Shock poll: Wealthy, not middle class, support Obama
President Obama's approval numbers are starting to mimic Mitt Romney's.According to a new Economist/YouGov poll, it's the rich -- not the poor or middle class -- who back Obama more despite his 2012 campaign attacking the rich.
The poll found that fewer than half of those with incomes less than $100,000 per year approve of Obama's performance, while he enjoys a 54 percent approval rating among those with incomes higher than that.
Those earning less than $40,000 a year disapprove of the president's performance, 51 percent to 45 percent. Those earning $40,000 to $100,000 disapprove by a rate of 50 percent to 48 percent.
"A largely jobless recovery coupled with a Quantitative-Easing-fueled stock market rally seems to earn more smiles from the upscale among us, fewer from the working class," said the pollsters.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/shock-poll-wealthy-not-middle-class-support-obama/article/2528621
When Will America Burst D.C.'s Bubble?
Eighteen Starbucks shops can be found in the three-mile walk from DuPont Circle to the U.S. Capitol. Not one of them had a line less than seven people deep on a recent Wednesday afternoon.
Twenty-one construction sites filled with workers on girders and cranes towering over whole city blocks can be found on the same walk.
Commerce bursts from every angle of this city: small businesses packed with shoppers, hair salons charging more than the monthly mortgage payment on my first house for a cut-and-blow-dry, and main as well as side streets clogged with traffic.
America's capital seems bubble-wrapped in its own vibrant economic boom, while great chunks of the nation struggle with uncertainty about how to keep the engine going.
In fact, six of the 10 wealthiest American counties are Washington suburbs.
Washington once was the manifest of power. Now you can add “center of wealth” to its portfolio, crystallizing the elite institutional disconnect between it and the rest of the country.
Nearly six months have passed since the last presidential campaign promises were preached. Six months of waiting outside of the bubble for the Obama administration to fulfill passionate vows inserted into soaring speeches that pledged to create a million new manufacturing jobs in this term, to help big factories and small businesses double their exports, and to invest in advanced manufacturing.
All were promises made by the president, over and over again, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and Michigan.
The outcome has not matched the promises, not even closely.
Manufacturing has stalled in the last three months, with only pockets of growth in certain sectors. A report last week by the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index showed contraction, with manufacturing job-growth hitting its plateau before Election Day last year.
And what about all of those job promises?
A Labor Department report on Friday showed marginally improved job growth but manufacturing jobs remain sluggish.
So, while Washington basks in its roaring economy, debating such issues as gay marriage, guns and how to provide a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal aliens, the rest of the country asks, “Hi, remember us? Where are the jobs? Can we focus on the jobs?”
The lack of attention given to the economy affects Main Streeters' very existence in a way that Washington does not understand. John Smith may have a job, but what about the impact in his community when his neighbors are out of work, or struggling to piece two lower-paying jobs together to make ends meet?
Such uncertainty affects spending habits as well. Consumers are behaving as though they are living paycheck to paycheck, because they don't know what is coming down the pike. That lack of spending means that tourism, travel and entertainment suffer; small shops, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, service stations all eventually feel the pinch. Just ask anyone who owns a business in destination points across the country, and they'll tell you business is down.
Our economic recovery since 2009 has been sluggish, with few bright spots. Yet, when Americans went into the voting booths last year (if they did), they believed President Obama's rhetoric on class warfare and that he had their best interests at heart.
That has not played out six months later. A recovery is going on in this country, but most of the beneficiaries seem to be living right inside the Beltway.
And the polls back that up: Last month's Associated Press survey showed that only one in four Americans think their own financial situation will improve in the next year, and 52 percent of us disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy.
The centralized power and wealth in our nation's capital are becoming so disconnected from the rest of this country that it is palpable to everyone except those who live in Washington.
In most people's lives, the driving issue is economic security. Washington's obsession is with social and cultural issues that drive bigger wedges between Us and Them.
It's only a matter of time before the rest of America's complaints will burst Washington's bubble.
Floridians Encouraged to Report Neighbors Who “Hate Government”
A new $1 million dollar program led by Palm Beach County
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw aimed at “violence prevention” is encouraging
Floridians to report their neighbors for making hateful comments about
the government, a chilling reminder of how dissent is being
characterized as an extremist threat.
“Bradshaw plans to use the extra $1 million to launch
“prevention intervention” units featuring specially trained deputies,
mental health professionals and caseworkers. The teams will respond to
citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a
referral to services, if needed,” reports the Palm Beach Post.
Bradshaw makes it clear that the kind of behavior which
could prompt a visit from the authorities includes anti-government
political statements that may be deemed a prelude to violent action.
“We want people to call us if the guy down the street
says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,”
Bradshaw said. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and
ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’”
The program will also include “public service
announcements to encourage local citizens to report neighbors,” reports
the newspaper.
The program has sparked concerns that the hotline could
violate civil liberties or even be exploited to pursue personal
vendettas, with Bradshaw acknowledging that, “anyone in a messy divorce
or in a dispute with a neighbor could abuse the hotline,” and that it
will prompt “frivolous complaints.”
That caveat is all the more chilling given the research of Florida State University’s Robert Gellately
into how Germans under Hitler denounced their neighbors and friends not
because they genuinely believed them to be a security threat, but
because they expected to selfishly benefit from doing so, both
financially, socially and psychologically via a pavlovian need to be
rewarded by their masters for their obedience.
“How are they possibly going to watch everybody who
makes a comment like that? It’s subjective,” said Liz Downey, executive
director of the Palm Beach County branch of the National Alliance on
Mental Illness. “We don’t want to take away people’s civil liberties
just because people aren’t behaving the way we think they should be.”
The program is set to go ahead unless it is vetoed by Governor Rick Scott.
As Thomas DiLorenzo points out,
the program is also a disturbing throwback to how political dissidents
were imprisoned in Soviet mental hospitals, where criticism of the state
was deemed “philosophical intoxication.”
Under Stalin, dissidents were sent to infamous
psikhushka psychiatric prisons where they were isolated and brainwashed
in order to have their political ideas discredited amongst the general
public.
It is important to stress that both the First and Second
Amendments are being targeted via rhetoric about mental health issues,
while the threat posed by one of the real culprits behind violence in
America, SSRI drugs, continues to be ignored by the mass media.
As we have documented, while efforts at gun control have
largely failed at the legislative level, authorities are greasing the
skids for wider gun confiscation by expanding the definition under which a person can be declared “mentally ill,” to the point where harsh anti-government rhetoric is now being treated as a potential precursor to terrorism.
Veterans are already having their guns seized by police off the back of forced “psychiatric evaluations,” while the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is sending out letters to servicemembers
warning them that “A determination of incompetency will prohibit you
from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or
ammunition.”
Last year former Marine Brandon Raub was forcibly incarcerated in a psychiatric ward by authorities in Virginia for political posts on Facebook.
The fact that authorities in the U.S. are now pursuing
similar programs to those used to marginalize political dissidents in
historical dictatorships, albeit on a smaller scale, in response to
recent incidents of terrorism and mass shootings – which statistically represent a minute threat
to the lives of Americans – serves as a warning of how the state is
increasingly citing mental health concerns as a means of eroding
fundamental constitutional freedoms.
Wow. That doesn’t smack of Nazi Germany, now does it?
http://www.saveamericafoundation.com/2013/05/02/floridians-encouraged-to-report-neighbors-who-hate-government-by-paul-joseph-watson-foreword-by-fred-brownbilll/
MSM News: Reporting with Eyes Wide Shut
A leftist activist, blogger, and radio host at the University of Wyoming [corrected] has been accused by police of fabricating a rape threat against herself — the imaginary rapist was, of course, an evil conservative. Meg Lanker-Simons apparently posted a message on a Facebook page saying: ”I want to hate f**k Meg Lanker-Simons so hard. That chick that runs her liberal mouth all the time and doesn’t care who knows it… One night with me and she’s gonna be a good Republican bitch.” (This, of course, is not to be confused with the episode of Bill Maher’s Real Time in which leftist comedian Marc Maron and leftist whatever-the-hell-he-is Dan Savage actually discussed wanting to do such things to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.)
I don’t want to take any cheap shots at Miss Lanker-Simons’ psychology — not in public anyway — but I did note with no little hilarity a Facebook page that was constructed to support her in her brave fight against her make-believe conservative rapist (who’s still on the loose, by the way). The page is apparently headlined: “Meg Lanker-Simons is innocent we believe what she did was justified and deserves not to be held accountable for her accusations we stand behind you sister.”
It’s that “we believe what she did was justified” that gave me the hearty dose of laughter I require to get through my day. What could justify spilling your imagination onto the internet in such a way that others might mistake your bizarre interior world for reality?
Lanker-Simons: You know you want to.
Well, there can only be one answer really: the Narrative. Miss Lanker-Simons is justified because even though her post wasn’t true… well, isn’t that just what those knuckle-dragging, rape-loving conservatives are like? We remember this logic. It’s not confined to mixed-up college girls. It’s a version of the “fake but accurate” argument that some used to defend Dan Rather’s flogging of forged documents in his attempt to slime President George W. Bush’s National Guard service. It’s the argument Newsweek‘s then assistant managing editor Evan Thomas made after the magazine essentially condemned Duke lacrosse players for a racist rape they did not commit: “The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.”
In other words, in left-wing media world, if the facts don’t fit what you “know” to be true — i.e. if they don’t confirm your imagination — you have a right to make stuff up that does.
Or keep stuff silent, more to the point. Because most of the narrative-confirming lies told by the networks and the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and other like-minded mokes are lies of omission. The “Fast and Furious” scandal, for instance. The nation’s chief law enforcement officer perjured himself before Congress and was then protected from investigation by an indefensible presidential invocation of executive privilege — but it was no big deal to the networks. The Benghazi killings barely existed in the New York Times when the news might have had an adverse effect on Barack Obama’s election campaign. And the story is still being downplayed to the point that the president feels he can plausibly tell the public he’s “unaware” of what’s going on.
The mainstream media’s coverage of stories that don’t fit the Narrative is less coverage than coverage-up.
Which brings me finally to the Kermit Gosnell trial. An abortionist is accused of slaughtering live babies (the jury is deliberating as I write). As with the Newtown massacre, it’s an appalling atrocity that highlights issues on which American opinion is sharply divided. Which is to say, it’s news. There’s simply no way it’s not big, national news. But take a look at the video up top from comedian Steven Crowder. People don’t know about Gosnell because the mainstream media have gone out of their way not to tell them. And no matter what excuse they make, the truth is editors and producers have hidden the story from America’s eyes for fear of its implications. They’re afraid it might dawn on people that there is essentially no difference between the murders this man is accused of and the “procedures” performed by Planned Parenthood every single hour of every single day.
The whole purpose of journalism — like the purpose of science — is to gather information so that you can adjust what you imagine to be true to what actually is true. This process of adjustment is sometimes called sanity. The mainstream media have apparently lost theirs. They are covering the world with eyes wide shut, and reporting only on the narrative of the left-wing imagination in the hopes that that imagination will somehow come to overshadow the facts of life.
http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2013/05/03/reporting-with-eyes-wide-shut/?singlepage=true
The man behind the Benghazi cover-up?
Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has a must read column regarding the Benghazi cover-up by White House officials.
CIA
career officials clearly and repeatedly identified Al Qaeda and Al
Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorists as the culprits behind the murder of
four Americans.
Of
course, this would cause embarrassment for the Obama team, especially
in the few weeks before the election. They had been boasting for years
that Al Qaeda had been decimated, the "tide of war" was receding; they
had been on a mission to whitewash the prospect of Islamic terrorism as
a threat to America (see Lauri Regan's
superb column ("Can a President who has promised to stand with Muslims
protect America? ). Obama's Cairo speech before an audience that
included Muslim Brotherhood officials that he compelled Egypt to
include, was a paean to Islam. It was also, to a great extent, a work
of fiction that included grandiose and subsequently disproven claims
about the positive contributions Islam has made to America and the
world.
That speech was written by Obama's foreign policy speechwriter and now National Security Council team member,
Ben Rhodes.
Ben Rhodes.
That is the man who Hayes "outs" as a key person behind the Benghazi cover-up.
He
reportedly altered the CIA talking points to delete references to
Islamic terrorists, "attacks" (they became "demonstrations") and other
negative references to Islamism. Also, someone at the White House level
apparently dreamt up the idea of blaming an inconsequential video for
triggering a spontaneous protest, that in the frenzy of events, led to
the murder of Americans. These CIA talking points were eviscerated to
whitewash the role of Islamic terrorism.
There was a White House whitewash
that should not be dismissed over events that occurred a 'long time
ago;" contrary to Hillary Clinton saying that responsibility for the
deaths of Americans serving their nation does "matter." And despite Secretary of State's John Kerry's dismissiveness
towards the Benghazi murders - "we got a lot more important things to
move on to" - justice for the America's dead demands we find who is
responsible.
Ben
Rhodes should be called to account for trying to divert blame away
from Islamic terrorists and the Obama team members whose feckless
negligence led to the Benghazi massacre.
I
have previously written about Ben Rhodes and his role in the Obama
White House. It is shameful that this "kid" (he is all of 35) has been
given any responsibility at all in our government.
In "Does it bother anyone that this person is the Deputy National Security Adviser?" I noted his problematic background for someone given so much power by Obama. But then again he does specialize in fiction-writing.
He earned a master's degree in fiction-writing from New York University just a few years ago . He did not have a degree in government, diplomacy, national
security; nor has he served in the CIA, or the military. He was
toiling away not that long ago on a novel called 'The Oasis of Love"
about a mega church in Houston, a dog track, and a failed romance.
Carol Lee of Politico wrote in May, 2009, that
Not long ago, Rhodes was one of the obscure guys who wrote Obama's campaign speeches in Starbucks and played video games into the early morning hours. Now he attends national security meetings and takes writer's refuge in a secret office on the third floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Wow
- what a meteoric rise! What qualifies him to have been given such
power to lie to the American people? Why does he have so much
influence with Barack Obama ?
Maybe it is just his avid willingness to do the bidding of his bosses, regardless of truth.
Why
do I make this claim? Well, for one reason, Hayes notes he did it
regarding Benghazi. But there is a pattern here that he puts his
education as a fiction writer to work for political purposes.
Years
ago, Democratic Senator and Obama-mentor Lee Hamilton plucked him from
obscurity to write what became the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group
report. That report was rightly criticized for many reasons, among them
was the stacking of its "expert list'
with various pro-Arab apologist. Incidentally, the commission ignored
its mandate to focus on Iraq and instead devoted a lot of words to
attack Israel. Some of the experts who were interviewed were appalled
by the final written report because they felt it did not reflect facts,
their testimony, or reality.
Who
wrote this whitewash? Who was responsible for hitting the delete
button of some of the expert testimony? Who tried to divert
responsibility for terrorism away from where it belongs?
None other than Ben Rhodes
- a man who has finally found a use for his fiction-writing education
(since he failed as a novelist); to whitewash Islamists and the Obama
administration.
One
hopes the House calls Rhodes as a witness in this week's hearings
regarding the Benghazi massacre and the miscarriage of justice in
Washington. Will his fiction-writing on behalf of Obama come to light?
He bears responsibility for a great deal of what has gone wrong in American foreign and national security policy for the past few years.
Silence of the Conservative Lambs
Wow! I experienced it firsthand. I wrote an article defending the biblical take on an issue. The mainstream media misquoted me and took my words out of context to portray me as someone I am not -- a rabid hater. Recklessly, without reading my original article to learn what I actually said, several news sources reprinted a reporter's distortion of my article.Folks, I have no problem standing up for what I believe or even being hated for it. But the media had thousands hating me for something I never said. Associates became nervous about being associated with me. Public figures began denouncing me. It was a very stressful situation. My stress did not come from the left hating me. I was stressed over how the left's lies about me negatively affected the lives of others in my life.
Here is the scariest effect of the media's gang character-assassination. For about thirty seconds, I actually thought about framing my words to be more politically correct. I thought perhaps it would be wise to frame my words in such a way that the media could not distort and use them against me. You know, the old "you can catch more flies with honey" thing.
Well, the problem with that strategy is that the media seeks to destroy conservatives, especially black conservatives such as myself. Therefore, they will spin any- and everything I say into a negative to scare me into shutting up.
Whenever conservatives simply speak the truth, they are branded extremist by the mainstream media and advised by consultants to "moderate their tone." Meanwhile, liberals/Democrats make the most outrageous over-the-top statements without a peep of criticism from the mainstream media or their party. Democrat VP Biden said, "They [Republicans] gon' put y'all [blacks] back in chains." Democrat Rep. Andre Carson said the Tea Party movement would "love" to see black Americans "hang from a tree."
Democrat Alan Grayson said, "Republicans want you to die quickly."
Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters said, "The Tea Party can go straight to hell." Think about that, folks. Millions of Americans who oppose Obama ignoring the Constitution and cramming his socialist/progressive agenda down their throat have been told by a Democrat to go to hell.
Has anyone in the media accused Democrats of being mean-spirited? Has any Democrat denounced a fellow Democrat's outrageous statements? No.
But conservatives/Republicans wrestle with each other to be first at the microphone to denounce the slightest faux pas by someone on our side. They kick fellow conservatives/Republicans to the curb, saying, How could so-and-so have said something so stupid? He's done!
I know what many of you are saying: Lloyd, grow up! Character assassination is a mainstay of politics, particularly Democrat politics. I realize that, but this was the first time the full-assault wrath of the MSM slapped me in the face. My "right" cheek is still bruised. I now understand why so many people back away from their words and succumb to pressures to embrace the media's consensus on issues.
We see it all the time. A pundit makes a statement opposite of the MSM's consensus. The MSM gang assaults the pundit. Then the pundit dials back his original comments.
The left uses a three-step technique to silence opposition and shame you into embracing the leftist agenda. I learned about this technique via an article by the late Fred Hutchison.
As an example, let's use the issue of gun control.
Step One: Desensitization. The left pounds away 24/7 on the news, movies, etc. that Second Amendment advocates and gun owners are irresponsible rednecks who do not care about children being murdered. This is to "desensitize" citizens to the idea of being stripped of their constitutional right to bear arms.
Step Two: Jamming. Jamming means to "shame" gun owners into silence regarding their desire to own firearms and their opposition to being disarmed. Jamming is based on the idea that most humans feel shame when they believe they are not thinking, feeling, or acting like the masses.
Step Three: Conversion. Conversion is when the public has become receptive to the idea of government ignoring the Second Amendment. The MSM portraying gun owners as cruel, heartless idiots is a psychological attack in the form of propaganda designed to convert the emotions, minds, and will of Americans to side with anti-gun activists. If it is done skillfully enough, anti-gun activists will be perceived as heroes.
Patriots, we cannot allow the left to bully us into becoming silenced conservative lambs. On every issue, the left/MSM sets the narrative, giving the issue a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. Anyone daring to disagree with their consensus will be destroyed. Their bullying is working. More and more Americans are afraid to speak their minds.
Special thanks to courageous advocates for truth, justice, and the American way, such as Pamela Geller, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, to name a few. Trust me, folks, when I say it ain't easy. These patriots, as I am, are emboldened and driven by our love for the greatest nation on the planet.
Losing America is not an option. Therefore, we will not become silenced conservative lambs. Please join me in saying, neither will you!
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