Thursday, November 22, 2012
Awful Thanksgiving Family Photos - VERY FUNNY STUFF
Your dad might not be wearing a shirt
and 20 other equally funny photos at
Awful Thanksgiving Family Photos | TheBlaze.com
Nation Officially Out of Reasons to Be Thankful
After months of research, the U.S. Department of Gratitude and Optimistic Affairs (DGOA ) released a dire statement Tuesday, officially declaring the United States “out of reasons to be thankful” this Thanksgiving. The independent federal agency usually lists dozens of reasons for Americans to be thankful every Turkey Day, but this year it is out of options.
“Everything from the average family’s personal wealth, to joblessness, to gas prices, to the national debt, to political hostility, to world ‘peace,’ to rising costs and regulation of healthcare, to more children coming home with failing grades, neon green hair, face tattoos, reeking like Keith Richards on a bad day…sure, people may be finding little things to be thankful for here and there, but we as a nation are officially out of reasons to be thankful,” said DGOA Administrator Lance Hennessy in a press release.
Read the whole thing:
DuhProgressive.com - Nation Officially Out of Reasons to Be Thankful
Balanced: Tax Revenues Are Only Down 2% From 2008, But Spending Is Up 27%
Our “balanced approach” friends would tell us that this decline in revenues proves their case for tax hikes. But does it really? The decline in revenue didn’t have anything to do with tax cuts and everything to do with an economic collapse the nation has been slow to recover from. We’re going to fix that with dramatic increases in taxes, including taxes on investment income specifically?Here’s the reality: tax revenues in FY2012 were only 2.17% lower than FY2008, but spending is more than 27% higher.
Now, again, our friends on the left insist that we must have a “balanced” deficit reduction package that incorporates both spending cuts and tax increases. But the budget problem isn’t balanced. The budget problem is almost entirely a spending problem.
Say Anything Balanced: Tax Revenues Are Only Down 2% From 2008, But Spending Is Up 27% » Say Anything
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
A brilliant observation from John Garfield. READ THE LAST TWO SENTENCES. WOW!!
One of the trademarks of the institutional church (charismatic, evangelical or denominational) is it's focus on itself. This introversion has many tentacles from pastoral authority to the emphasis on church growth, attendance, tithing, missions, buildings, TV, conferences, and pulpit preaching. the whole system is overrated. Nothing gets measured in terms of effectiveness; no other mountain is acknowledged, and priest, pastor and congregation believe authority and anointing flows through the hierarchy. Pastors and churches are important in their role... just not more important than spirit-filled and anointed business men, politicians, educators, entertainers and journalists. The church was intended to make disciples that can impact our culture. Instead we're trying to use our best and brightest to teach a Sunday school class or become a board member. Seriously, the only legitimate way out of most churches is in a coffin. It's time to release people into their Kingdom destiny and admit the church is for equipping not sitting.
This is an impossibility. Spending cuts mean cuts and spending on labor is the biggest component. Prepare for impact.
Federal Workers to Congress: Leave Us Out of Deficit Deal
www.nationaljournal.com
The Federal-Postal Coalition -- a group representing more than two dozen federal employee unions -- pleaded with Congress on
School
closings in Chicago are like the hostess twinkee collapse. Once the
union won it's Pyrrhic victory, the closings were guaranteed. The easy
thing to do is close them all. Start over. There will be plenty of
Jobs for the unemployed teachers ... just not in public schools.
Teachers union chief slams 'top-down' reform
www.chicagotribune.com
Showing
the same combativeness that was on display during the recent strike ,
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said Tuesday that the
wealthy backers of Mayor
A Union Killed Hostess— but Not the One You Think - Holman Jenkins thinks the Teamsters are to blame for the Twinkie-maker's exit
The real story is the story of two unions, the Teamsters and the Bakery union of the AFL-CIO. Here's where things get interesting.
The Teamsters reluctantly agreed to givebacks to finance the company's latest turnaround attempt. The bakers rejected any concessions and went out on strike, despite being informed that the result would be the liquidation of the parent company and the loss of 18,500 jobs.
Tsk tsk, went even the liberal media, assuming that union bloody-mindedness must be at work. Think again. As the bakers rightly saw it, they were being asked once more to prop up Teamster jobs that would likely guarantee that any Hostess resurrection would be short-lived.
A Union Killed Hostess— but Not the One You Think - Holman Jenkins thinks the Teamsters are to blame for the Twinkie-maker's exit
AND... the defined benefit package that strangled them
Why Democrats Are in Trouble
Shall we try socialism? What a great idea -- Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela as our models and pole stars! Ought to be an effective formula for weight loss.
A continuing problem with left-wingery -- a problem not grasped by some of the analysts -- is that it doesn't work. Socialists, as Maggie Thatcher astutely observed, always run out of other people's money. They can't replace it of course with their own. Socialism isn't about creating wealth; it's about grabbing someone else's.
Republicans need to cheer up. It always hurts to lose a vital election: for instance, the one immediately past. And yet to victors sometimes belongs something more depressing than spoils; namely, the obligation to make good on lame, idiotic promises. Might we hold the national obituaries pending proof that the 2012 outcome was the will of the gods?
Why Democrats Are in Trouble | RealClearPolitics
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Many know Mary-Alice Isleib.
She is a long time friend and one who truly works and walks in
humility. Many of you know her as a prayer and intercession leader.
She also leads COI, Christian Outreach International. It is a ministry
her Father started and operated for many
years before his passing. She now heads it up. COI has been all over
the world. Now they are focused on being there when other first
responders have left in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. This is
worthy of your support. They have needs right now as they are our hands
of Mercy after the storm. It would be worthwhile to partner with them
right now in this.
Hurricane Sandy Outreach Efforts
hosted-p0.vresp.com
."
I met with Pastors from New York last week. Looks like COI teams may be
able to be active " boots on the ground" in some of the hardest hit
Hurricane Sandy areas. Please
Privately run unions have ruined public schools
President Barack Obama and the Democrats have portrayed themselves as supporters of public education, but their policies have turned public schools into strongholds for powerful private groups of teachers unions, critics say.
“The union is not some branch of public government—they’re just a private corporation,” said James Sayler, a 20-year public school teacher and founder of Colorado Educators for Bush in 2000 and 2004.
“Should a school district give away public authority to a private organization?” Sayler asked. “The unions, with the blessing and cooperation of the Democratic Party, have privatized education.”
Gary Wolfram, author of A Capitalist Manifesto: Understanding the Market Economy and Defending Liberty, explained the power of teachers unions in public schools.
“The system is designed for you as a teachers union to elect the people you are going to bargain with, at a local level,” Wolfram said. “You have an incentive to elect state representatives who provide high spending so you can keep salaries high.”
“They are a lobbying firm,” he said. “The Michigan Education Association is one of the larger political action committees.”
Privately run unions have ruined public schools | Washington Free Beacon
![Please Share....BREAKING: The president knew the truth about Benghazi......By Jennifer Rubin
In a blockbuster report, John Solomon, the former Associated Press and Post reporter, has ferreted out the president’s daily brief that informed him within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attack that the Benghazi attack was a jihadist operation.
Citing officials directly familiar with the information, Solomon writes in the Washington Guardian that Obama and other administration officials were told that “that the attack was likely carried out by local militia and other armed extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida in the region.”
He adds:
The details from the CIA and Pentagon assessments of the killing of Ambassador Chris [Stevens] were far more specific, more detailed and more current than the unclassified talking points that UN Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used five days after the attack to suggest to Americans that an unruly mob angry over an anti-Islamic video was to blame, officials said.
Most of the details affirming al-Qaida links were edited or excluded from the unclassified talking points used by Rice in appearances on news programs the weekend after the attack, officials confirmed Friday. Multiple agencies were involved in excising information, doing so because it revealed sources and methods, dealt with classified intercepts or involved information that was not yet fully confirmed, the officials said.
Solomon cautions that there were bits of evidence pointing to a spontaneous attack but, as Eli Lake of the Daily Beast and others have reported, he writes: “Among the early evidence cited in the briefings to the president and other senior officials were intercepts showing some of the participants were known members or supporters of Ansar al-Sharia — the al-Qaida-sympathizing militia in Libya — and the AQIM, which is a direct affiliate of al-Qaida in northern Africa, the officials said.”
How could the president and his senior staff then have allowed (or rather, sent) Rice to go out to tell an entirely different tale to the American people on Sept. 16 on five TV shows?
This report indicates that the president certainly knew that Benghazi wasn’t a rogue movie review gone bad. He had information that plainly spelled out what was later confirmed by additional intelligence. If this information was too confidential to share with the public, at the very least the president and others should not have mislead voters.
This is a full-blown scandal, and in light of this information, the press corps’s slothful indifference to uncovering the truth at Wednesday’s news conference with Obama is all the more shocking. It is time for the president to come clean. The scandal has now enveloped the Oval Office and will define his second term, if not resolved satisfactorily.
The irony of this is that Rice may well have been used as a patsy, unaware that she was sent out to spin a misleading tale. My colleague Dana Milbank recounts Rice’s long-standing inability to get along with others and to be circumspect in her pronouncements:
It’s true that, in her much-criticized TV performance, she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning. ... Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.
Frankly the same could be said of many national security positions at this point. The American people made their choice in November on the president, but it now appears they were duped regarding the real facts concerning Benghazi. What are we going to do about that?](https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s480x480/558852_552017784813171_899344257_n.jpg)
A Democrat Majority Is A Sign Of America In Decline
A lot of people in America – enough people of voting age to keep President Obama in office for another term – have lost the sense that they can be self-sufficient. That they can survive, and prosper, without an endless parade of government programs.
And we’re not talking about basic infrastructure like roads and bridges and the like. We’re talking about people who believe that higher education wouldn’t happen if the government didn’t subsidize it. That the poor wouldn’t eat without food stamps. That somehow what they need in their lives wouldn’t be available in their lives if the government wasn’t there to regulate, subsidize, protect and mandate.
Which is astounding given the times of relative plenty we’re living in. Yes, we’re in the midst of an ugly and protected economic downturn, but we are still a nation where obesity is more of a societal problem than starvation. We are still a nation where “the poor” live in air conditioned comfort, watching their cable or satellite television or streaming Netflix to the iPads or laptops.
What’s more, the social safety nets liberalism promotes also promotes risky behavior. Young women are encouraged to be promiscuous because coverage for birth control and abortions will be mandated as a part of the insurance coverage they are now entitled to. College students are encouraged to run up huge amounts of student loan debt pursuing impractical degrees because the government is subsidizing and backing the loans. And if things in your career don’t work out? There’s something like 100 weeks of unemployment and a myriad of programs for food and shelter to fall back on.
Life is a risky place. The social policies of the left seem aimed at leeching out that risk, and yet what they’re achieving is policy which drags society toward a lowest common denominator. By creating more demand or need for government services the Democrats build themselves a constituency for their policies.
That it’s hurting America is, apparently, beside the point.
Say Anything A Democrat Majority Is A Sign Of America In Decline » Say Anything
Thanks Steve. I had forgotten
November 6, 2012 we codified decline:
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
The Telegraph: “So Europe got the American
president it wanted – the one who would present no threat to its own
delusions. The United States is now officially one of us: an Old World
country complete with class hatred, ethnic Balkanisation, bourgeois
guilt and a paternalist ruling elite. And it is locked into the same
death spiral of high public spending and self-defeating wealth
redistribution as we are. Welcome to the future, and the beginning of
what may turn out to be the terminal decline of the West.”
When the blind try to lead the blind, both fall in the ditch. This is right up there with classical stupid.
Obama Consults With MSNBC Host Al Sharpton, and Other 'Civil Rights Leaders,' on Fiscal Talks
www.weeklystandard.com
This
afternoon, President Barack Obama consulted with MSNBC host Al
Sharpton, who's also assicated with the National Action Network (NAN),
about the fiscal talks between the White House and Congress. At the same
meeting,
PYRRHUS OF EPIRUS WAS UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT.
Maine’s striking Hostess workers say company’s collapse a strong message of union resolve
bangordailynews.com
BIDDEFORD,
Maine — Labor leaders in Maine say the resilience of the Hostess
workers on the picket line at the company’s Biddeford plant, which is in
the process
Next Gen Conservatives can save the Old Grey GOP
Red Alert Politics 30 Conservatives Under 30 List
redalertpolitics.com
Red
Alert Politics has selected the winners of it’s 30 Under 30 List! Find
out who we thought were the top Republicans, conservatives and
libertarians from across the country blazing the path for our
What Explains The Partisan Divide Between Urban And Non-Urban Area
Take
Philly out of Pennsylvania, the Big Apple out of New York, the Motor
City out of Michigan, the Windy City out of Illinois, Cleveland out of
Ohio, Milwaukee out of Wisconsin, St. Louis out of Missouri, etc., and a
lot of blue states would instantly be red. What explains this
pronounced and hugely significant partisan divide between urban and
nonurban areas?
In 37 Chicago Precincts, Romney Received No Votes
The
list of precincts is in this article. IF you by chance LIVE in one of
those precincts and you DID vote for Mitt Romney, you are living proof
of the level of Voter Fraud that went on. While these are few votes, I
know full well that there are people who DID vote for Romney in these
areas. The votes never got counted. I think people, if you are going
to cheat at an election, you should be better at it.
It
was after a very difficult several months from 9-11 2001 - July 2002. A
church closure. A business failure. Age sneaking up. Feeling alone.
I was 57 years old. Not working. Starting over. I needed to hear
from God. I went to this place. A mile from any other human being. I had to walk in. Carried a bag chair, a tent, sleeping bag, mat, my hat, a gallon of water, a notebook and my Bible.
From July 1-July 3 I sat alone in this tent and outdoors when it
was nice. It was dark and silent. For the first two days I heard
nothing. Drank only water. No food. THEN on the third day I began to
hear the voice of God. It was clear. I wrote down everything He said
to me. That was ten years ago. From that day to this I know his voice.
Sometimes I tune out. But I know what He sounds like. Every believer
who would sharpen his ear to hear the Voice of God needs to do this.
Yes, you can do it in a motel room. Or in a retreat center. But I think
there is something special when you can step out of the tent at 2 in
the morning and look up at a sky FULL of Stars like David did when
tending the sheep. Jesus knew this well. "And rising very early in the
morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate
place, and there he prayed." Mark 1:35. I suspect HE looked up at HIS
handiwork and in His humanity marveled. IF you can. Please do. I have
done this a few times since. Last was over the 9-11 anniversary this
year. I like to do it by a body of water. There is peace beside still
waters if you can. When you do, it will change your life. Hearing
direct from the throne is unparallelled. Now when I go, I no longer
even take my Bible. Thy Word have I HID in my Heart.
The EPA hearts Big Ethanol
The Midwest suffered through some serious drought conditions this summer, meaning that the price of corn has gone up as harvest yields have gone down, and farmers’ organizations, meat industry groups, a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers, and nearly a dozen states petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to waive the RFS requirements (the government’s interference in the market means that the amount of corn used for ethanol creates artificially high demand that helps hike up the price of corn, and livestock and food producers can’t cope).
The Environmental Protection Agency is not impressed. After hemming and hawing for months, they finally announced their decision today. Surprise — they’re sticking with their BFF, the ethanol lobby.The EPA hearts Big Ethanol « Hot Air