job and benefit assistance for veterans.
The budget, which Obama will release Wednesday to cover the budget year beginning Oct. 1, proposes spending cuts and revenue increases that would result in $1.8 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years. That figure would replace $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are poised to take effect over the next 10 years if Congress and the president don’t come up with an alternative, thus delivering a net increase in deficit reduction of $600 billion.
Counting reductions and higher taxes that Congress and Obama have approved since 2011, the 2014 budget would contribute to $4.3 trillion in total deficit reduction by 2023.
The budget wouldn’t affect the $85 billion in cuts that kicked in last month for this budget year
A key feature of Obama’s plan is a revised inflation adjustment called “chained CPI.” This new formula would effectively curb annual increases in a broad swath of government programs but would have its biggest impact on Social Security. By encompassing Obama’s offer to Boehner, R-Ohio, the plan would also include reductions in Medicare spending, much of it by targeting payments to health care providers and drug companies. The Medicare proposal also would require wealthier recipients to pay higher premiums or co-pays.
Obama’s budget proposal also calls for additional tax revenue, primarily by placing a 28 percent cap on deductions and other tax exclusions. That plan would affect wealthy taxpayers as would a new administration proposal to place limits on tax-preferred retirement accounts for millionaires and billionaires.
Obama made the same offer to Boehner in December when he and the speaker were negotiating ways of avoiding a steep, so-called fiscal cliff of combined across-the-board spending cuts and sweeping tax increases caused by the expiration of Bush-era tax rates. Boehner rejected that plan and ultimately Congress approved tax increases that were half of what Obama had sought.
“If you look at where the president’s final offer and Boehner were … they were extremely close to each other,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “We do think that it’s a very good sign that the president has included real entitlement reforms in the budget.”
Boehner, in a statement Friday, said House Republicans made clear to Obama last month that he should not make savings in entitlement programs that both sides agree on, contingent on more tax increases.
“If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes,” Boehner said. “That’s no way to lead and move the country forward.”
The inflation adjustment would reduce federal spending on government programs over 10 years by about $130 billion, according to White House estimates. Because it also affects how tax brackets are adjusted, it would also generate about $100 billion in higher taxes and hit even middle income taxpayers.
Once the change is fully phased in, Social Security benefits for a typical middle-income 65-year-old would be about $136 less a year, according to an analysis of Social Security data. At age 75, annual benefits under the new index would be $560 less. At 85, the cut would be $984 a year.
The concept behind the chained CPI is that consumers substitute lower-priced alternatives for goods whose costs spike. So, for example, if the price of oranges goes too high for some consumers, they could buy alternatives like apples or strawberries if their prices were more affordable. This flexibility isn’t considered in the current system of gauging inflation, a calculation that determines how much benefits grow each year. Taking it into account means such benefits won’t grow by as much.
Advocates for the elderly say seniors pay a higher portion of their income for health care, where costs rise more quickly than inflation.
The White House has said the cost-of-living adjustments would include protections for “vulnerable” recipients.
“The president should drop these misguided cuts in benefits and focus instead on building support in Congress for investing in jobs,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.
AARP’s legislative policy director said Obama’s budget proposal, while not a surprise, was a disappointment.
“The message seems to be that the president wants a deal and is willing to even sacrifice such important benefits as Social Security as part of that deal,” said David Certner. The seniors lobby argues that Social Security doesn’t belong in the budget talks because it isn’t contributing to the deficit and is separately financed with its own dedicated taxes.
Citing the effect on veterans, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said he was “terribly disappointed” in the Obama plan and would “do everything in my power to block” it.
While Obama has proposed the slower cost of living adjustment plan during fiscal negotiations with Republican leaders, placing it in the budget would put the administration’s official imprint on the plan and mark a full shift from Obama’s stand in 2008, when he campaigned against Republican Party nominee John McCain.
In a Sept. 6, 2008, speech to AARP, Obama said: “John McCain’s campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either.”
Obama also proposes $305 billion in cuts to Medicare over a decade, including $156 billion through lower Medicare payments to drug companies and higher premiums or co-pays from wealthy recipients. That’s to the right of the conservative budget of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which barely touches Medicare in the coming 10 years, cutting just $129 billion from the program. The huge Medicare savings from Ryan’s proposal, which transforms the system into a program in which the government subsidizes health insurance purchases on the private market, wouldn’t accrue until the following decade.
Obama’s budget comes after the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-run Senate passed separate and markedly different budget proposals. House Republicans achieved long-term deficit reductions by targeting safety net programs; Democrats instead protected those programs and called for $1 trillion in tax increases.
But Obama has been making a concerted effort to win Republican support, especially in the Senate. He has even scheduled a dinner with Republican lawmakers on the evening that his budget is released next week.
As described by the administration officials, the budget proposal would also end a loophole that permits people to obtain unemployment insurance and disability benefits at the same time.
Obama’s proposal, however, includes calls for increased spending. It proposes $50 billion for public works projects. It also would make preschool available to more children by increasing the tax on tobacco.
Obama Surrounds Himself With The Most Extreme Appointees In American History
Much has been written about Obama’s controversial appointments, not only to the federal bench, but to key cabinet positions, as well as to the unaccountable (and probably unconstitutional) “Czar” positions. Much of the criticism has dwelled on the Obama administration’s lack of vetting when filling these rolls—but that’s not the issue.
To the contrary, the Obama team did investigate thoroughly and they choose precisely. When an administration repeatedly nominates hard-left individuals, it’s not a vetting error—it’s a pattern. We should not allow the media to portray these appointments as a series of errors; but rather, we need to realize that Team Obama is simply nominating those who share their goal of radically changing America.
Most Americans have a hard time understanding this because they refuse to believe Obama is this extreme. But he is. For a year prior to his election conservatives warned voters that everything we knew about Obama indicated that his views were far from the mainstream. This was obvious when one analyzed his friends, which groups he funded while a “community activist,” his Illinois State Senate record, his United States Senate record and even what he wrote in his own books.
The reality, of course, is that Obama’s views are far from the mainstream and it is embarrassing so many Americans fell for his leftist candy-coated lies. Indeed, it appears that Obama is the most far left President in American history. His appointees only confirm this. These appointees hail from the crowd who regard their pedigree as the 60’s activists who cheered on the Vietcong, while American boys were slaughtered in the jungles of Vietnam. They hate America, or more precisely, they hate America’s heritage; American institutions, and the American Constitution.
Many of these extremists nominated by Obama hail from academia, where they were shielded from outside scrutiny while they quietly indoctrinated our youth. But don’t let the cloak of academia fool you; they are out to change America in ways most Americans oppose. More importantly, Americans need to realize their views are Obama’s views.
The American media is partly responsible for bringing such extremists to power. There is little doubt the media engaged in a massive propaganda effort to convince Americans that Obama was some kind of hip moderate; a breath of fresh air, a reformer, and someone who would fight the corrupt ways of Washington. Until Americans wake up and stop relying on the mainstream media for their source of news, they will continue to pay a heavy price for their ignorance. Unfortunately, this report covers just a few of Obama’s policy-makers, but there are many more such extremists within his administration.
Domestic Policy:
The Regulatory Czar – Cass Sunstein
Sunstein was nominated and approved to be Obama’s “Regulatory Czar.” He supports massive gun control and doesn’t believe the 2nd Amendment is an individual right. He has straight out said, “We ought to ban hunting.” While this fruitcake strips Americans of their Constitutional right to own guns, he wants to give rights to animals and has argued that “Animals should be permitted to bring suit…” Naturally, he also supports the “Fairness Doctrine,” the wrongly-named concept which allows the government to regulate the airwaves.
Climate Czar – Todd Stern
Stern, a veteran of the Clinton administration, was the U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto conference in 1997 (which called for dramatic climate change regulations based on bogus assumptions.) Had the treaty been implemented, it would have plunged the world into economic chaos.
Since then, new evidence has revealed that the major climate models used to justify the Global Warming alarm was, in fact, not accurate. One would think Stern would address this, but chances are he won’t. Climate change seems to be more about giving the government control over our lives, than about phony climate crises. Indeed, Stern has made it clear that he thinks international agencies, such as the United Nations, should take the lead on forcing climate change down the throats of national governments. Stern has even gone as far as to propose that world powers form an “E8” group, who would meet yearly and dictate environmental policy to the rest of the world. What about national sovereignty? Clearly, Stern feels that’s an outdated concept.
Stern is also the nutcase behind the Cap and Trade proposal which, even an analysis by Obama’s own Treasury Department concluded, would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion dollars—just what we need for today’s economy!
Science Czar – John Holdren
In his book, Holdren advocates some of the most bizarre and horrifying policy stances imaginable. In the event of a “over-population crises,” Holdren supports “laws requiring compulsory abortion,” government confiscation of new born babies, the “development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin,” and, incredibly, “adding a sterilant to drinking water or stable foods….” as long a livestock would not be affected (as experimentally implemented in India). Holdren wants the government to dictate family size and advocate a “planetary regime,” run by the United Nations. This real life Dr. Frankenstein will be deciding science policy for the United States of America.
Chief Diversity Officer, Federal Communications Commission – Mark Lloyd
While Obama is playing coy with his plans to shut down conservative talk radio, we know what his real intentions are, due to his appointment of Mark Lloyd. Lloyd’s view of the 1st Amendment is shocking:
“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press.
This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references
to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination
of other communications policies. “[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect
global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.”
Like many of Obama’s appointees, Lloyd worked for George Soros, the foreign billionaire who funds anti-America groups. He seems to be enamored with dictators and has even publicly praised Venezuelan Communist dictator Hugo Chavez’s “incredible…democratic revolution.” He also wants to use the Fairness Doctrine to “balance” talk radio and believes there are too many white people in the media. He has written that unless there are “more people of color, gays and other people…we will not change the problem.” One of his solutions to “balance” the media is to fine conservative radio stations up to $250 million and give the proceeds to National Public Radio. Get ready for censorship like America has never seen before.
Attorney General – Eric Holder
Like most of Obama’s appointees, Holder is a member of the American Constitution Society, a ACLU-type group dedicated to destroying much the Constitution in order to make it “relevant” to the modern world. And as with many Obama’s appointees, he is obsessed with race, even to the point of refusing to pursue the prosecution of two Black Panther thugs who intimidated white voters at a polling place. The thugs were screaming things at the voters such as, “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” If whites had harassing blacks at a polling place, they would still be sitting in a jail within days. Nevertheless, Holder apparently doesn’t mind undermining the democratic process. He is currently challenging the rights of states to enact citizen verification procedures previously approved by two federal courts. In other words, Holder wants to make it easier for illegal aliens to vote, which also happens to be ACORN’s goal. This comes as no surprise; Holder has been undermining the rule of law for most of his career. While serving as the #2 official in Clinton’s Justice Department, Holder was the driving force behind the effort to pardon members of the notorious Puerto Rican terrorist group, FALN, a group that engaged in over 130 attacks in the USA, killing six people. By refusing to carry out justice against the Black Panthers and the Hispanic FALN terrorists, he was clearly pandering to these two racial groups for political reasons. So this is what Obama’s Justice Department will be all about: racial pandering first and justice last. Speaking at an ACS convention last November, Holder announced that America would soon be “run by progressives.” At least he’s honest.
Deputy Attorney General – David Ogden
This appointment must have been a favor for the porn industry; Ogden has probably done more than anyone in America to defend the “rights” of pornographers. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Ogden “is more than just a lawyer who has had a few unsavory clients. He has devoted a substantial part of his career, case after case, for 20 years, in defense of pornography.” For example, he argued in support of the American Library Association when they went to court to challenge mandatory anti-obscenity internet filters in school libraries. Incredibly, the ALA/Ogden position was that libraries should be free-speech zones in which school children should have the right to access anything they want – even pornography – on school computers. This comes as no surprise, when Ogden was an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, he argued on constitutional grounds to strike down the conviction of a defendant who received and possessed child pornography. Ogden believes there is a constitutional right to possess child pornography. The appointment of Ogden is apparently what Obama means when he talks about promoting “family values.”
Solicitor General – Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan has also been mentioned by the Obama forces as the next nomination to the Supreme Court. This is ironic considering her complete lack of judicial or appellate experience. She has never even been a judge or argued before the Supreme Court! Kagen has served as the Dean of Harvard Law School, but her job was to fundraise and make the students “comfortable.” As the Boston Globe writes, “Some of her initial acts as dean were small-scale improvements, like offering free coffee in classroom buildings and free tampons in women’s bathrooms.” Isn’t that nice! However, the few legal views she holds are certainly far from the mainstream. She described the “don’t ask, don’t tell” homosexual military policy adopted by President Clinton as “a profound wrong – a moral injustice of the first order,” and favors homosexuals being allowed to openly serve in the military. She argued that it was unconstitutional for Congress to withhold funds from colleges that banned military recruiters and she even took it upon herself to ban military recruiters from Harvard because of their policy regarding homosexuals. Clearly, her lesbianism has clearly created a bias that affects her shallow legal views.
Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel – Dawn Johnson
Johnson is the former legal director for the National Abortion Rights Action League, a group on the extreme left of the abortion debate. They oppose any restrictions on abortion for any reason, at any time of pregnancy—even late term abortions. She has also worked for the ACLU. Johnson has argued that abortion is all about “sexual freedom.” That’s right: have sex with whoever you want and whenever you want and if you get pregnant, get an abortion. This same mentality has led to skyrocketing sexual disease rates, unwanted pregnancies, and untold sorrow. In a brief filed while working with NARAL,Johnson cited a source that said forcing women to bear children was “disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the 13th Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest.” In other words, being pregnant is comparable to being a slave. Secretary, Department of Education – Arne Duncan. Obama appointed Duncan due to his alleged success as CEO of Chicago’s public schools. However, in 2007, only 10% of black 4thgraders in Chicago reached the proficiency level in reading and for black 8th graders, only 9% reached reading proficiency. In math, only 8% of black students reached proficiency in 4th grade and just 6% reached proficiency in 8th grade. This was the disappointing outcome, despite spending $13-$14,000 per student and is among the highest of any major city.Even worse, a majority of Chicago public school students drop out or fail to graduate with their class. Needless to say, the Duncan era was a disaster. He did, however, pursue an aggressive agenda to promote the homosexual lifestyle in the schools. So Chicago kids can’t read or write, but they all know how to engage in homosexual sex. If anyone tells you Duncan is an “education reformer,” tell them you’re the tooth fairy.
Assistant Deputy Secretary, Department of Education – Kevin Jennings
Jennings is the founder of the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a group dedicated to promoting the homosexual agenda to school children as young as five. They’re sick people and even promote books that feature adult-child sex in a favorable way. Regardless, Obama must have been impressed with Jennings, as he appointed him to carry out his perverted mission nationwide in his new role as head of the Department’s “Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools.”
The reality is that homosexuality is not safe; it takes years off the average lifespan of males. But for Obama, is not really about safety; it’s about keeping the homosexual community happy—after all, they helped elect him. Jennings has been in the press lately due to revelations that he gave encouraging advice to a boy who privately confessed to him he was having sex with an older man. And what was Jennings’s advice? Buy a condom. Parents, start monitoring what your schools are teaching your children. It’s going to get ugly.
Foreign PolicyUnited States Ambassador to United Nations – Susan RiceEven though she served on the National Security Council under President Clinton, Rice seems to have slept through the last two decades. She is fanatically pro-UN and wants the United States to work closely with the United Nations in order to carry out all kinds of humanitarian and military actions, seeming unaware that the UN has never been supportive of US interests. They don’t stop wars; they don’t sanction terrorist regimes, and their internal corruption is so pervasive they can’t even carry out humanitarian missions. But rather than hold the UN responsible for its obvious failings over the years, Rice blamed Bush for being “unilateral” and for “stiff-arming our partners.” She even sits on the board of the UN Fund for UNICEF, an agency which has been repeatedly caught giving aid to terrorists, and during the Cold War, assisting communist insurgents.More seriously, she is overly cautious in regard to fighting terrorism. The former Ambassador to Sudan implicated Rice as the person who bungled the opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden when Sudanese officials offered him to the USA on a silver platter during the Clinton years.She rejected their offer. There’s a good chance 9/11 could have been avoided if Rice had accepted the Sudanese offer. Apparently, even though she worked for the NSC, she didn’t regard Al-Qaeda as a threat. No wonder we were hit on 9/11. And now she’s our UN Ambassador? I wonder whose interests she will serve…probably the UNs.
Counsel, State Department – Harold Koh
The man Obama has named as the State Department’s legal advisor is Harold Koh. Koh believes America should defer to the International Court of Justice to determine legal precedents; a totally unconstitutional endeavor. He is a member of the “trans-nationalism” school of legal thought that believes all distinctions between American Constitutional law and international law should vanish. Incredibly, he even believes Muslim law –Sharia law– should be applied to some disputes in US courts. Clearly, his views are in contradiction to the Constitution he swore to uphold, but no matter, he is now in charge of all legal issues for the U.S. State Department.
National Security Council – Samantha Power
Power is an anti-Israel pseudo intellectual, a strange position given that Israel is our top ally in the Middle East. She holds the view that until Israel allows Palestine to set up a separate state, all the other problems in the Middle East will remain. This, of course, ignores the 1,300 year old war of conquest waged by Islam against the West, most of it occurring long before the modern day Israel/Palestine conflict. She also holds to the conspiratorial view that everything America does in the Middle East – like the Iraq war – is due to Israeli influence.Finally, she pooh-poohs the idea that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a thoroughly discredited view in light of recent events. While she opposed sending troops to Iraq – she called it an “occupation”—she favored sending US troops to Israel to forcibly impose a Palestinian state. Power’s writing grossly exaggerates “war crimes” committed by Israel and never condemns terrorist activity by the Palestinians. The last thing we need in the midst of war between the West and Islamic terrorism is a nut on the NSC giving the President advice favoring our enemies.
Advisor, Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy – Rosa Brooks
This genius wrote that Al-Qaeda was just an “obscure group” until America began the war on terrorism, ignoring all the documentation that Al-Qaeda was making plans for rapid growth long before 9/11. Apparently, it’s America’s fault that terrorist groups exist today! She called President Bush “our torturer in chief” and compared Bush’s anti-terrorist policies to Hitler’s policies. Clearly, she ignored the fact that Bush’s policies were responsible for stopping over 17 different terrorist plots against the United States. She also called the successful surge in Iraq a “feckless plan” and seems completely blind to the successes we have had in the war on terrorism. But we shouldn’t be surprised; she used to work for a foundation funded by the foreign America-hater George Soros. It’s hard to believe Brooks is now deciding defense policy.
White House Staff Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs – Valerie Jarrett. Jarrett is involved with vetting all the extremists Obama has appointed and thus, has to be an extremist as well. For example, she was aware that former Green Czar Van Jones (who withdrew) had a long history of involvement in Communist Party causes, but still said she was “delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House.” She had to have known, because she married into a family with a pedigree of Communist Party involvement. Her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, worked closely with Obama mentor and Communist Party leader Frank Marshall Davis in a number of Communist Party front groups during the Cold War years. Valerie married Vernon’s son in 1983 and later became chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daley, where she was a key player in perhaps America’s most corrupt big city political machine. Obama does not go forward with anything without her counsel.
Political advisor – David Axelrod
For those who think Axelrod is just a good campaign consultant, you couldn’t be more wrong. Axelrod has a long history of working for obscure socialist candidates and Obama was no different, politically, from his other clients. In fact, promoting socialist causes was a family tradition. His mother wrote for a New York City tabloid called PM Magazine, which often promoted the Communist Party line. Indeed, author IF Stone, later revealed to be working for the KGB, was PM’s DC correspondent. Much of the tabloid’s funding came from Marshall Field, a hard left millionaire who also funded Saul Alinsky’s training school. Axelrod has spent his entire life promoting extremist candidates, but no one bothered to look into his background. Today, he advises Obama on all things political.
Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change – Carol Browner
Browner previously served as head of the EPA during the Clinton regime where she advocated incredibly stupid environmental regulations that destroyed entire industries. At a time when America is losing jobs in record numbers, she is precisely the right person for the Obama job-killing machine. Browner is a socialist and was picked by Socialist International to be one of 14 leaders of a group it created called the Commission for a Sustainable World Society. SI believes in massive wealth redistribution from the West to the Third World, choosing to ignore the evidence that Third World countries are poor due to their socialist policies.
Moreover, SI constantly attacks the free market in general and the United States in particular. The fact that Obama has chosen both Browner and Todd Stern (Climate Czar) does not bode well for the American economy. The recent disclosure that the climate models used by Browner and Stern to justify draconian new regulations – such as Cap and Trade – are based on inaccurate data, has not fazed the Obama administration one bit. For Obama, environmentalism is a tool for increasing government control and nothing else.
General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Management & Budget – Preeta Bansal
Bansal is very close to Obama; she acts behind the scenes advising him regarding the selection of federal judges. She is on the far left side of the judicial spectrum and is a leader of the misnamed American Constitutional Society, a group that believes in a “living Constitution” and works to “debunk” the “original intent” concept. Indeed, ACS’s view that the Constitution should constantly change undermines the very purpose for having a constitution. Needless to say, the ACS is obsessed with criminal rights, illegal alien rights, terrorist rights, and other phony rights. ACS is America’s main networking group for far-left attorneys and is where Bansal is recruiting many of Obama’s judicial nominees.
Bansal is also a member of the “critical race theory (CRT)” school of legal thought that boils all legal concepts down to racist conspiracies and that racism permeates all aspects of American society. Indeed, she even co-authored a paper claiming that republicanism is based upon racist consensus. In other words, she believes the entire concept of representative democracy is based upon racist assumptions. Indeed, CRT advocates even believe the founding of America was primarily due to racial motivations.
Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals called CRT supporters the “lunatic core” of “radical legal egalitarianism.” Bansal is a lunatic and her appointment will ensure that Obama’s judicial appointments will be far more about “diversity” than they will be about competence.
Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Executive office of the President — Cecilia Munoz
Munoz is a hard-core open borders advocate who served recently as the Vice President for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), where she supervised all legislative activities. La Raza is the nation’s foremost supporter of “rights” for illegal aliens and the granting of amnesty to the millions of illegals here in America. She does not care that illegal aliens are costing America billions of dollars; she believes they should enjoy the same rights as citizens. Not surprisingly, she served on the U.S. Programs board of the
Open Society Institute, a George Soros-funded group. You can expect Munoz to quietly push for a massive transfer of benefits and welfare to illegal aliens and for legislation granting amnesty to all those here illegally.
Director, Domestic Policy Council – Melody Barnes
Barnes is a certified wacko. She was previously Vice President of the far-left Center for American Progress and also served as Chief Counsel for Senator Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her view on abortion is so extreme, she served on the boards of both Emily’s List and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She favors unrestricted abortions for any reason at any time of pregnancy.
Incredibly, some naïve pro-life leaders supported Obama, believing he was pro-life because he supposedly wanted to find ways to reduce abortions. Barnes has put that myth to rest. In a meeting with key pro-family leaders, Barnes made it clear that “It is not our goal to reduce the number of abortions.” As reported, the room went silent. Barnes glorifies abortion as being a “concept of liberty that includes women as equal.” She has written that “reproductive rights are human rights.” My guess is that the baby being aborted doesn’t quite feel the same way. Needless to say, there will NOT be any pro-life measures supported by this administration. The Nation magazine praised Barnes as a “dyed-in-the-wool progressive,” a nice term for a socialist. She is also a former staff member for the American Constitutional Society, the far-left legal group mentioned elsewhere.
I’m sure everyone remembers when Vice President Dan Quayle made the Potato remark that resonated throughout the Media for weeks and months and is still referred to today.
One has to wonder where the Media is when we hear this constant barrage of Joe Biden gaffes?
Seems the media has a certain bias when it comes to reporting the news.
I remember eight years of the George W. Bush Presidency where the Media gave him night and day coverage on anything and everything he said and did.
Funny, it was all negative and yet today the Media cannot find one negative thing to say about the worst President and Vice President in American history.
Yep, it sure is funny……. or is it?
To give credit where credit is do, I would like to acknowledge that Vice President Joe Biden did get it right at least one time, but nobody listened
30 dead after Egyptians angry about riot verdicts try to storm prison
By Reza Sayah and Amir Ahmed, CNN
Cairo (CNN) — A stern Egyptian court ruling tied to a soccer riot spurred clashes that left at least 30 people dead on Saturday, the latest round of violence in the unsettled North African nation.
In addition to those killed, more than 300 were wounded when people in the northeastern city of Port Said clashed with authorities outside a prison where their kin were being held, the head of Port Said hospitals told state-run Nile TV.
They were angry because 21 of their relatives had just been sentenced to death for their role in a February 1 riot in a Port Said stadium.
That 2012 incident — during a game between Cairo’s prestigious Al-Ahly football club and the host Al-Masry team — ended with 73 dead.
Two months later, Egypt’s general prosecutor charged 75 people with “premeditated murder and attempted murder,” while three Al-Masry officials and nine police officers were charged with “assisting the murderers.”
According to the prosecutor’s office, those in the latter group knew about the assault ahead of time, didn’t confiscate weapons in advance, didn’t stop them and — in the case of an electricity engineer who was charged — turned off the lights directly over the bleachers where the Al-Ahly fans were sitting right after the visiting team wrapped up its 3-1 victory.
Fans from both sides bashed each other with rocks and chairs, yet prosecutors claimed the Port Said supporters were also armed with knives and other weapons.
Many died after falling from bleachers inside the stadium, while others suffocated.
It was unclear whether intense sports rivalries or political strife sparked the riot, though witnesses said tensions had grown throughout the game with Al-Masry fans throwing bottles and rocks at the opposing players.
That violence begat more on Saturday, after some of the defendants’ relatives tried to storm the Port Said prison to free their loved ones being held inside, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Osama Ismail told Nile TV.
The reaction was far different in Cairo, where Saturday’s verdict was issued due to security concerns.
One man cried for joy, feeling that “justice has been survived” following the death of his oldest son, the married father of two children.
“I finally felt that I am in a civilized country,” added a woman in Cairo’s capital. “My son (did) nothing wrong. But my son’s legacy will live on, because of the true justice served here.”
Egypt embroiled in deadly political unrest
Saturday’s Port Said violence comes on the heels of other bloodshed around the nation, which was tied more explicitly to unrest about Egypt’s current leadership but nonetheless symptomatic of instability and insecurity two years after longtime President Hosni Mubarak was ousted.
More recently, protesters have focused their anger at current President Mohamed Morsy.
The former Muslim Brotherhood leader, who became Egypt’s first democratically elected leader last year, has come under fire by some who compared him to Mubarak and said he amassed power for himself and his Islamist allies. He has insisted his moves were necessary to move Egypt forward in the face of pressing issues and persistent obstacles.
On Friday — the anniversary of what some call the January 25 Revolution — six people were killed in Suez and one in Ismailia, amid clashes involving anti-government protesters and those supportive of Morsy, as well as police. Hundreds more were injured in the unrest nationwide.
Referring to this violence and what happened Saturday in Port Said, Information Minister Salah Abdul Maqsoud read a statement on state TV saying the government was considering implementing a state of emergency in some areas.
“The (National Defense Council) denounces the acts of violence and demands all national and political forces be committed to the peaceful ways to express their opinion,” Maqsoud said after a meeting led by Morsy. “(The council) calls for wider national dialogue, led by (prominent) figures, to discuss the issues of political disagreement and reach national accordance.”
On Saturday in Suez — about 90 miles south of Port Said — the government deployed troops and armored military vehicles in response to the previous day’s clashes.
Brig. Gen. Adel Refat, the head of security in Suez, asked for the help after declaring the area “out of control,” according to state news. Protesters accused Egyptian forces of opening fire during the demonstrations, a claim Refat strongly denied.
Meanwhile, in Cairo, clashes extended to areas around the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament. Protesters overnight waged a standoff outside the Nile TV offices, with some tossing Molotov cocktails and police responding with tear gas.
Journalist Ramy Francis and CNN’s Reza Sayah reported from Cairo; CNN’s Amir Ahmed reported Atlanta. CNN’s Chelsea J. Carter, Greg Botelho, Yousuf Basil and Hamdi Alkhshali contributed to this report.
EXCLUSIVE: Intelligence source in Libya tells Fox News that contrary to Obama administration claims, there was no demonstration outside the US Consulate in Benghazi before last week’s attack that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Meanwhile, protests spread to more Muslim nations, including Lebanon where Hezbollah al-Mahdi scouts shouted anti-American slogans during a march through Beirut.
An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that there was no demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to last week’s attack — challenging the Obama administration’s claims that the assault grew out of a “spontaneous” protest against an anti-Islam film.
“There was no protest
and the attacks were not
Spontaneous,”
the source said,
adding the attack
“Was planned and had
nothing to do with the
Movie.”
The source said the assault came with no warning at about 9:35 p.m. local time, and included fire from more than two locations. The assault included RPG’s and mortar fire, the source said, and consisted of two waves.
The account that the attack started suddenly backs up claims by a purported Libyan security guard who told McClatchy Newspapers late last week that the area was quiet before the attack.
“There wasn’t a single ant outside,” the unnamed guard, who was being treated in a hospital, said in the interview.
These details appear to conflict with accounts from the Obama administration that the attack spawned from an out-of-control protest. The Libyan president also said Sunday that the strike was planned in advance.
U.S. officials, in response to the claim that there was no demonstration at the time of the attack, told Fox News there was a small protest earlier in the day — but they did not dispute that there was no significant or sizeable demonstration at the time.
But a senior Obama administration official told Fox News on Monday morning that the Libyan president’s comments are not consistent with “the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community,” which has been investigating the incident, and are accordingly not credible.
“He doesn’t have the information we have,” the U.S. official said of Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif. ”"He doesn’t have the (data) collection potential that we have.”
The Libyan leader told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the government in Tripoli harbors “no doubt” that the Sept. 11 attack that killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was “preplanned, predetermined.” That assessment conflicted directly with the preliminary conclusion offered on Sunday by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who appeared on all five Sunday morning talk shows.
There, Rice maintained that the Benghazi incident “was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo, as a consequence of the video,” and that after the protest outside the U.S. consulate gathered steam, “those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons.”
Asked if the timing of the Benghazi incident – the eleventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks — was simply a coincidence, the senior U.S. official said on Monday: “It is coincidental. All evidence we have points to this video being the spark of these events. In all of the intel and traffic, there was no one out there saying, ‘Oh, it’s September 11th, we must avenge…’”
The senior U.S. official added that this is “the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community at this point,” and that Rice “was not out there volunteering her own opinions.”
The official also discounted as “not accurate” reports that staff at U.S. embassy in Egypt warned the State Department — in a cable purportedly sent on the afternoon of Sept. 10 — about the effect the anti-Islam video was having, and the likelihood of violent protests in Cairo, but received no response from Washington.
“There was cable traffic, involving discussion of the video and the potential for protests, the Embassy was aware,” the U.S. official told Fox News. ”There were discussions about protests between the relevant agencies — intel and State — but the idea that there was no response from State is false.”
Officials at the State Department and the White House continue to express satisfaction with the cooperation they are receiving from foreign governments in the protection of American diplomats and their families. This is said to be especially the case in those instances where President Obama has reached out to foreign heads of state, namely Egypt, Yemen and Libya.
Still, the State Department over the weekend — in a shift of plans that occurred sometime after Friday evening — announced the evacuation of diplomats’ family members and “non-essential” personnel from U.S. Embassies in Tunisia and Sudan, sites of some of the most violent scenes on Friday.
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, James Rosen and Pamela Browne contributed to this report.
I find it utterly amazing how all of the Main Stream Media has this overwhelming determination to hide any negative news about Barack Obama or the Liberal Democrats in general while maintaining a high profile non stop attack on Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan and all Conservatives in general.
After seeing the eight years of Bush bashing only to be followed by four more years of Bush blaming we then saw the attacks on Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, and anyone else who held an opposing view of what they wanted America to be.
American Journalism is Dead and is now reminiscent of the Soviet Pravda News Agency we saw in the former Soviet Union.
What ever happened to the days when Journalists simply Reported the News?
I for one am Amazed that the American People have remained Silent for so long on this issue and have allowed this type of Propaganda to continue.
America needs to stand up once and for all and let these Networks know that We the People will no longer tolerate this kind of Misinformation and Deception upon an unsuspecting American People.
Join with me if you will in Contacting NPR, ABC, NBC,CBS, CNN,MSNBC and yes, Foxnews letting them know that you have had enough and will turn them off in Protest.
If Barack Obama is re-elected to a Second Term it will be because a Misinformed Public refused to seek out the Truth
(The Blaze/AP) – Fox News is reporting the President Obama has granted Attorney General Eric Holder executive privilege on documents pertaining to Operation “Fast and Furious.”
Holder recently agreed to provide additional subpoenaed documents to members of Congress, including Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), however, the latest move indicates the attorney general has no intention of making good on his promise.
Watch (LIVE) the House committee meeting to consider Holder contempt citation here.
In a letter to President Obama, Holder wrote, “I am writing to request that you assert executive privilege with respect to confidential Department of Justice (“Department”) documents that are responsive to the subpoena issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the United States House of Representatives (“Committee”) on October 25, 2011. The subpoena relates to the Committee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, a law enforcement operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona to stem the illegal flow of firearms from the United States to drug cartels in Mexico (“Fast and Furious”).”
“The documents at issue fit squarely within the scope of executive privilege. In connection with prior assertions of executive privilege, two Attorneys General have advised the President that documents of this kind are within the scope of executive privilege.”
During the hearing, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) argued invoking executive privilege brings into question whether or not Holder and Obama both were aware of Fast and Furious.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) called the contempt vote a “witch hunt.” She also later argued for stricter gun laws.
“I am horrified that you are going forward with this contempt charge when the President of the United States and the administration has invoked executive privilege,” she said. “The Attorney General is being attacked for protecting documents that he is prohibited by law from producing.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox News made the argument that the use of executive privilege may be a lose-lose situation for the attorney general.
“If the President was not personally involved, executive privilege does not apply. If the President was personally involved, and they want to argue that fighting drug gangs at the border is a matter of sensitive national security, then they at least have an argument for executive privilege but that would be at odds with what Attorney General Holder has already testified to under oath,” he said. “Then he’d be in a lot of hot water.”
Napolitano’s assertion comes near the end of this Fox News report:
Obama asserted executive privilege for the first time Wednesday. He applied the presidential power to withhold documents a House committee is seeking in an investigation of a flawed gun-smuggling probe called Operation Fast and Furious.
Presidents have the right to invoke executive privilege to preserve the confidentiality of information and documents in the face of legislative inquiries. The White House says presidents have asserted that privilege 25 times since 1980.
Here’s a look at how many times each president since Ronald Reagan have asserted executive privilege:
Issa pushes ahead with Holder contempt vote despite Obama intervention
Rep. Darrell Issa pressed ahead with a committee vote Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, despite an 11th-hour move by President Obama to exert executive privilege over the Fast and Furious documents at the heart of the dispute.
The announcement instantly touched off a caustic debate on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as Democrats accused Issa of prosecuting a “political witch hunt” and Republicans stepped up their criticism of Holder’s “stonewalling” over the Fast and Furious probe. Even for Washington, the tone at the hearing was decidedly bitter and accusatory.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was first informed of the president’s decision to exert executive privilege in a letter Wednesday morning, shortly before the contempt vote was scheduled.
Issa said committee staff are evaluating the letter but described the move as too little, too late as he and other GOP lawmakers questioned the basis for the assertion.
“This untimely assertion by the Justice Department falls short of any reason to delay today’s proceedings,” Issa said.
Issa accused the Justice Department of trying to compel the committee to close its investigation in exchange for documents it hasn’t yet seen. “I can’t accept that deal. No other committee chairman would,” he said.
But Issa’s Democratic counterpart, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., fired back that Holder never made such a demand — a Justice official also refuted Issa’s claim — and said the attorney general had come to the committee in “good faith” to try and work out an agreement.
Cummings said the upcoming contempt vote has “diminished” the prestige of the panel. “For the past year, you’ve been holding the attorney general to an impossible standard,” he said, addressing Issa. “Mr. Chairman, it did not have to be this way. It really didn’t.”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., added that she was “horrified” by the panel’s looming vote, calling it a “political witch hunt” and accusing Republicans of “overruling” the president.
If the vote proceeds, Republicans have more than enough votes on committee to pass the contempt resolution. However, Holder would not be considered held in contempt of Congress unless and until the full House approves the measure.
The move by Holder and Obama to lock down some requested documents only complicates the fight over the botched anti-gunrunning operation between the legislative and executive branches.
After Holder made the request to Obama via letter on Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Wednesday informing him that the president has granted the request.
“We regret that we have arrived at this point, after the many steps we have taken to address the committee’s concerns and to accommodate the committee’s legitimate oversight interests regarding Operation Fast and Furious,” Cole wrote. “Although we are deeply disappointed that the committee appears intent on proceeding with a contempt vote, the department remains willing to work with the committee to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution of the outstanding issues.”
Obama’s decision pertains to documents from February 2011 and afterward examining how Justice officials learned about the Fast and Furious probe.
Holder, in his letter to Obama requesting he assert executive privilege, said those documents pertain to the “deliberative process” on how to respond to congressional and media inquiries.
Wednesday’s developments follow a flurry of activity Tuesday, as Holder tried to negotiate a way to avert the contempt proceedings. Issa had earlier indicated a willingness to postpone the vote after Holder indicated a willingness to make compromises and supply some documents in response to House Republicans’ subpoena.
But Issa told reporters after a roughly 20-minute meeting with Holder Tuesday that the attorney general instead briefed them on the documents in lieu of delivering them.
Issa told Fox News that Holder didn’t provide “anything in writing,” and said the family of murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry wants the documents as much as he does.
“We want the documents. Brian Terry’s family would like the documents that are responsive to how in fact their son was gunned down with weapons that came from lawful dealers but at the … behest of the Justice Department,” Issa told Fox News. Weapons from the Fast and Furious anti-gunrunning operation were found at Terry’s murder scene.
Issa further said during the committee meeting Wednesday that the purpose of the probe “has never been to hold the attorney general in contempt.” He said the committee had an aide on Capitol Hill all night in the hope that the Justice Department might send over documents to the panel.
The failed Fast and Furious operation attempted selling thousands of guns to arms dealers along the U.S.-Mexico border to trace them to leaders of drug cartels. However, many of them showed up in crime scenes.
Congressional investigators have been trying to determine if and when high-level Justice officials knew about problems with the operation.
Holder said Issa rejected what he thought was “an extraordinary offer.” Holder called for the Capitol Hill meeting late Monday in a possible attempt to make a deal with Issa and avoid the contempt vote.
“We offered the documents that we thought would resolve the subpoenas,” he said. “The ball is in their court.”
The contempt vote in the oversight committee will likely pass considering Republicans outnumber Democrats 22 to 16.
GOP House leadership has given Issa the green light to proceed how he sees fit, sources told Fox News, which suggests the vote would reach the House floor.
Issa had demanded to see a trove of documents on the controversial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation. He also wants to know who prepared a now-retracted letter from Feb. 4, 2011, in which the department claimed the U.S. did not knowingly help smuggle guns to Mexico, including those found where Terry was killed.
Issa wrote back to Holder later Monday requesting he deliver roughly 1,300 documents pertaining to the Feb. 4 letter. The letter also stated Holder needed to deliver a description of all the documents he will not produce.
Fox News’ William LaJeunesse and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
In Lieu of acting upon his own call for Civility Our Paranoid Narcissist President did have his Re-Election Campaign launch a New Web-Site to fact check any and all negative comments and reports concerning his Policies and or Agenda for America. AttackWatch.Com is the place this President wants Americans to go for the sake of Reporting on their Family, Friends, and Neighbors.
May 27,2012
The Blaze Reports:
Obama’s Truth Teams:
‘Fight Back, Report an Attack’
Back in February, The Blaze reported on Obama’s “Truth Teams,” described on the official site as “a network of [President Obama's] supporters who are committed to responding to unfounded attacks and defending the President’s record.”
“When you’re faced with someone who misrepresents the truth, you can find all the facts you need right here—along with ways to share the message with whoever needs to hear it,” the site continues.
However, after consistent ridicule (particularly over the “Attack Watch” section of the site), the Truth Teams started flying lower on the political radar.
“Received a robo-call or an email forward full of falsehoods? Found a misleading leaflet in your mail?” it asks.
“Tell us about it, and help fight back against the attacks on President Obama and his record.”
Aside from the hypocrisy of the Obama campaign saying things like, “fight back” and “attack” after ceaselessly criticizingSarah Palin for almost identical language, Jake Tapper is reporting that the email “conflates smears with criticisms” by citing a largely debunked study at the outset.
The study, by Market Watch, essentially claims that Barack Obama not the big spender everyone believes him to be, telling readers “it didn’t happen.”
Tapper writes:
Here’s the problem: the Market Watch [study] has been refuted by several fact checkers as severely flawed, notwithstanding its citation by White House press secretary Jay Carney…
The Washington Post’s Fact Checker gave Carney three Pinocchios, writing that the “data in the article are flawed, and the analysis lacks context — context that could easily could be found in the budget documents released by the White House.”
In Tapper’s estimation, then, the White House is “muddying the waters” between criticism and actual falsehoods in citing this particular study as an “attack,” when independent sources have proven that it is simply not true.
Saying that Obama is a big spender is not an “attack;” it is simply stating the facts.
More than that, when combined with Obama’s record of “naming and shaming” Romney donors, a site encouraging people to “report” Americans who disagree with the administration seems more and more like a thinly-veiled attempt to quiet the opposition.
Perhaps signaling another flood of sarcastic conservative criticism, one tweeter commented: “[A] thought on Attack Watch 2.0. The President’s job is to protect free speech, not control it.”
White House Ridiculed on Twitter for Altering Presidential Biography Pages
It was reported yesterday that the White House has “amended” the biography of nearly every U.S. president of the past century, adding a “Did you know?” section at the end where they tied former presidents’ accomplishments to those of president Obama.
At the bottom of Reagan’s biography, for instance, the White House tried to plug the “Buffett Rule.” Did you know, it asks, that “In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.”
The Calvin Coolidge connection is no less far-fetched. “On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc,” it explains.
While the adjustments don’t reach back as far as Woodrow Wilson, only a modest link to FDR is mentioned: “On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama Administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.”
The move is drawing ridicule in conservative circles, even inspiring a Twitter hashtag, #ObamaInHistory, that started trending worldwide.
Here are some of the best we found:
@stevenfhayward: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. And President Obama was there to say it was good. #obamainhistory
@huds_d: In Greek mythology, Narcissus gazed into a pond and saw Obama’s face #obamainhistory
@JohnSantorelli: Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492 and Obama was there to apologize and bow to the natives. #ObamaInHistory
@CuffyMeh: In 1803, Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase for $233 million in today’s dollars, which Obama spent while you read this. #ObamaInHistory
@EthanMyers007: 30,000 Americans died on the Oregon Trail due to lack of health insurance. #ObamaInHistory
@iowahawkblog:#Obamainhistory Washington could not tell a lie, Nixon could not tell the truth, Obama can’t tell the difference
@red_red_head: Obama assured Henry Ford the Volt would be a great idea, but Ford wasn’t sold on the idea of exploding vehicles. #ObamaInHistory
@AllanRofer: Prior presidencies are merely the canvas upon which Obama’s administration masterpiece is writ. #ObamaInHistory
The Republican National Committee similarly summarized: “Obama in History — World Changing Events You Didn’t Know Obama Played A Part In.”
But White House defended its actions, saying: “No biographies have been altered…We simply added links at the bottom of each page to related whitehouse.gov content, which is a commonly used best practice to encourage people to browse more pages on a site.”
How can you add something, without altering the original? And it’s clearly not just an effort to encourage people to “browse more pages.”
“Each one finds a way to tout an Obama administration policy or practice in the process,” Fox describes.
But this isn’t surprising to anyone who has followed presidential politics…After all, Barack knows that “we’re going to have to change our traditions, [and] our history.”
Between things like Anita Dunn’s professed love for Mao Tse-Tung and the not-controversy surrounding the president’snew campaign slogan (“Forward!”), we suspect White House staffers are getting awfully tired of responding to questions about whether the Obama administration employs at least a few communist-sympathizing officials.
Writing on his personal blog Monday, Boosktaber posted a refutation of conservative author Tucker Carlson’s claim that, by repeatedly singling out the “wealthy,” Democrats are waging “class warfare.”
“There is little that matches the artfulness of the rich in waving off criticism of the widening income gap as ‘class warfare,’” Bookstaber writes. “And there is little that matches the gullibility of the rest in following along.”
“I am not picking sides in this war,” he added, “but I believe such a war is justifiable, and indeed ultimately inevitable.”
During the industrial revolution class warfare centered on the length of the working day. A tightly defined working day only appeared with the advent of the industrial revolution. Before then laborers worked when they needed money, and then quit for a time once they fulfilled their needs. But regimentation and a dependable workforce became necessary once there was machinery to run and capital invested, and so with industrialization came the an enforced workday. So it is not surprising that Marx stated the central battle of class warfare at the time in terms of the working day:
The capitalist maintains his rights as a purchaser when he tries to make the working-day as long as possible, and to make, whenever possible, two working-days out of one. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consumption by the purchaser, and the laborer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working-day to one of definite normal duration. There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class. – Marx, Das Kapital
Karl Marx, of course, is most famously known as the father of communism. His political philosophy was adopted and implemented by infamous dictators — including Vladimir Lenin, Mao Tse-Tung, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Min, Fidel Castro, and Che Gueverra — whose search for the perfect collectivist society led to the deaths of approximately 100 million people, according to the historian Stéphane Courtois.
Hat tip to The Blaze for this report
Attorney General – Eric Holder
Assistant Deputy Secretary, Department of Education – Kevin Jennings
to carry out all kinds of humanitarian and military actions, seeming unaware that the UN has never been supportive of US interests. They don’t stop wars; they don’t sanction terrorist regimes, and their internal corruption is so pervasive they can’t even carry out humanitarian missions. But rather than hold the UN responsible for its obvious failings over the years, Rice blamed Bush for being “unilateral” and for “stiff-arming our partners.” She even sits on the board of the UN Fund for UNICEF, an agency which has been repeatedly caught giving aid to terrorists, and during the Cold War, assisting communist insurgents.More seriously, she is overly cautious in regard to fighting terrorism. The former Ambassador to Sudan implicated Rice as the person who bungled the opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden when Sudanese officials offered him to the USA on a silver platter during the Clinton years.She rejected their offer. There’s a good chance 9/11 could have been avoided if Rice had accepted the Sudanese offer. Apparently, even though she worked for the NSC, she didn’t regard Al-Qaeda as a threat. No wonder we were hit on 9/11. And now she’s our UN Ambassador? I wonder whose interests she will serve…probably the UNs.
Counsel, State Department – Harold Koh 
Advisor, Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy – Rosa Brooks
Political advisor – David Axelrod
Bansal is very close to Obama; she acts behind the scenes advising him regarding the selection of federal judges. She is on the far left side of the judicial spectrum and is a leader of the misnamed American Constitutional Society, a group that believes in a “living Constitution” and works to “debunk” the “original intent” concept. Indeed, ACS’s view that the Constitution should constantly change undermines the very purpose for having a constitution. Needless to say, the ACS is obsessed with criminal rights, illegal alien rights, terrorist rights, and other phony rights. ACS is America’s main networking group for far-left attorneys and is where Bansal is recruiting many of Obama’s judicial nominees.
Director, Domestic Policy Council – Melody Barnes
