Obama Celebrates Rosa Parks By Publishing Picture of Himself

Yesterday the White House tweeted out the following photo in honor of the 57th anniversary of Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus. President Obama really can't help but insert himself into nearly every situation in some way. Remember when he gave Queen Elizabeth of England an iPod full of his speeches? Or how about when the White House changed all of the presidential bios on WhiteHouse.gov to include an accomplishment by President Obama?

In terms of the photo above I can understand the comparison. Rosa Parks was the first black woman to take a stand against discrimination on public transportation while Barack Obama is the first black president, however, he should have published a photo of Rosa Parks on the anniversary of her bold actions, rather than one of himself.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/03/obama_celebrates_rosa_parks_by_publishing_picture_of_himself

NFL player’s murder-suicide is a tragedy — in more ways than one

NBC Sports’ Bob Costas wasted no breath during last night’s broadcast in expounding his (and I’d wager his networks’) views on guns and gun control. As TheBlaze reported, Costas cited an article by Fox sportswriter Jason Whitlock which argued that America’s “gun culture” promotes homicide, or something.
What Costas and Belcher never bothered researching, however, are the million other reasons why a crazy man would kill himself and his girlfriend in cold blood. While a gun might arguably make it easier for someone to kill, it ultimately does not drive one to kill. The real questions we as a society should be considering are what kind of circumstances, conditions or psychological break down led Belcher to choose suicide and murder as bookends to his life and career. I’m not a criminal profiler or a psychoanalyst, but it doesn’t take an expert to note that shooting someone nine times is not an accident or a rash consequence in the heat of the moment — it is a crime of passion with a history behind it.

What that history is should be the focus on commentary going forward. It can serve as a warning to men and women who find themselves in a state of mind similar to Belcher’s. It can serve as a warning to men and women who notice similar behavioral patterns in others. But pursuing this line of inquiry is not as easy as blaming America’s faceless/raceless/nameless “gun culture.” No, instead liberals shutter a potential window of introspection, opting instead for a petty political battle meant only to divide people in a time when they should be coming together to mourn this loss of life and the significant ramifications for all those involved, including Belcher’s now-orphaned child.

I imagine it’s also no coincidence that Whitlock’s name appears in news stories today almost as much as Belcher’s. It seems Mr. Whitlock is soaking in the limelight and using this tragedy to advance his own stature in the political arena. Take, for instance, his interview today with Roland Martin. Whitlock’s displayed “expertise” here comes not as a sports columnist, but as a political commentator or wannabe sociologist (transcript via Newsbusters):

WHITLOCK: Sports gets so much attention, and people tune out the real world, that I try to take advantage of the opportunity to talk about the real world when sports lends itself to that and try to open people’s eyes. You know, I did not go as far as I’d like to go because my thoughts on the NRA and America’s gun culture – I believe the NRA is the new KKK. And that the arming of so many black youths, uh, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don’t have our best interests [at heart].

I think it’s obvious if you’ve traveled abroad, and traveled to countries where they have legitimate gun laws, that we don’t have to have what we have in America, where people somehow think a gun enhances their liberty, and that people somehow think a gun makes them safer. It just doesn’t. A gun turns some kids listening to music into a murder scene. And uh, you know, if you don’t have a gun, you drive home. You know, kids listening to some loud music, you don’t like it, you go home and complain to your wife. But when you have a gun, you open fire, potentially, and take the life of a child.

This doesn’t sound like a man concerned with the plight of black youth; it sounds like a guy who has an axe to grind with the NRA. Whitlock’s “NRA is the new KKK” soundbite is like red meat to liberals, marrying two of their very favorite topics: gun control and racism. (Speaking of getting political, I wonder what Whitlock’s views are on Fast and Furious and Planned Parenthood’s invasion of urban neighborhoods?)
But what does any of this have to do with Belcher? The answer is absolutely nothing… that is, unless Whitlock is trying to blame Belcher’s murder-suicide on “loud music.”

Here’s hoping the media might soon wake up to the reality that gun owners are not all predestined murderers, and that a psychopath determined to kill will succeed in doing so, with or without a firearm. So, is it a better use of our time to debate how guns “kill” people, or how things like moral decay in our society mold and shape ruthless criminals?

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2012/12/03/nfl-players-murder-suicide-is-a-tragedy-in-more-ways-than-one/

House GOP makes a $2.2 trillion debt counteroffer to Obama on cliff

House Republican leaders have made a counteroffer to President Obama in the fiscal cliff negotiations, proposing to cut $2.2 trillion with a combination of spending cuts, entitlement reforms and $800 billion in new tax revenue.

The leaders delivered the offer to the White House on Monday with a three-page letter signed by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and four other senior Republicans, including Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the party’s just-defeated vice presidential nominee.

Republican officials said the offer was based on a proposal outlined by Erskine Bowles, the former chief of staff to President Clinton, in testimony last year before the congressional “supercommittee” on deficit reduction. That offer is distinct from the widely-cited Simpson-Bowles deficit plan released two years ago.
The GOP offer is a response to Obama’s opening bid, which called for $1.6 trillion in tax increases and reducing the power of Congress to block an increase in the debt ceiling.

“What we are putting forward is a credible plan that deserves serious consideration by the White House,” Boehner told reporters in a brief appearance at the Capitol. He said he hoped the administration would respond in a timely manner.

He characterized it as a response to what he called the “la-la land” offer that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner presented to congressional leaders last week.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/270649-house-republicans-make-22t-counter-offer-to-obama-in-debt-talksklj

PK'S Notes: Obama has already turned down the offer. Being that fast, you can be sure they already had it ready no matter what the offer was.
Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming believes President Barack Obama is "comfortable going off the [fiscal] cliff."

"I think the president is increasingly showing his hand that he is comfortable going off the cliff," Barrasso tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD, in response to a question about President Obama's negotiation strategy. "He’s not involving Republicans in the process. He was playing golf this weekend with Bill Clinton, Ron Kirk, and ex-DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. He’s not seeming to be one to work together. He seems to be lecturing more than listening. And I just think that it’s increasingly clear he's comfortable going off the cliff."

The Republican senator believes Obama's posture is being reinforced by bad advice he's getting from some of his fellow Democrats. "[T]hat’s what he’s being advised to do by a number of his Democratic colleagues—Howard Dean, former chairman of the DNC said they should go off the cliff, Patty Murray, who ran the senatorial committee, said they should go off the cliff," says Barrasso in a phone interview, referring multiple times to Obama’s weekend golf outing with Democratic stalwarts.

Barrasso thinks Obama should be working on getting a deal with the Republicans in Congress instead of spending his weekend on the golf course with such partisans.

Additionally, Barrasso believes Obama's willingness to go off the cliff relates to his view of achieving fairness through the tax code.

"The president is so fixated on higher taxes that he’s giving up on [the prospect of] a healthy economy. We’re going to see unemployment over 9 percent in this second recession, I believe, if the president doesn’t work together to find a bipartisan solution," says Barrasso.

"I can’t figure out many of the president’s moves. But you read Bob Woodward’s book, The Price of Politics, you can see that the president does not seem to want to work together to find real solutions. I look at this, it seems his number one priority—his stated number one priority—is to increase tax rates on the wealthy. Not necessarily tax revenue, but just tax rates. And he said in the past that’s because it’s fair. Well, it doesn’t really fix the problem. It’s still just a drop in the bucket in terms of how much revenue could be raised by increasing tax rates. You know, John Boehner has put revenue on the table. And the president ought to be focused on the number one priority: an actual solution to the problem, not something that’s just focused on his politics."

The Wyoming senator explains the consequences of a cliff dive.

“It means increasing unemployment. It means the possibility of a second recession,” says Barrasso. “And I think that is a huge downside to his presidency for the next four years. You know, he ought to work together. We have a Republican House, we have a Democrat in the White House, and what we need is finding a solution on this, then we can work on other problems in a bipartisan way. It also sends a signal to the markets that we as a nation are not responsible and serious about our current fiscal situation."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/senator-increasingly-clear-obamas-comfortable-going-cliff_664432.html

Columbia University Prof. Says Pledge Not to Raise Taxes ‘Seditious’ and ‘Treasonous’ in Bizarre YouTube Vid

Columbia University professor Dr. Robert Thurman posted a video on YouTube recently in which he accuses Republicans who oppose tax increases of violating their oath of office.

“I am making this short video because I want to start a meme about those people in our government who refuse to cooperate with the president, and with the more practical and pragmatic senators and congresspersons,” he explains in the Nov. 20 video, which only recently was discovered by national media.
Of those elected to serve in the nation’s highest positions, Thurman continues, “there are some who are not fulfilling their vow of office, their oath of office.”

The crux of his argument appears to be that, in signing a pledge circulated by Grover Norquist not to vote for tax increases, they are violating their pledge to be loyal to the United States Constitution.

The professor, who specializes in Indo-Tibetan studies according to the Daily Caller, takes his time explaining the argument:

“…95% of the congressmen and Republican senators have sworn a written oath to someone called Grover Norquist and an organization called American For Tax Reform that they will under no circumstances, and for no reason, raise taxes of any kind on anyone. And therefore, they have taken an oath to an outside organization which was not supported by the U.S. Constitution – which gives Congress the right to levy taxes, to do the work of the people through the government– but this is a non-governmental organization. It is not elected by anybody; it is supported by big money people who are making money by not having to pay taxes.

“And these people have signed a sworn oath that contradicts their oath of office. And therefore, in fact, they do have mental reservations, and they do have purpose of evasion and they are not sincerely taking their oath of office. And if they persist in that, and if they are held to that by this outside person who is not a member of the government, then they are, in fact, breaking their oath of office and they are not serving what they swore to serve, the American people.
[...]
So I want the seriousness of this blackmailing of the government that they are doing to be out there in people’s minds, that’s the meme I want to start…Everybody wants to be polite, you and know I’m a liberal, I want to be polite, and I’m trying to be polite, but this is a really serious thing that is going on, which is paralyzing our government and causing tremendous loss to us… [Emphasis added]

Thurman continues to speak with horror about Norquist’s goals of reducing the size of government, saying it’s a kind of “anarchist proposition.”

“Therefore, it is actually a kind of seditious oath, [a] treasonous oath,” he asserts. “People who take that oath cannot actually serve in the government with good conscience, because their real role is to act as a mole, and to destroy the government…”

Dr. Thurman could not immediately be reached for comment, but you can watch the entire video– in which he proceeds to explain how low taxes appeal to “religious” people who take the book of Revelations seriously– below:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/columbia-university-prof-says-pledge-not-to-raise-taxes-seditious-and-treasonous-in-bizarre-youtube-vid/

PK's NOTE: It says a lot about Columbia University that he does not understand that the Oath is NOT to Grover but to the constituents of the district they are going to represent. Not to mention, tax protests are the reasons why this country was founded