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And the slide continues...

Republicans Blast Obama After Anemic Economic Report: Keep Bush Tax Cuts

Friday, 27 Jul 2012 10:35 AM

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U.S. economic growth slowed as expected in the second quarter as consumers spent at their slowest pace in a year, increasing pressure on policymakers to do more to bolster the recovery.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 1.5 percent annual rate between April and June, the weakest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2011, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

First-quarter growth was revised up to a 2.0 percent pace from the previously reported 1.9 percent. Output for the fourth quarter was raised to a 4.1 percent rate from 3.0 percent.

"This is the sign...that policymakers must act to provide more support to the economy if they want it to grow fast enough to start putting sustained downward pressure on today's still too-high unemployment rate," said Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute.

Republicans, meanwhile, seized on the Commerce report as more evidence of President Obama's mismanaging of the economy during the worst downturn since the Great Depression. They also used the report to build their case for extending all the Bush-era tax rates before they expire at the end of the year.

"Today's GDP report is a troubling sign for the future of our economy, and it underscores the need to stop all of the looming tax hikes that will weaken it further," House Speaker John Boehner said, Fox News reported.

"Today's weak GDP number is just more devastating news for struggling American families. Our economy is growing far too slowly, proving President Obama's lack of focus on jobs is taking its toll," said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.

"The president claims to be fighting for middle class jobs, but he has not had a Daily Economic Briefing on his official schedule in over a year," Priebus said. "He also has not bothered to meet with his Jobs Council in over six months, but he did manage to attend over 110 fundraisers and play 10 rounds of golf in that time. Clearly, he has revealed his true priorities.

"Instead of spending his time fighting for American jobs, President Obama is working desperately to save his own. As a result, 23 million Americans are struggling for work. We need a new president who understands how the economy works and who will make job creation his number one priority. Mitt Romney will be that president."

The Mitt Romney campaign pointed to the figure as the latest sign the economy under Obama simply cannot produce enough growth to put millions of jobless Americans back to work.

"It's a picture of a decelerating economy," said Romney economic adviser Dean Glenn Hubbard. "At that pattern, the economy simply will never return to full employment."

A campaign email with a snapshot of the gloomy GDP headlines also poked at Obama's recent "you didn't build that" gaffe. The email was titled: "The Obama Economy: Barack Obama Built This," Fox reported.

The ailing economy could cost President Obama a second term in office when Americans vote in November.

He hasn't made a lot of friends

Bolton: Obama 'Most Hostile' President Toward Israel Ever

Wednesday, 25 Jul 2012 10:57 AM

By Greg McDonald

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Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton is calling Barack Obama “the most hostile president” toward Israel since the Jewish state was created, saying his policies have “actually set the peace process back” in the Middle East.

Responding to a tweet Tuesday from Vice President Joe Biden that Obama “has done more for Israel’s security than any president since Harry Truman,” Bolton declared, “That’s just ridiculous.”

“This is the most hostile president since the state of Israel was created,” Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Tuesday night. “He’s demonstrated that hostility right from the beginning of his administration.”

Bolton — now a Fox News contributor who supports Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign — accused the president of putting “the responsibility for all the turmoil in the region on Israel.”

“By relieving the Palestinians of any real obligation to negotiate, he’s actually set the peace process back,” Bolton charged, referring to early speeches in which the president suggested Israel should be confined to the boundaries established following the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict known as the Six-Day War.

“This has been very, very restrictive on Israel, and it has cost the United States, and Israel, and its Arab friends in the region,” he added.

Bolton also said Obama’s “treatment of Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been profoundly mishandled” to the point of endangering not only Israel’s security, but the rest of the world as well.

Bolton made the comments as Romney headed off on his first trip abroad as a presidential candidate. Stops are planned for Israel, Poland, and the Olympic Games in London before he returns home to the campaign trail.

Bolton described it as “significant” that Obama has yet to visit Israel as president and chose Egypt as his first trip abroad after taking office.

“The fact that the president went to Egypt to give a major speech to the Muslim world but couldn’t find time to slip into Israel for a visit — you can’t miss the symbolism of that,” Bolton said. “I think, though, it is the broader mistreatment of Israel, of denigrating its role as an important ally, not understanding the contribution it has made to security in the Middle East, that’s the real problem.”

Bolton suggested the point of Romney’s specific visit to Israel is to make it clear that “his administration will treat its friends like friends and its adversaries like adversaries.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Bolton: Obama 'Most Hostile' President Toward Israel Ever

It's Hammer Time..!

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Monday that the White House looks like the source for at least some of the classified intelligence that has been leaked to the media.

“I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks,” Feinstein told the World Affairs Council, as reported by the Associated Press. She said she doesn’t believe President Obama himself is the source, although no one seriously thought the President was personally picking up the phone and making surreptitious calls to journalists, or donning a slouch hat and trench coat to meet them in underground parking garages.

The list of possible suspects for the leaks is shrinking fast, because Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs chairman General Martin Dempsey gave closed-door testimony to the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday, and chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) pronounced himself satisfied that the Pentagon was not the source. The Pentagon has also “announced that it was taking new steps to try to clamp down on leaks of classified information,” according to the AP.

It looks like Feinstein is on a collision course with the White House, which has adamantly denied it was the source for any of the security leaks, even though they look suspiciously like the sort of information a political team would pump into the media in order to polish the President’s military credentials. “The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive. It’s wrong,” President Obama declared in early June.

Senior campaign advisor David Axelrod echoed the President, saying “there were obvious leaks, but they weren’t from the White House.” White House spokesman Jay Carney said “any suggestion that this Administration has authorized intentional leaks of classified information for political gain is grossly irresponsible.”

It’s uncertain what Senator Feinstein will do next. She has thus far supported the Justice Department’s investigation into the leaks, although Republicans have called for a special counsel, considering both the nature of the information handed to the press and the general lack of confidence in Attorney General Eric Holder’s hyper-politicized DOJ. While Feinstein has reportedly entertained the special prosecutor idea, she currently appears to prefer convening the Senate Intelligence Committee to create legislation designed to halt the leaks, a project they are scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was among the first to publicly accuse the White House of being the source for the leaks. “This is the most highly classified information, and it’s now been leaked by the Administration at the highest levels at the White House, and that’s not acceptable,” McCain said in a June 6 CBS News interview, adding that the compromised information “makes the President look very decisive,” while giving “very little credit to the other men and women who make these things happen.” (Osama bin Laden’s elimination? You didn’t build that, Mr. Obama.)

Senator Feinstein isn’t nearly as tough on the Obama team as McCain, but she has now publicly joined him in asserting that at least some of the classified national security information passed along to the media came from the White House.

Update: Mitt Romney will address Feinstein’s remarks in his speech to the VFW today. Excerpts from his speech were released in advance this morning:

“It is reported that Bob Gates, the President’s first secretary of defense, bluntly addressed another security problem within this administration. After secret operational details of the bin Laden raid were given to reporters, Secretary Gates walked into the West Wing and told the Obama team to ‘shut up.’ He added a colorful word for emphasis.

“Lives of American servicemen were at stake. But astonishingly, the administration failed to change its ways. More top-secret operations were leaked, even some involving covert action in Iran.

“This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a national security crisis. And yesterday, Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, quote, ‘I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks.’

“This conduct is contemptible. It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field. And it demands a full and prompt investigation, with explanation and consequence. Whoever provided classified information to the media, seeking political advantage for the administration, must be exposed, dismissed, and punished. The time for stonewalling is over.

“It is not enough to say the matter is being looked into, and leave it at that. When the issue is the political use of highly sensitive national security information, it is unacceptable to say, ‘We’ll report our findings after Election Day.’

“Exactly who in the White House betrayed these secrets? Did a superior authorize it? These are things that Americans are entitled to know – and they are entitled to know right now. If the President believes – as he said last week – that the buck stops with him, then he owes all Americans a full and prompt accounting of the facts.

“And let me be clear: These events make the decision we face in November all the more important. What kind of White House would reveal classified material for political gain? I’ll tell you right now: Mine won’t.”

The Choice is VERY Clear Voters

Norquist: A Vote for Obama is a Vote for $500 B Tax Increase

Monday, 23 Jul 2012 07:37 PM

By Patrick Hobin and Kathleen Walter

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Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist fired back against criticism that his anti-tax pledge is getting in the way of a tax compromise by Congress, arguing in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV that his pledge makes possible real tax reform and that contained in any compromise is a hidden tax increase.

Norquist’s group organizes the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which asks all candidates for federal and state office to commit themselves in writing to oppose all tax increases. The pledge, which Norquist says he dreamed up when he was 12 years old, was endorsed by Ronald Reagan upon its inception in 1986, and has been signed by more than 1,100 state office holders as well as 238 current House members and 41 current Senators.

Norquist has come under fire from the first President George Bush and others about the rigidity of the pledge and Senate Democrats believe they have come up with a plan to get around the anti-tax pledge by letting all tax cuts lapse Jan. 1 and then reinstating most of them days later, an idea which Norquist has said “doesn’t pass the laugh test.”

The plan shows efforts by lawmakers to include new federal revenues in an attempt to avoid the “fiscal cliff” in January. All Bush-era tax cuts expire at that time and automatic spending cuts to the military kick in.

Norquist told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview that the pledge “stops a tax increase, so if somebody tells you the pledge is getting in the way of getting something done what they mean is it’s getting in the way of a tax increase.”

“If they say it gets in the way of a compromise they haven’t finished the sentence,” he said. “It gets in the way of a compromise that’s actually a hidden tax increase. So the pledge stops tax increases. It makes possible real tax reform and real spending restraint.”

Story continues.

The pledge does not get in the way of the plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, which the Republican House has passed and most Republicans in the Senate have supported, Norquist said, and “would reduce government spending by six trillion dollars over the next decade, reform taxes, not raise taxes but lower rates, broaden the base for simpler, more pro-growth tax policy.”

Norquist said he has little confidence that President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats can help the U.S. avoid the “fiscal cliff,” a term for when all the tax cuts that former President George W. Bush put in place are set to expire and when automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs kick in.

Obama and the Democrats “want the present lower taxes to lapse and so everything would snap back to 2001 and 2003,” Norquist said. He then painted a picture of what things will look like when the Bush tax cuts expire.

“Tax cuts would disappear, the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is right now limited in its impact, would become unlimited, would hit not the four million Americans it hits now but 31 million families would be hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax,” he said. “The R&D tax credit which protects investment and research development would disappear. So the whole series, this $500 billion tax increase that hits January 1 if Obama is reelected or if the Democrats control the U.S. Senate. So on Election Day if you vote Obama or the Democratic senator you could end up with, we'll end up with a $500 billion tax increase in January. If Romney and the Republican senator are elected that would be stopped.”

Norquist then slammed Obama’s plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire for just those making more than $250,000 a year, saying it actually raises taxes on small businesses.

“Many small businesses, most small businesses, pay as if they were individuals,” he said. “They pay the personal income tax. So when you talk about a successful small business it looks like a rich person. When Obama says ‘I’m going to tax rich people,’ well, what you’re taxing is any growing small business. So it would be devastating to the small business community.”

Norquist said that allowing the payroll tax cut to expire would result in a significant tax increase. “Obama has put that in, I think, in order to be able to claim he’s for lower taxes,” he said. “But again he passed it temporarily, one year. He kind of likes to give people things temporarily so he can maintain political control over individuals. I think we should make tax cuts permanent. All of the tax increases that Obama has put into place have been permanent. All of the handful of tax cuts have all been temporary.”

Norquist weighed in on Obama’s much-criticized remarks in a Roanoke speech in which the president said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

“The liberals and left of the United States have been trying to make the case that merit does not exist,” Norquist said. “People who earn more money because they work on Saturdays don’t deserve to keep their money. People who sacrifice and build a small business don’t deserve to earn more money than somebody who’s on welfare. So they have to delegitimize your success.”

“You wake up early in the morning, go to work, your neighbor doesn’t; you don’t deserve any more than he does,” Norquist said. “You risk your life savings to build a business and you succeed; you don’t deserve anything. How do they come up with that? Well the argument is that, on several levels, because you drove on a road that the government built, with your tax dollars, by the way, with your gasoline taxes, that somehow the government deserves something off your work.”

“… I couldn’t believe that the president of the United States was explaining that Bill Gates did not build Microsoft and that Apple was not built by Steve Jobs,” Norquist added. “That he, Bill Clinton, and all his liberal Democratic friends deserve as much credit, as much of the money, as these companies and individuals created, as the people who actually did the work.”

Norquist said he thinks Americans will elect Mitt Romney and a Republican Congress to stop Obamacare and tax hikes.

“… if you vote for Obama and he wins, you will get the 20 taxes in Obamacare and the government will raise taxes on your health savings account, your flexible savings account, your Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, on medical devices, on insurance, all those tax increases to tax you to give things to other people,” Norquist said. “If you vote for Obama and he wins, then there’s a $500 billion tax increase that happens automatically on the first of January, 2013. That’s 56 days after you vote for Obama. You get hit in the forehead with those collections of tax increases.

“You vote for Romney, and a Republican Senate, you have to do both, then we can and will, and Gov. Romney and the Republicans in the House and Senate made it very clear: elect a Republican government, all of Obamacare and Obama taxes go away and the $500 billion tax increase goes away and they’ll do tax reform instead."

It's not what they're saying..!

NEW YORK, July 24 -- U.S. manufacturing this month expanded at its slowest pace since late 2010, hobbled by weak overseas demand for American goods, though a rise in domestic orders helped cushion the blow.

Financial information firm Markit said on Tuesday its U.S. "flash" manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index for July fell to 51.8 from 52.5 in June. July marked the fourth consecutive month of slower growth and the sector's weakest showing since December 2010. The index remained above 50, indicating factory activity continued to expand, only less rapidly.

New orders for exports fell outright for the second straight month, the first back-to-back decline in nearly three years, Markit said, as recession in Europe dented demand.

"The U.S. manufacturing sector is clearly struggling under the pressure from falling exports," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit. "Reassuringly, domestic demand appears to be showing ongoing signs of resilience, encouraging firms to take on more staff."

When including domestic demand, new orders grew, though the reading of 51.9 showed the pace of growth slowed. June's tally was 53.7. The employment index rose to 52.9 in July from 52.8.

Even so, economists worry that the broader U.S. economy, which grew at a 1.9 percent rate in the first quarter, has since lost momentum. A poll of 74 economists polled by Reuters expects April-to-June growth to have slowed to 1.5 percent.

Last year, manufacturing had been something of a bright spot in an atmosphere of otherwise sluggish growth, but it too has showed signs of slowing over the last few months.

The U.S. Labor Department said employers added fewer than 100,000 new jobs in June for the third consecutive month.

Williamson said there are more clouds on the horizon.

"Overall, the third quarter is so far shaping up to be worse than the second quarter in terms of growth, which is a growing concern for policymakers," he said.

Wall Street is bracing for another round of monetary easing from the Federal Reserve before the year ends. The median forecast in a July poll of 16 primary dealers showed a 70 percent chance of more action.

The "flash," or preliminary reading, is based on replies from about 85 percent of the U.S. manufacturers surveyed. Markit's final reading will be released on the first business day of the following month.

Say it isn't so, San Fran Nan..

Pelosi, Democrats Hypocritical About Releasing Own Tax Records

IMCITIZEN JULY 19, 2012 3:10 PM

Sweet, sweet San Fran Nan, never gifted on the ad-lib, was reduced to a rambling wreck Thursday when the usually Left-loving media pressed her on why she has not released her tax returns. Say what?

At the heart of the matter is a recent report that showed only 17 of 535 members of Congress made their tax returns public. On Wednesday, McClatchy.com ran an article pointing out that San Fran Nan and Senator Scary Reid, after a request was made by McClatchy, did not release their tax returns, although both have grabbed plenty of air time to condemn Romney for not releasing his.

The release of tax returns is not required to run for office but has developed into a political custom. As has the idea that if a candidate doesn’t release returns it means the candidate has something to hide.

“He could not even become a Cabinet member for that lack of disclosure, and now with that lack of disclosure he wants to be president of the United States,” said Pelosi.

“We’d like to know what’s in those tax returns that he refuses to show to the American public. Did he pay any taxes?” Reid asked.

Democrat party bulldog, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, also has tried to imply Romney has something to hide by claiming Romney has a “penchant for secrecy.” Of course, she didn’t release her tax returns either.

It’s telling that all three loud mouths “refused repeated requests from McClatchy to release their own returns.” The hypocrisy is so thick you can taste it.

STRAIGHT from the hip...!

Ann Coulter Letter

Democrats’ ideal voter: Illegal alien, convicted felon

Democrats' ideal voter: Illegal alien, convicted felon

By: Ann Coulter
7/18/2012 04:57 PM

Before taking the oath of office, Barack Obama vowed to fundamentally transform the United States. He has certainly done so. For example, Obama has:

– destroyed the job market;

– sent billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street, companies overseas, his campaign contributors and public sector unions;

– forced the passage of a wildly unpopular national health care law on a purely partisan vote;

– come out for gay marriage;

– refused to enforce laws on illegal immigration;

– eliminated the work requirement for welfare.

How can a country that elected Ronald Reagan have Obama tied in the polls with Mitt Romney?

The answer is: It’s not the same country.

Similarly, when two successful, attractive multimillionaire women in California can’t beat a geriatric leftist like Jerry Brown or an old prune like Barbara Boxer, that’s not the same state that elected Ronald Reagan twice, either.

The same process that has already destroyed California is working its way through the entire country.

While conservatives have been formulating carefully constructed arguments, liberals have been playing a long-term game to change the demographics of America to get an electorate more to their liking.

They will do incalculable damage to the nation and to individual citizens, but Democrats will have an unbeatable majority. Just like California, the United States is on its way to becoming a Third World, one-party state.

Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 Immigration Act was expressly designed to change the ethnic composition of America to make it more like Nigeria, considered more susceptible to liberal demagogues.

Since 1965, instead of taking immigrants that replicate the country’s existing ethnic mix, we’ve been admitting mostly immigrants from the Third World. At the same time, people from the countries that sent immigrants to this country for its first several centuries have been barred.

Eighty-five percent of immigrants now come from “developing countries.” (How are they ever going to develop if their people are all on the dole over here?)

The “browning of America” is not a natural process. It’s been artificially imposed by Democrats who are confident of their abilities to turn Third World immigrants into government patrons.

It’s worked. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 57 percent of all immigrant households in the U.S. get cash, Medicaid, housing or food benefits from the government — compared with 39 percent of native households. The highest rates are for immigrants from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), Mexico and Guatemala (tied at 75 percent).

Isn’t the idea to get immigrants with special skills? If you can’t even get a job, by definition, you do not have a special skill. Other than voting Democrat.

There’s a strange asymmetry in how this matter can be discussed. Liberals and ethnic activists boast about how America would be better if it were more Latino, but no one else is allowed to say, “We like the ethnic mix as it is.”

That would be racist. By now no one even tries to disagree.

Liberals’ other plan to expand the Democratic rolls has been to destroy the family.

Every time someone gets a divorce, Democrats think: We got a new Democratic voter! Every time a child is born out of wedlock: We got a new Democratic voter! And if the woman has an abortion — we got a new Democratic voter!

According to recent polls, Obama has a negative job approval rating of 45 to 49 percent. The reason the polls are tied between Obama and Romney is that single women support Obama by a 2-to-1 margin. The Democrats’ siren song to single women is: Don’t worry, the government will be your husband.

Our prisons are overflowing with the results of the Democrats’ experiment of subsidizing illegitimacy. Children raised by a single mothers commit 72 percent of juvenile murders, 60 percent of rapes, have 70 percent of teenaged births, commit 70 percent of suicides and are 70 percent of high school dropouts.

Controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is being raised by a single parent. (The second strongest predictor is having a tattoo.)

A 1990 study by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that after controlling for single motherhood, the difference in black and white crime disappeared.

Human beings in God’s image are being born into ruined lives at rates that boggle the mind. Illegitimate children are never given a chance, their lives destroyed by this social pathology. And Democrats say: More Democratic voters!

Throw in felons voting, and the Democrats have an unbeatable majority.

The other side of the coin

Economic concerns are on the minds of voters as Mitt Romney has ticked ahead of President Barack Obama in a new poll for the first time since becoming the Republican nominee even in the face of months of negative advertising and attacks by Obama, the New York Times reported.

The New York Times/CBS News Poll showed that opinions about how Obama is handling the economy have shifted since April, with 39 percent saying they approved and 55 percent saying they disapproved. In April, 44 percent approved and 48 percent disapproved.

Republicans have been concerned with how Romney has handled questions about his tenure at equity firm Bain Capital and his tax returns but those worries seem to be unfounded as 45 percent of those polled say they would pull the lever for Romney if the election was today versus 43 percent for Obama.

When undecided voters are included, Romney is preferred by 47 percent to Obama’s 46 percent, according to the poll, which was conducted between July 11 and 16 and including 982 registered voters.

Another shift was found in how Americans think Obama is handling his job, the Times reported. Now, more Americans disapprove, with 46 percent saying they don’t like the job Obama’s doing to 44 percent who approve.

When it comes to tax cuts, 49 percent agree with Obama that the Bush-era tax cuts should continue on adjusted gross annual income of $250,000 and less, with more than a quarter saying the cuts should stay in place for all income groups, according to the Times.

But when asked which candidate would do a better job handling the economy and unemployment, 49 percent went with Romney to Obama’s 41 percent, the Times reported.

Read more on Newsmax.com