Pearl Harbor in Perspective

By Michael Kelbaugh
December 7, 1941 is a date which will live in infamy. Any unfounded illusions held by peace-loving Americans concerning the intentions of Imperial Japan or its ally Nazi Germany were painfully but necessarily shattered that day, on which our nation was stirred into action before it was too late to stop the threat that the Axis powers posed to us and the rest of the world.

Franklin Roosevelt is universally acclaimed as a good war president, guiding the United States through an unprecedented time of global upheaval. His domestic policies, however, granted enormous powers to the federal government that it has not since failed to abuse.

The Axis powers have come and gone, but the internal dangers created by Roosevelt's New Deal still plague us today. No member of the Greatest Generation could have predicted that while Japan, our deadliest enemy, would soon become one of our closest allies, a benign little program called Social Security would one day threaten to exhaust our nation's finances and economy.

The most devastating attack since December 7, 1941 came nearly sixty years later, on September 11. Very few, in the wake of that day, could have imagined that we would not suffer an attack of similar magnitude within the next seven years. But for the rest of George Bush's presidency, the country was kept safe, notwithstanding the moral indignation of those who wished to bestow the constitutional rights enjoyed by American citizens on the cutthroats devoted to those citizens' destruction. But even the Bush administration, through entitlement expansion, subsidized housing, and more spending, helped contribute to our current fiscal troubles.

We face weighty international challenges today, with a Middle East as unstable as ever and a state sponsor of terrorism still intent on obtaining a nuclear weapon. But the United States, miraculously, has thus far survived every single external threat, often emerging stronger than before. For the most part, the federal government over the years has fulfilled its primary role of protecting the citizenry and providing for the common defense. But the ugly visage of international Communism has proven a less formidable adversary than the iconic, mass-produced smiley-face of Westernized socialism.

For this generation of Americans, it is our budgets, not our battlefields, which are stained red -- and the small, internal matters, more so than anything dramatic, that have slowly but very steadily contributed to the possibility of a looming demise.

Our next bunch of heroic representatives who will take office in Washington this January are not unlikely to bungle the complex matters of Israel and Egypt and Iran, along with the simple and commonplace act of balancing a budget. But it may well be the latter failure that most imperils our nation's future.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/pearl_harbor_in_perspective.html#ixzz2EPBBogAr

"Poor" Households Getting $168 in Welfare Per Day from Taxpayers

It's official. Taxpayers are no longer simply helping the poor, they're subsidizing the lives of welfare recipients at a better rate than their own. The Senate Budget Committee has released a report showing households living below the poverty line and receiving welfare payments are raking in the equivalent of $168 per day in benefits which come in the form of food stamps, housing, childcare, healthcare and more. The median household income in 2011 was $50,054, totaling $137.13 per day. The worst part? Welfare payments are equivalent to making $30 per hour for 40 hours a week. The median wage for non-welfare recipients is $25 per hour but because they pay taxes, unlike welfare recipients, the wage is bumped down to $21 per hour. From the report:

For fiscal year 2011, CRS identified roughly 80 overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs that together represented the single largest budget item in 2011—more than the nation spends on Social Security, Medicare, or national defense. The total amount spent on these federal programs, when taken together with approximately $280 billion in state contributions, amounted to roughly $1 trillion. Nearly 95 percent of these costs come from four categories of spending: medical assistance, cash assistance, food assistance, and social / housing assistance. Under the President’s FY13 budget proposal, means-tested spending would increase an additional 30 percent over the next four years.

By all means Mr. President, let's raise taxes on people already paying the majority of the taxes because clearly they aren't "paying their fair share" to subsize the lives of others already.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/07/poor_households_getting_168_in_welfare_per_day_from_taxpayers

Phony cheer in unemployment numbers

Obama partisans are hailing the "surprising" fall in unemployment as a sign that a recovery is showing strength. But the official metric for unemployment, U-3, counts only people actively looking for jobs, and that is the figure which has declined to 7.7%. Neil Irwin in the Washington Post explains:

The jobless rate dropped in large part because the labor force fell by 350,000, suggesting that people gave up looking for work. The number of people saying they had a job actually fell by 122,000. And the Labor Department revised downward its estimates of job creation in September and October by a combined 49,000.

So as 122k more people became unemployed, we celebrate a decline in unemployment. Welcome to the fantasy world of government statistics.
It is even worse. Guess who's been hiring? Terrey Jeffrey knows:

The unemployment rate for government workers plunged from 4.2 percent in October to 3.8 percent in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as government added 35,000 to its taxpayer-funded payrolls during the month.

In October, federal, state and local governments in the United States employed 20,524,000 people. In November, that climbed to20,559,000.

As recently as July, the unemployment rate for government workers was as high as 5.7 percent, according to the BLS. That month, government employed only 20,015,000.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/phony_cheer_in_unemployment_numbers.html#ixzz2EOzFym52

PK'S NOTE: Why are these numbers important? Because government workers (Federal and State) are paid by taxpayers, you and me. They aren't paid from profits or really contribute to the overall revenue. This is more money OUT.

It’s nothing but a power play

By Charles Krauthammer

Let’s understand President Obama’s strategy in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. It has nothing to do with economics or real fiscal reform. This is entirely about politics. It’s Phase 2 of the 2012 campaign. The election returned him to office. The fiscal cliff negotiations are designed to break the Republican opposition and grant him political supremacy, something he thinks he earned with his landslide 2.8-point victory margin on Election Day.

This is why he sent Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to the Republicans to convey not a negotiating offer but a demand for unconditional surrender. House Speaker John Boehner had made a peace offering of $800 billion in new revenue. Geithner pocketed Boehner’s $800 billion, doubled it to $1.6 trillion, offered risible cuts that in 2013 would actually be exceeded by new stimulus spending and then demanded that Congress turn over to the president all power over the debt ceiling.

Boehner was stunned. Mitch McConnell laughed out loud. In nobler days, they’d have offered Geithner a pistol and an early-morning appointment at Weehawken. Alas, Boehner gave again, coming back a week later with spending-cut suggestions — as demanded by Geithner — only to have them dismissed with a wave of the hand.

What’s going on here? Having taken Boehner’s sword, and then his shirt, Obama sent Geithner to demand Boehner’s trousers. Perhaps this is what Obama means by a balanced approach.

He pretends that Boehner’s offer to raise revenue by eliminating deductions rather than by raising rates is fiscally impossible.

But on July 22, 2011, Obama had said that “$1.2 trillion in additional revenues . . . could be accomplished without hiking tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions and engaging in a tax reform process.” Which is exactly what the Republicans are offering today.
You’ve heard of situational ethics. This is situational mathematics.

As for the alleged curative effect on debt of Obama’s tax-rate demand — the full rate hike on the “rich” would have reduced the 2012 deficit from $1.10 trillion to $1.02 trillion.

That’s a joke, a rounding error.

Such nonsense abounds because Obama’s objective in these negotiations is not economic but political: not to solve the debt crisis but to fracture the Republican majority in the House. Get Boehner to cave, pass the tax hike with Democratic votes provided by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and let the Republican civil war begin.

It doesn’t even matter whether Boehner gets deposed as speaker. Either way, the Republican House would be neutered, giving Obama a free hand to dominate Washington and fashion the entitlement state of his liking.

This is partisan zero-sum politics. Nothing more. Obama has never shown interest in genuine debt reduction. He does nothing for two years, then spends the next two ignoring his own debt-reduction commission. In less than four years, he has increased U.S. public debt by a staggering 83 percent. As a percentage of gross domestic product, the real marker of national solvency, it has spiked from 45 percent to 70 percent.

Obama has never once publicly suggested a structural cut in entitlements. On the contrary, he created an entirely new entitlement — Obamacare — that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will increase spending by $1.7 trillion over 11 years.

What’s he thinking? Doesn’t Obama see looming ahead the real economic cliff — a European-like collapse under the burden of unsustainable debt? Perhaps, but he wants to complete his avowedly transformational social-democratic agenda first and let his successors — likely Republican — act as tax collectors on the middle class (where the real money is) and takers of subsidies from the mouths of babes.

Or possibly Obama will get fiscal religion and undertake tax and entitlement reform in his second term — but only after having destroyed the Republican opposition so that he can carry out the reformation on his own ideological terms.

What should Republicans do? Stop giving stuff away. If Obama remains intransigent, let him be the one to take us over the cliff. And then let the new House, which is sworn in weeks before the president, immediately introduce and pass a full across-the-board restoration of the George W. Bush tax cuts.

Obama will counter with the usual all-but-the-rich tax cut — as the markets gyrate and the economy begins to wobble under his feet.

Result? We’re back to square one, but with a more level playing field. The risk to Obama will be rising and the debt ceiling will be looming. Most important of all, however, Republicans will still be in possession of their unity, their self-respect — and their trousers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-its-nothing-but-a-power-play/2012/12/06/83061050-3fde-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html

Two tales of pleas for help ignored, and two different reactions

In New York City, a man thrown onto the subway tracks tries frantically to clamber back onto the platform. For 20 seconds or so (which surely seemed like an eternity) no one lifts a finger to help, as the train bears down on him and ultimately kills him.

A photographer (who evidently felt bound - like the crew of the Starship Enterprise -- by some "Prime Directive" forbidding interference) documents the tragedy. He proffers all manner of excuses for his behavior.

Across the nation a great hue and cry is raised; people are outraged that such a thing could be allowed to happen.

In Benghazi, Libya, American consular personnel are attacked by a mob equipped with military-grade weapons. For some 7 hours (which surely seemed like an eternity) their government, from the president on down, fails to heed their pleas for help; ultimately, four of them are slain, at least one after being tortured.
The attack is documented by live video which is watched by those who could order deployment of rescue and counterattack forces, but who nevertheless decline to lift a finger. Later they proffer all manner of excuses for their behavior.

Across the nation the reaction is ho-hum. The majority of the populace (largely the same majority that re-elected the president) remains unfazed and indifferent.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions about 21^st Century America.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/two_tales_of_pleas_for_help_ignored_and_two_different_reactions.html#ixzz2EP99VYkV

Obama Remembers Pearl Harbor By Promoting Picture of Himself

Just this week President Obama celebrated Rosa Parks by publishing a photo of himself on a bus and now the White House can't even commemorate Pearl Harbor without bringing Obama's face into the picture. From the White House Twitter feed:

Because it's all about him.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/12/07/obama_remembers_pearl_harbor_by_promoting_picture_of_himself

It's Time To Turn the Tables on this Presidential Bully

By David Limbaugh
Something is very wrong in the world when the most dogmatic and inflexible president in recent memory can make unreasonable demands of his GOP budget opponents and yet be confident they'll be blamed for the impasse.

It is past time Barack Obama be held accountable for his intentionally irresponsible fiscal policies that are guaranteed to take us into national bankruptcy. It is outrageous enough that he is steering us into insolvency, but it is unbearable that he's fraudulently blaming the Republican Party for it to boot.

This is not a close call, and reasonable people, if they understood the facts, would not support Obama. The problem is that so many people who trust him, inexplicably, look no further than his disingenuous statements and the liberal media's slanted reporting, and the Republican Party leadership simply cannot seem to get its message across. It would help if they evidenced more faith in the wisdom of their own approach.

This isn't complicated. Our financial problems are overwhelmingly a result of excess spending, not of insufficient tax revenues. Increasing rates or decreasing deductions won't make a speck of difference, and Obama knows it.

Our $16 trillion national debt and our $100 trillion of unfunded liabilities are going to destroy this nation in relatively short order if we don't take drastic remedial action.

Yet Obama's plan is to increase taxes on the highest 2 percent of income earners while refusing to make significant reductions in discretionary spending or to restructure entitlements. His life's ambition is to fundamentally transform the nation, which depends on keeping the federal spigot spewing and punishing the "wealthy."

You could say it is crazy talk to suggest Obama doesn't want to bring our fiscal house in order, but I say, based on the evidence, it's much crazier to pretend he has any intention of balancing the budget.
To keep his shell game going, he has to divert the people's attention from the real culprit, spending, and toward blaming and demonizing the rich, and the red herrings of "balanced approach," "loopholes" and "revenues."

Obama is the one who won't agree to a "balanced" approach; he's ignoring spending and entitlements. When he calls tax increases "revenues," he is implying that increasing rates and eliminating deductions for a small fraction of income earners is going to appreciably raise revenues and help solve our problem. It won't. When he refers to legitimate tax deductions as "loopholes," he is further defrauding the public into believing that these high-income earners are somehow cheating by availing themselves of deductions the law reasonably allows.

Speaker John Boehner must quit adopting that same misleading terminology and conceding, in effect, that the "wealthy" are undertaxed. He is not doing himself or the nation any good by playing into Obama's hands and allowing him to control the language and the narrative.

Boehner needs to turn the tables on Obama and go into attack mode himself. There is no other way to deal with this destructive bully. Boehner must sprint to the national microphone and tell the American people that Obama is being unreasonable, reckless and uncompromising.

Obama is the one who won't address the only problem that matters: spending. He won't budge from his intolerable demands that Republicans raise rates on the "wealthy" in exchange for his vague promise of implementing spending "cuts" in the future, his insistence on spending more money on new programs today, his steadfast refusal to put entitlement reform on the table, and his demand that he be given unilateral authority to raise the budget ceiling at his whim.

Boehner must point out that Republicans have gone out of their way to compromise -- way too far out of their way -- by agreeing to eliminate deductions for the highest income earners to the tune of $800 billion, a figure Obama himself demanded not long ago. He should say he agreed to that not because he believes they're paying too little (they are indeed already paying more than their fair share) or that it will increase revenues, but in a good faith effort to secure an agreement from Obama to greatly reduce spending and restructure entitlement programs.

The GOP majority did not get re-elected to roll over to Obama's disastrous policies. They have a moral, legal and constitutional duty to resist Obama's path of destruction with every fiber of their beings. At some point, their desire not to look mean must yield to their duty to inform the American people of the gravity of our situation and how reckless Obama is being.

Face it: Unless Republicans accede to all of Obama's unreasonable demands and thus to the accelerated destruction of the country, there will be an impasse, because Obama will not yield, and Republicans will be blamed for it.

The only conceivable way Republicans can avoid this fate is if they quit playing his sinister game of negotiation chicken, call him out in plain terms on what he's doing, and show he has never been and is not now serious about averting a national financial meltdown.

http://townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2012/12/07/its_time_to_turn_the_tables_on_this_presidential_bully/page/full/

Restore America 101

By Lloyd Marcus

What patriots find most alarming about the re-election of Obama is the feeling that we have lost America.
Recently, a pro football player committed suicide after murdering his girlfriend. The media blames guns and football for the shooting. They act as if the football player bore no responsibility, which is in keeping with Obama's new America.

This is why we who cherish morals, decency, hard work, and personal responsibility are so upset that Obama has four more years to further his decline of America.

Admittedly, the decline of America began long before Barack Obama. However, under Obama, America's decline has been on steroids. He won re-election promising to punish the rich and encouraging Americans to indulge in an orgy of mediocrity featuring endless unemployment benefits, an unprecedented number of Americans on food stamps, half the country on welfare, and free Obamaphones.
Such is the new normal in Obama's new America.

So yes, we patriots are heartbroken.

After serving in the Merchant Marines, my black dad earned a humble living as a day laborer. In 1956, he broke the color barrier into the Baltimore City Fire Department. The white firefighters hated my dad and did not want him at Engine 6. And yet, despite horrific conditions, Dad won Firefighter of the Year two times.
Dad won not because of lowered standards, affirmative action, or someone deciding it's the black guy's turn. Dad won because he was the best! Such was a time when America celebrated excellence.

Have we totally lost that America?

What offends me most about the Obama administration is that Obama continues to lower the bar of what it means to be an American. Given his re-election, one can only assume that a large percentage of Americans are OK with Obama's ask-what-your-country-can-do-for-you-rather-than-what-you-can-do for-your-country new vision for America. Screw work! Just gimme, gimme, gimme!

Dad did not believe that government owed him or his five kids the American Dream. With me at his side, Dad marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to assure that his kids would have an opportunity to pursue the American Dream. Today, far too many Americans believe that the job of government is to confiscate wealth to divvy out the American Dream equally to every American.

When did we lose Dad's America?

When did we become a country in which government and media celebrate immorality, laziness, and covetousness? Occupy Wall Street thugs are declared heroes representing a majority of Americans for demanding that government confiscate the earnings of achievers for redistribution. When did it become morally correct in America for government to confiscate and give away the harvest reaped by hardworking citizens?

Were we asleep when America launched its War on Achievers?

Athletes who perform at the highest levels are inducted into the Hall of Fame. And yet, extraordinary success in the arena of finances is frowned upon and deemed evil. Remarkably, Mitt Romney's extraordinary financial success was effectively marketed as a negative against him in the presidential campaign.

When did being exceptional in business become demonic in America?

Well, here is a dirty little universal truth that the gimme crowd may not be aware of. The word is reciprocity. Reciprocity means we mutuality give to/help each other. But when that relationship becomes one-sided, the giver stops giving. How long will Obama get away with seducing new voters by taking from achievers to redistribute to non-achievers before the givers say, "Screw it" and stop working?
How do we restore America? The answer: we continue to Tea Party.

The Tea Party began when patriots looked behind the curtain of white guilt and media hype to see Obama's overreaching, his trashing the Constitution, and his socialistic/progressive agenda. Over the last four years, the Tea Party has evolved into countless organizations and a growing army of sophisticated political activists.
Obama winning re-election was the loss of a major battle. However, beware, Obama and company -- we have no intentions of surrendering our country or losing this war.

Future battles will include taking back our culture and educating dumbed-down, clueless Americans on the superior virtues/benefits of conservatism over liberalism.

And another thing -- we must stop being passive when Democrats throw absurd character-assassination-grenades such as Republicans/conservatives want blacks in slavery and women barefoot and pregnant. We must boldly get in their faces and rebuke their vile, hate-inspiring, divisive lies.

I have also had it with black Americans being allowed and even encouraged to be racist. Black racists believe that Authentic Blackness or "Racial Pride" means maintaining at least a minimal resentment against whites and our country. Racism is evil wherever it flexes its venomous tongue -- time to call such people out!

So, I am ready. I am prayed up, and my powder is dry. Let's roll!

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/restore_america_101.html#ixzz2EPNFPMQ6