Americans Prefer Cutting Spending Over Raising Taxes To Reduce Deficit

Yet another poll, by Gallup, tell our politicians what Americans expect from them and how they prefer Washington deal with the overwhelming national deficit.

73 percent of national adults understand that spending too much on federal programs that are either not needed or wasteful is the primary cause for our $14 trillion-plus national debt.

Only 22 percent believe that not raising enough money via taxes is to blame for the deficit.




When respondents were asked how they would prefer Congress attempt to reduce the federal budget deficit, 20 percent said only with spending cuts and 28 percent responded mostly with spending cuts, totaling 48 percent that want Washington to focus on cutting spending.

Despite the far left's howling about raising taxes being the be-all end-all of our deficit problems, only nine percent prefer the deficit be reduced mostly with tax increases and a mere two percent believe the deficit problem can be handled using only tax increases, totaling 11 percent of national adults prefer for Washington to use raising taxes to bring down our debt.

37 percent believe that spending cuts and tax increases together should be used.

The major partisan distinctions in response to this question reflect the choice between mostly/only spending cuts versus the equal use of spending cuts and tax increases. Republicans are most likely to favor the former; Democrats, the latter. Independents' views are between these two extremes. Relatively few Americans of any partisan identification favor mostly or only using tax increases to reduce the deficit.

Americans have been clearly informed of the positions the two political parties in Washington hold, having witnessed the very public battle over the recent budget deal passed where Republicans fought hard to include as many spending cuts as possible and Democrats fighting tooth and nail to limit those cuts.

According to another Gallup poll, 48 percent of Americans favor Republicans on the issue of the federal deficit with only 36 favoring Democrats. (via CNBC)

The federal budget was the only issue in which respondents clearly preferred one party over the other, with 48 percent favoring Republicans and 36 percent Democrats.

The poll found that Americans favored Republicans by smaller margins on four other issues: Afghanistan, the U.S. economy, immigration and jobs. Democrats held a small advantage on handling healthcare, the poll found.

When faced with poll after poll showing Americans know where the problems lie and showing preference to how Americans want the deficit reductions handled, the far left fall back to the position of "Americans are too stupid to really understand the problem". The mere 11 percent of the population that want only or mostly taxes increases, in their minds, are the only ones who truly have the brains to understand.

This is evidenced by an Yglesias post, which seems to be the meme the far left use whenever public opinion puts them so far into the minority.

His title "The Public At Least Thinks It Wants Spending Cuts To Be A Very Large Part of Deficit Reduction."

Arrogance be thy name.

According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll asking Americans about the direction of the country, 60 percent believe America to be on the wrong track going the wrong way with only 25 percent believing the opposite.

Rasmussen shows the number saying we are on the wrong track to 71 percent and CBS News/NY Times shows 70 percent say wrong track.

In 2010, midterms, Americans made a huge statement by giving the GOP a net gain in the House of Representatives which not only gave them control but was the largest net gain of seats seen in over 70 years.

Americans also handed Senate Republicans more seats, although Democrats still control the Senate (by a much smaller margin) and the White House.

During the budget recent budget battle, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was quoted as saying "We control one-half of one-third of the government. We can't impose our will on another body. We can't impose our will on the Senate. All we can do is to fight for all of the spending cuts that we can get an agreement to."

While Congress controls the purse strings, no bill that passes the House of Representatives which includes massive spending cuts, as a plurality of the public prefers the deficit to be handled, can get to floor of the Senate because Harry Reid, a Democrat, is Senate majority leader and has the power to bring it to the floor and Democrats hold a small majority, so even if brought up, the GOP cannot get it passed.

If they did, the president, a Democrat himself, has the power to veto it.

This puts the choice directly into the hands of the American public in 2012. Are people like Yglesias correct in believing the Americans only "think" they know what they want, but don't "really mean" it?

I don't think so. I personally think Americans are smart. They understand the problems. They understand the solutions. Most importantly, they understand who is standing in the way of reaching those solutions.

In 2012, 23 Democratic Senate seats are in play and only 10 Republican held seats and the Democrat in the White House faces a reelection challenge.

Americans will have a clear choice of whether they wish to continue to see spending out of control or whether they want to see spending cuts without the massive battle over every dollar cut by a political party that seems to believe that spending more money than you have and continuing to borrow money is simply business as usual in Washington.

If they balanced their personal checkbooks in the same manner as they do Washington's, they would be paying more in overdraft fees to their banks than the whole budget itself.

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A Dollar to Care

This is the concert for wounded soldiers in Dayton Ohio.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/a-dollar-to-care/

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

NFL Draft 2011--A warning to rookies

As I prepare to speak today at an all day rally in Dayton Ohio for wounded soldiers, I have some advice for NFL rookies just drafted.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/nfl-draft-2011-a-warning-to-rookies/


http://www.adollartocare.org/corporate-contributors/armed-forces-family-aid-concert-april-30-2011/

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

Communist Teacher Forced To Resign After Video Published Encouraging Violence

Big complicated bruhaha and at the bottom of this post will be links provided to work your way through the he-said, she-said, video-said argument.

Long story short, Insurgent Visuals, via Breitbart's Big Government, published videos of a course Judy Ancel co-taught with Don Giljum at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).

The videos are admittedly edited and as of now, Giljum has resigned and Ancel is alleging the edits were deliberate to make her look bad. A meme the far left has taken up vehemently.

Statement by Judy Ancel:

* Breitbart’s version: “Violence is a tactic and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic.”

* The real version: After students had watched a film on the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike and the assassination of Martin Luther King, they were discussing nonviolence. I said, “One guy in the film. . . said ‘violence is a tactic, and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic.’ . . . “ The class proceeded to discuss and debate this.

Insurgent Visuals provides the actual video Ancel claims she was quoting from and finds:

In fact, the activist she “quoted” from the 1993 film At The River I Stand, Coby Smith, said, “…we saw non-violence as a tactic, and a tactic alone,” not, as Ancel erroneously claims,”violence is a tactic, and it’s to be used when it’s appropriate, the appropriate tactic” (our emphasis). Smith’s original, full quote appears at 1:02 – 1:15, below:

Go watch the video for yourself, Insurgent Visuals is correct in their transcript of what Ancel claims she was quoting to be quite different from what she said in her initial comments to the students in the course. (video here)

As for the teacher that resigned even though official retirement was just days away, his comments were clear as day and leave no room for misunderstanding:

LaborNotes.org has the facts wrong. Like Ancel, Giljam is misquoting and “selectively editing” himself to remove his admission that he had “inflicted pain and suffering on some people.”

Here is his Giljam’s full quote from the lecture–responding to a student who had observed that “different scenarios call for different action”:

Certainly, and I tend to agree with you, because I think if you look at labor’s history over the years, you’ll find that, you know, we’ve had a very violent history, with violent protest and reaction to suppression, OK? But as time has changed, the tactics have changed, or the need for those have changed, OK? Now, you know, that’s not to say that, in certain instances, strategically played out and for certain purposes that industrial sabotage doesn’t have it’s place–I think it certainly does. But as far as–and I can’t really honestly say that I’ve never wished, or have never been in a position where I haven’t wished real harm on somebody, or inflicted any pain and suffering on some people [Interjection: "We're all human."] that, you know, didn’t ask for it, but, you know–it certainly has it’s place, it certainly makes you feel a hell of a lot better sometimes, but beyond that, I’m not sure as a tactic today, the type of violence or reaction to the violence that we had back then would be called for here, and I think it would do more harm than good.

The portions not in bold, above, were not included in the video we produced. That may not have been the way Giljam would like his quote to have been edited, but it’s a fair edit, in our opinion, and includes Giljam’s confession about inflicting “pain and suffering”–which his statement to LaborNotes.org does not.

Children are impressionable and no teacher from kindergarten through college should be encouraging violence in any way, shape or form.

For the record, a person cannot claim to quote something from someone else, then change the whole quote to make it mean something else and still claim it is someone elses quote.

Once you change a quote, it becomes your quote, your statement.

Ancel can claim she simply misunderstood the initial quote and misstated it, or she can claim the quote as her own, but her BS about it being what someone else said is proven wrong by simply listening to the original quote from the 1993 film At The River I Stand which Insurgent Visuals happily found and provided to show Ancel trying to lie her way out of what she said.

Also, side note, it is annoying that a teacher would use a quote in this manner when she obviously had no clue what was actually said in the first place.

Ancel would definitely get an F if this was an assignment.



Related:

American Power- University of Missouri Fires Communist Labor Studies Professor Don Giljum: Democrat-Media-Complex Decries 'Shirley Sherroding' of Radical Academics

CBS St. Louis- "Union Official, College Lecturer Don Giljum Resigns After AFL-CIO Pressure, UM-KC Won’t Rehire Next Semester."

Big Government- Labor Notes: Union Official, College Lecturer Don Giljum Resigns After AFL-CIO Pressure, UM-KC Won’t Rehire Next Semester

Redstate provides both videos with "Union Leaders Teach Labor Studies Courses on Communism, Violence, Industrial Sabotage & Frying Cats."

Earlier Big Government reports here, here and here

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Democrats Join Republicans Insisting On Spending Cuts Tie In To Debt Limit Increase

With a national debt of over $14 trillion, government spending out of control and the very public battle between political parties showing Republicans insisting on spending cuts and Democrats fighting against them, the White House now needs Congress to increase our debt ceiling.

Republicans in Congress have insisted that any increase be tied to more spending cuts and a fiscal plan that shows Congress is serious about reducing the debt.

The Senate is still controlled by a Democratic majority and any deal made on raising the debt ceiling which includes spending cuts, will have to include Democratic support and it looks like that support is there.

Wapo reports:

The push-back has come in recent days from Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a freshman who is running for reelection next year. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) told constituents during the Easter recess that he would not vote to lift the debt limit without a “real and meaningful commitment to debt reduction.”

Even Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), generally a stalwart White House ally, is undecided on the issue and is “hopeful” that a debt-ceiling bill can be attached to a measure to cut the federal deficit, said her spokesman, Linden Zakula. Klobuchar is also up for reelection next year.

Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.)releases a statement explaining why so many Democrats are joining with Republicans to insist deficit reduction be a part of the package.

“As catastrophic as it would be to fail to raise our debt ceiling, it’s even more irresponsible to not take this opportunity to own up to our unsustainable spending path,” Sen. Mark Udall (Colo.), another Democrat challenging the White House, said in a statement his office released this week. “If we don’t take action to reduce our deficit spending, Congress will be facing this same debt ceiling vote in the near term – still with no end to our deficits in sight.”

Polls conducted by a variety of sources, from January 2011 (Reuters) and as recently as April 2011, (CBS News) show that there is consistent opposition by Americans voters to raising the debt limit.

In 2012, 23 Democratic Senate seats are in play and 10 Republican Senate seats, so decisions made now will be watched and judged and will undoubtedly be a factor in how constituents vote in those elections.

Resurgent Republic:

President Obama’s policy of raising the federal debt limit without any preconditions relating to limiting spending, i.e. a "clean debt limit," is supported by only one-out-of-ten voters, the least popular option of three presented in a Resurgent Republic survey conducted jointly with the American Action Forum.

The second-ranking option overall is "not raising the debt limit under any circumstances." That option places second among Independents and Democrats, and is the top preference for Republicans.

The preferred option, drawing support from a plurality of voters overall, is "raising the debt limit, but only in exchange for substantial spending cuts and a commitment to reduce the deficit." The days of "routine" debt limit increase votes may be history, with voters holding firm views about the debt ceiling vote in a time of concern over the economy and a pervasive view that "we have got to stop spending money we don’t have," as has been seen in previous Resurgent Republic polling.

The Democrats listed above understand the Republicans in Congress enjoy an overwhelming amount of public support to lower the deficit, cut spending and get our fiscal house in order.

They understand this because their chances at being reelected depend on it.


Semi-related :

McConnell turns the tables on Reid in budget fight

“I understand that the Majority Leader would like to have a vote on the House-passed Ryan budget and we will,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement. “But we’ll have a vote on the President’s budget at the same time. Since there is no Democrat budget in the Senate, we’ll give our colleagues an opportunity to stand with the President in failing to address the problems facing our nation while calling for trillions in new spending, massive new debt and higher taxes on American energy, families and small businesses across the country.”

Ouch.

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Ways to make the Royal Wedding even more boring

There are actually ways to make the Royal Wedding even more boring than it already is. Then the tape of the ceremony should be used to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/ways-to-make-the-royal-wedding-even-more-boring/

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

The REAL Obama birth certificate scandal

Here is the REAL Obama birth certificate scandal that only I am covering.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/the-real-obama-birth-certificate-scandal/

Speaking at lunch to the Harrison GOP ladies in Dayton and at dinner to the Sharonville GOP in Cincinnati, Ohio

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

Only Age Demographic To Favor Obama's Deficit Reduction Plan Are Those 18 to 29 Years Old

Browsing through stories over at Memeorandum I ran across a Hotline On Call headline and discussions associated with it that state "Seniors Most Favorable To Ryan Budget."

So clicking over to the Gallup link provided, I see something else that the headline doesn't cover.

It isn't just "seniors" that favor Republican Paul Ryan's budget reduction plan but it is every age group except those that fall between 18 to 29.



Those 30 to 49 years old favor Ryan's plan over Obama's by a 45 to 39 margin.

Those 50 to 64 years old favor Ryan's plan over Obama's by a 47 to 41 margin.

Those 65 and older favor Ryan's plan over Obama's by a 48 to 42 margin.

The only group that favors Obama's plan at all are those aged 18 to 29 by a 53/30 margin.

The same USA Today/Gallup survey, conducted April 20-23, finds Republicans holding a significant edge over Democrats in public perceptions of which party would do the better job of dealing with the federal budget. Nearly half of Americans, 48% prefer the Republicans in Congress on this question, while 36% favor the Democrats in Congress.

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This is good news for Republicans because the most active voters are in the older age groups.

This also shows the Democrats active campaign since Ryan unveiled his plan, to scare seniors into believing Republicans want to end their benefits, has failed dismally.

Ryan has been doing the rounds with a series of Town Hall style meetings to explain his plan and getting a decent reception with question and answer segments, mostly disturbed by preplanned Teamster and SEIU chapter disturbances.

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Pushed By Democrats The Massachusetts State House Passes Bill Against Collective Bargaining Rights For Unions

By a 111-to-42 vote taken at 11:30pm at night to avoid the type of media circus and Union protests that Wisconsin had to deal with when Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill was being debated and eventually passed, the Democratically controlled Massachusetts State House passed a measure which would "strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns."

President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Robert J. Haynes, is not amused.

“It’s pretty stunning,’’ said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns. The same Democrats who tell us over and over again that they’re with us, that they believe in collective bargaining, that they believe in unions. . . . It’s a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.’’

“We are going to fight this thing to the bitter end,’’ he added. “Massachusetts is not the place that takes collective bargaining away from public employees.’’

It still has to get passed the Senate and the Senate President Therese Murray has expressed reluctance to follow the House's example.

Massachusetts? Really?

Republicans only hold 32 out the 160 seats in Mass. In Wisconsin every Democratic Senate members actually ran away from home and hid in another state to avoid a vote like this by the Republican controlled Senate.

Some days I feel like I woke up in the Twilight Zone.

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Trump Did What No One Else Has Done: Forced Obama To Produce COLB

It only took 2 years plus, multiple parties filing lawsuits to see it and Barack Obama spending millions to prevent the release, but after the huge stink made by Donald Trump in the news, Barack Obama has finally released his long form Certificate of Live Birth aka COLB. (PDF here)



The issue of where Obama was born should finally be laid to rest. The questions as to what could this document contain that would make Obama fight so hard and spend so much to keep it from being released, should also be muted because after looking at it carefully, everything seems to be in order.

Name- Check
Place of birth- Check
Dates- Check
Signatures- Check

It is no longer a question of "what is on it" or "does it exist", which brings back the only question left.

Why on earth did Barack Obama wait this long and why did he allow the speculation and doubt to reach the point where 25 percent+ of Americans actually doubted his place of birth?

Not that the answer to why really matters in the scheme of things, it is simple curiosity as to whether this COLB was held back as a strategical move that no longer felt as strategic once the issue blew up again or if Obama spent millions to prevent the release out of simple stubbornness.

Donald Trump deserves (and takes!!! see video at the top) credit for being the catalyst that forced Barack Obama to finally take the simple steps necessary to obtain and produce the COLB, is proud of himself for creating enough of a news fallout where Obama felt pressured enough to finally put this issue to rest.

Trump's reaction was expressed as he was speaking in New Hampshire:

"Today I am very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that nobody else was able to accomplish," Trump said after landing in the Granite State.

Trump expressed some lingering skepticism of the birth certificate's veracity, saying he wants to examine it, but said he expected to be able to move on.

"I hope that it's true so we can get on to much more important matters. So the press can stop asking me questions," he said. "I am really honored to have played such a big role in hopefully getting rid of this issue."

Birthers are going to love Trump for this, even more than they already do, because he manipulated the media into asking about it continuously, got them investigating it and forced Obama to provide something birthers have been demanding from day one.

Reactions are varied and there is an incredible amount of ink being dedicated to the release of Obama's COLB.

PJM says Trump drew "First Blood".

Chicks on the Right asks "was that so hard?"

Atlas Shrugs asks the same thing we and many others are asking "what took so long and why?"

Instapundit thinks Obama waited too long, the damage has been done:

The White House may think it’s sprung a trap, but I think they waited too long. By now — as the polls from earlier this week showing how many independents thought Obama wasn’t born here, and which probably prompted the release decision, indicate — the damage is done. Even if people change their minds on the issue, for many the residual suspicion will remain: The thought that regardless of where he was born, there’s something shady about him.

Best chuckle worthy headline of the day goes to Michael over at Questions and Observations, who declares "Good News! Biden Not The Real President!"


[Update] No worries to those who still want to question the eligibility, WND has that covered.

[Update #2] Jake Tapper from ABC News says Obama's claim that the "dominant news story" two weeks ago was his birth certificate is an "untruth." (Tapper wouldn't dare be saying the President lied would he?)

According to Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, that week the dominant news story was without question the economy.

In fact, it seems the COLB issue was #4 although in Obama's defense, constantly seeing it, hearing about and watching the attention, must have made it seem like it was the dominant news story.

As for which newsmaker received the most coverage, here, too, the president seemed to have a skewed perspective.

Again, Pew’s PEJ: “There was no question that Barack Obama loomed as the key newsmaker last week, mostly due to his nationally televised speech. That marked a change from recent weeks, including several where Obama was not the top newsmaker (Col. Gadaffi was the top newsmaker during the weeks of February 21-27 and February 28-March 6).

“The No. 2 newsmaker last week, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was a key figure in 2% of stories—the first time he ranked among the top five newsmakers since the week of February 7-13, when Mubarak left power in Egypt. Mubarak was hospitalized after experiencing a heart attack.

“Next was Paul Ryan, at 1% of all stories. Ryan’s budget was passed by the House of Representatives at the end of the week, effectively anointing it as the official negotiation starting point of the GOP for the ongoing debate over federal spending.

“At No. 4 was Donald Trump, whose potential candidacy got a boost from his perseverance in insisting there were troubling questions to be answered about Obama’s citizenship.”

[Update #3] Just because it is quite amusing to rile up the left, Philip Berg and Orly Taitz are questioning immigration records and Obama's social security number. (Via The Politico)

I am going to go pop some more popcorn.

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Break Syria and sell it for spare parts

Enough diplomacy with murderers. Time to take Syria, break it, and sell it for spare parts.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/break-syria-and-sell-it-for-spare-parts/

Speaking tonight to the Sycamore Township Republican Club in Cincinnati, Ohio.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

Haley Barbour Opts Out

As I fly from Los Angeles to Cincinnati, I lament an awful day in politics when Ron Paul runs for President and Haley Barbour does not.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/haley-barbour-opts-out/

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

I Don't Think Donald Trump Is Going To Run For President

I do think Donald Trump is going to announce that he is running for president.

My headline and that statement above conflict huh? They seem to be a contradiction, don't they?

Let me explain why they aren't.

Two months ago I thought Donald Trump was seriously thinking of running for president in 2012. As more times goes by, with each interview he gives, with every discussion he has with someone who then comes out and says they believe Trump will run, the less I think it is likely.

I am going to use today as an example, the screenshot below is of Memeorandum, a website that shows what political news stories are being discussed the most.



Trump is once again at the top of the political news. Almost every news outlet from Fox News to CNN is giving him air time, interview after interview. Polls are being conducted with Trump in them.

Trump. Trump. Trump.

The man knows how get publicity, he is brilliant at it.

I am going to make a few observations here that should be obvious to everyone at this point.

1) Donald Trump is disappointed in the job Barack Obama has done as President and does not want him reelected.

2) Trump knows that no potential Republican candidate will seriously discuss the "birther" issue.

3) Trump knows that there is a segment of the American population, more than 25 percent, that have doubts about Barack Obama birthplace.

Now, if you were Donald Trump, a man that can garner the type of media and blog attention (good or bad) shown above, on a consistent basis, and you knew that no serious Democratic contender was going to primary against Obama and you want Obama out of office in 2012..... what could you do, other than donating to a Republican presidential candidate's campaign, to help?

If I were a billionaire who was willing to donate tens of millions of dollars to a cause but could not directly donate it to a candidate because of pesky campaign finance laws, but could use that money in a campaign for myself, I would announce I am running.

I would use those millions to create seeds of doubt into every aspect of Barack Obama's life. I would pull as many of the 18 percent of Americans who are unsure of Obama's birthplace over to the 25 percent that already doubt where Obama was born. I would also tap into the segment of Americans that have questions about Barack Obama's education. I would continue doing this into 2012.

Then I would drop out, kick back, watch the Republican candidate of choice argue the issues such as gas prices doubling and getting closer to tripling under the Obama administration, the economy, social issues, taxes, budgets, etc... areas where the American public are already polling higher in disapproval on Obama than in approval.

"I'd love for him to produce his birth certificate so that you can fight one-on-one. If you look at what he's doing to fuel prices, you can do a great fight one-on-one, you don't need this issue."--- Donald Trump, CNN.

Trump knows a Republican candidate can fight one-on-one over the issues but Donald Trump is a business man, through and through, and a very successful one at that.

A good business man knows that if you have a 50/50 chance at winning a deal, tipping the scales in your favor, which in this case is seeing to it that Obama is not reelected in 2012, gives you a better shot at closing that deal.

So you see, I do think Donald Trump is going to announce his candidacy (Unless he thinks he has done enough damage to Obama before then) and I do think he is going to campaign like he is seriously running.

I also think he is going to pull out of the race before the GOP primaries.

Just my opinion and I could be wrong, but if I were Donald Trump, that is exactly what I would do.

PS- Followup questions... If you were a billionaire with a successful television show, businesses out the gazoo, a real estate mogul with more money than you knew what to do with, would you actually want to take on the job of running a country the size of America following a president who has done everything in his power to destroy it economically?

Would you want to go from a position of making the final decisions to having to play the political games with Congress to be allowed to get anything done?

I certainly wouldn't.

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Milbloggie Awards make it official: I DO support US Military!

"I proudly stand up next to you, and defend her still today. Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land, God Bless the USA.. "

The 5th Annual Milblog Awards (The Milbloggies) are in the finalist voting stages. This site (Assoluta Tranquillita) is one of the finalists in the US Military Supporter category!

I know some have already voted for Assoluta Tranquillita. Thank you. Your job is not done yet, though. You still have more voting to do. From War on Terror News:

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Best Military Reporter & Other Milblog Nominations

War On Terror News is honored to have been nominated and selected to compete in the "Best Reporter" category of the annual "Milblog Awards." We face some stiff competition. Susan Katz Keating is an awesome supporter of the Military, who educates the world on Cold War History, while explaining it's meaning in context. She's been on our link list for longer than I can recall.

Jeffrey Schogol, aka the Rumor Doctor, has a helluva platform to get the votes out at Stars & Stripes. He's one of the good guys, even if we've gone head to head on the correct spelling of Teufelhuenden. (It's Devil Dogs, not the devil's pets.)

Michael Yon has a rabid fan base, which we can't match. We don't have fans. We have readers. Personally, I like it that way. I don't want fans to spur me on to destruction. I want readers and friends and contacts, that will tell me if I step over the line, and coax me back onto the straight and narrow.

But making the voting round, as an underdog, is not our greatest achievement. It is much more satisfying that most of our own nominations have made it. I'm going to guess about 90% of my nominations made it to the voting round. One of the best things to come out of the Milblog Awards is finding new blogs, that I hadn't yet discovered. I've already found one that I like. Look around the finalists and you may find a few too! Here are the nominations we put in, or those we would have, had someone not beat us to the punch:

Be sure to check out WOTN's recommendations for voting HERE. You might see at least one or two you recognise..

Then GO VOTE, please. You are voting for Assoluta Tranquillita and WOTN, aren't you? No, I won't 'threaten' anyone with the infamous pom poms - which are always locked and loaded - but to remind you why any of us keep blogs going, here's one of my favourite videos, for one of my favourite Gold Star Moms (and Jason):

Everything I do, I do it for you...It really IS that simple..

Eye Opening Chart: Gas Prices Under Obama

Via Twitter @NatResources



Obama says we all just have to get used to it huh?

Guess not.

With gas up 25 percent this year to an average $3.84 a gallon, seven in 10 Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll report financial hardship as a result, six in 10 say they've cut back on driving – and, among those hardest hit, Obama's ratings are suffering.

This poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds the president's job approval rating 13 points lower among people who say the price of gas is causing them hardship. Forty-three percent of them approve of the president, vs. 56 percent of those who report no hardship. And among the four in 10 feeling "serious" hardship, just 39 percent approve of Obama's work in office.

In re-election terms, 53 percent of those who are feeling serious hardship as a result of gas prices say they definitely will not vote for Obama in 2012 -- 14 points more than say so among those who are feeling either less-than-serious hardship, or none at all.

That is right, 2012 can see Obama replaced easily enough.

And don't think the GOP isn't going to hit Obama hard over this, they already are.

Visit Hot Air to see some of the ....welll, errrr... HOT AIR Obama is spewing over this issue. Then read AllahPundit's take.

[Update 4/26/11] Gas prices for Michigan climbed 6.4 cents to $4.040 per gallon, reports AAA Michigan.

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Atlas Shrugged Viewer Review

I finally had the chance to go see Atlas Shrugged. I picked Easter Sunday with the hopes that theaters would be less busy on a holiday and less crowded. My mistake, it wasn't, but it did give me the opportunity to listen to the audience reactions as well as my own.

Being an Atlas Shrugged fan for many years I was of two minds when attending the show. I wanted it to be good but I thought how difficult it would be to capture the essence of the characters as written so long ago, so my expectations weren't high on the movie makers ability to do so.

Before giving my opinion, let me also note I went with someone who had never read the book, or any of Ayn Rand's works.

My opinion

It greatly exceeded my expectations. The actors deserve kudos for their portrayals of the complex characters, especially since the benefit of the written word, reading their thoughts and emotions , is absent in any project which has to make the transition from words on a page to acting on a screen.

Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart, which I had my doubts about going in, was brilliant.

Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden was a stroke of genius.

The timing of the movie release is perfect, where the subject matter of the book itself and now the movie continually reminds us of the world around us today. Atlas Shrugged always made me wonder if Rand had some type of crystal ball since almost everything in the book can be seen as one looks around and watches the news or reads the paper.

The flow of the movie moved nicely, the show of newspaper articles, magazine headlines and news stories explaining much of what happens in response to certain scenes allows the movie to continue along without having to overindulge with explanations.

The portrayal of Washington politics and the media was spot on.

If I have one specific criticism of the movie it is a scene it lacked that I have always believed to be one of the most important aspects of the book itself.

The description of the 20th Century Motor Company meeting where the very first "person", a man of thought, walked out after being told his brain, his brilliance and his work would be compensated not by his ability but according to his neighbors needs.

That is clearly where the grain of the idea of stopping the motor of the world by draining it of their brains and abilities began, and in my opinion it should have been explored in Part One.

The person that went with me had a WTF moment, which made me laugh. The third time he heard the expression "who is John Galt" he actually asked WTF?

I couldn't blame him because the first time I read the book it was my reaction after seeing the question asked a few times.

His criticism after seeing the movie was that it was too short.



Audience reactions

A few scenes in the movie got out loud laughs and audience wide chuckles.

One was when the dinner scene with Rearden and Larkin discussing the press, when Larkin said "Well, they say you're intractable, you're ruthless; your only goal is to make money...."

Rearden replied "My only goal IS to make money."

Larkin stated "Yeah, but you shouldn't say it."

The audience members seemed to get a kick out of that.

The second was more than a chuckle, I heard outright laughter from the audience during the whole segment where Rearden was in his office speaking with some tool from the State Science Institute and Rearden asked him if he thought Rearden metal was "good", the man dodged, then Rearden asked again and the man said "Whether it’s good or not is immaterial. If it’s bad, it’s a danger to public safety. If it’s good, it’s a social danger."

The audience laughed even louder when the stooge inquired as to why Rearden was being so stubborn about selling the rights to his metal to the State Science Institute and Rearden told him "Because it's mine. Do you understand that concept? Mine."

Audience reception seemed to be good throughout the movie. The theater was not packed but the theater was pretty full, especially for an Easter Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm.

On a scale from 1-10, I would give Atlas Shrugged a solid 9.

Side note to the film maker: Please don't make us wait too long for parts two and three.

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Barack Obama and Oil "Speculators"

Mr. Obama is now blaming "speculators" for high oil prices rather than admit that he himself is the problem.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/barack-obama-and-oil-speculators/

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

Earned On Merit: The Brits Figured It Out, When Will We?

"If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!" ---Hank Rearden, Atlas Shrugged

Just Deserts.

Individual Responsibility. Earned On Merit. Achievements by effort, talent or dedication.

Policy Exchange, Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron's "favorite idea outlet" has polled the question of fairness. The results show that the people of Britain have learned the answers to the questions America is still debating.

The quite unequivocal reply that was received (with breathtakingly enormous majorities in some forms) came as no surprise to this column. To most voters, fairness does not mean an equal distribution of resources and wealth, or even a redistribution of these things according to need. It means, as the report's title – "Just Deserts" – implies, that people get what they deserve. And what is deserved, the respondents made clear, refers to that which is achieved by effort, talent or dedication to duty: in other words, earned on merit.

The poll itself shows that four in five voters believe that those that receive welfare should actually work for the money they receive from the government.

The poll, however, shows that a startling 80 per cent of all voters thinks that people who have been out of work for 12 months should have to do community work before they get benefits - as long as they are physically and mentally capable of working.

Furthermore, half of all voters (50 per cent) think that someone on JSA should have to spend between three and eight hours a day searching for work in order to get welfare payments.

Tough sanctions - again going further than anything ever proposed by any British government - also win support, with 49 per cent saying that those on JSA who refuse job offers or interviews should lose half their benefit.

Some 21 per cent say they should lose it all.

With the news reports that the Brits have finally figured the error of the class warfare game, it is only fitting and perhaps could be called ironic that the battle between classes is also being reported and still being fought here in America between conservative and liberal pundits.

We see Arthur C. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute, explaining why the war against the rich is completely unfair and Yglesias, a liberal, trying to argue that the rich being penalized for being rich, should be taxed even more than they already are (which is higher than anyone else) is excused with the justification that it would "improve overall human welfare."

Most important, if we reject the ideals of opportunity and meritocratic fairness, we will end up with a system where outcomes are simply based on luck or political power — it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a 2005 study published in the American Economic Review, economists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied 29 countries and showed that a belief in luck over merit was strongly linked to the level of taxation and spending on social programs. Furthermore, they showed that the more citizens believed in a merit-based system, the more their public policies produced such a system.

In contrast, when populations believed that outcomes are a product of luck, birth, connections, or corruption, the people demanded more distortions to the free-enterprise system and ended up with a system that only affirmed their anxieties.

When politicians argue that, for the sake of fairness, we must raise taxes on the entrepreneurial class — and make those “millionaires and billionaires” bring us a few state-subsidized beers on the beach — they are unwittingly undermining the possibility of achieving the opportunity society they regret not having.

We are not a perfect opportunity society in the United States. But if we want to approach that ideal, we must define fairness as meritocracy, embrace a system that rewards merit, and work tirelessly for true equal opportunity. The system that makes this possible, of course, is free enterprise. When I work harder or longer hours in the free-enterprise system, I am generally paid more than if I work less in the same job. Investments in my education translate into market rewards. Clever ideas usually garner more rewards than bad ones, as judged not by a politburo, but by citizens in the marketplace.

The Brits are finally understanding that production, merit, achievements by effort, talent or dedication are what keeps the economy growing, and thriving and handouts to those not willing to work for the money they need to live are draining the economy.

When will America learn the same lesson?

My attitude on "Common good" and punishing the rich, goes back to well before I started this blog in 2006 and I stand by those statements today.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. "--Francisco d’Anconia from Atlas Shrugged

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Sight Seeing Sunday

Happy Easter and Passover. My LASIK laser eye surgery appears to have been successful. The gift of enhanced sight is beautiful. Thank you God.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/sight-seeing-sunday/

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

Blind Bat Saturday

Recovering from LASIK laser eye surgery yesterday.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/blind-bat-saturday/

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

The Great Pretender

Let's face it, people, were are in deep trouble in this country. The country is bankrupt in all but name and most of our politicians are trying to pretend that this is not that big of a problem. The plans put forth by Obama and the Republicans do not come close to dealing with the huge mountain of debt that can never be repaid without resorting to hyperinflation that will finish us off as first world or even a second world country. Not only that but there is no one who seems to have a clue of how to go about fixing all of this in time to save us. Many of us are wondering how the heck did we ever get into this mess?

Of course, it does not help matters any that we have a clueless affirmative action Peter Principled party animal in an empty suit running the country. That is not say that McCain would have been much better but we do have to face reality. Obama could not successfully run a lemonade stand without a government subsidy and probably not even then. His answer to the fiscal crisis is to spend even more money that we do not have. You do not need a doctorate in economics to know that this is totally insane. The only people in this country who will not now admit how incompetent Obama is are the 27% of the individuals who are self described liberals and hence have ideological blinders on and those who are on the government dole. Unfortunately, that describes half the people in this country.

Whatever possessed us to elect this totally unqualified individual to the Presidency? As the saying goes, therein lies a tale and a totally mind boggling one at that. It is now obvious that Obama is not competent enough to have figured out on his own how to become President when he was a total unknown before meeting a small group of extremely dangerous individuals back prior to 1994. Before you go off into wild conspiracy theories about how George Soros was behind this, consider the known facts. There were two married couples active back in the early nineties in Chicago that should have been on the FBI surveillance radar but apparently were not. They were Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn as one couple and Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven as the other one.

In any sensible country the first two should have been executed for sedition a long time ago but then we stopped being a sensible country fifty years ago. What these two couples had in common is that they detested America and everything it stands for and were determined to tear it down and replace it with Marxist socialist state. Ayers and Dohrn had long since learned that violently attacking our government was a lost cause and that they needed a whole new approach. Along with Cloward and Piven, they studied America's weaknesses to see how they could be properly exploited to achieve their ends.

They quickly seized on the idea of how the collective white guilt about the shameful treatment of our black citizens for most of our history was such a weakness but they needed a black individual to serve as their front man. They considered Jesse Jackson who they knew well but he was clearly a race baiter and that would never work. When they met Obama they were pretty sure they had found the right man but they needed to gain Obama some national recognition that would push the white guilt buttons. A biography about Obama's struggle with race relations would fit the bill nicely but Obama was not much of a writer so Ayers had to help him out. The next step was to get him elected to public office.

Fate smiled on them when an Illinois State Senator named Alice Palmer decided to run for Congress in 1995. They persuaded her to back Obama to replace her. Their plan became threatened when Palmer lost in the Democrat primary and decided to run for her old seat after all. Given their history it is no surprise that this group would resort to political dirty tricks that would shame Richard Nixon to further their plans. They repaid Palmer for endorsing Obama by having not only her nominating petitions thrown out as invalid but those of every other candidate thrown out as well. Thus Obama walked into his first political office totally unopposed.

The next step was to get Obama elected to the U. S. Senate but a bunch of millionaires also had the same idea. Reaching into their dirty tricks bag, the Obama group uncovered dirty laundry in supposedly sealed records of some of those candidates and by releasing them at the appropriate time, destroyed their candidacies and Obama once again had a cake walk into another office. Next they got some supporters to convince the officials at the Democrat National Committee to make Obama a keynote speaker at the 2004 Democrat National Convention. They generated some mass media feeds about how Obama was a real up and coming black man and sat back to wait for 2008.

Right from the beginning they knew that the only real obstacle on the Democrat side was Hillary Clinton. How do you attack the wife of your previous President? That was where Obama's skin color really paid off. The Obama folks let everyone know that any real criticism of their candidate would be met with cries of racism. When the Clintons started to bore in on Obama, the racist meme was trotted out in full force. The Clintons could hardly say anything when black adults are the Democrats' most monolithic voting block. That is not true of Republicans who do not get enough black votes to bother about but after seeing what happened to Hillary, the McCain folks abandoned all of their ammunition regarding the truly horrendous associations of Obama to people like their main sponsors. Ayers, Wright and the rest of the gang just denied any real ties to Obama and the McCain folks did not call them on it.

Add in the financial crash of September 2008 and McCain agreeing to the first stimulus package which a majority of the public did not want and Obama waltzed into the White House in a lark. There was still one huge problem confronting the plotters behind Obama and that was that Obama was not a natural born citizen as required by the Constitution. While Obama probably was born in Hawaii, his father was a British and/or Kenyan citizen and since both his parents were not United States citizens, he was not a natural born citizen. The Obama brain trust knew all along that if the matter of what exactly constitutes a natural born citizen ever got to court, there was a real chance that Obama would be disqualified.

Their brilliant solution to the problem was to run a bait and switch scheme to make sure that the case never got to court. All they needed to do was to get the opposition haring after a problem they could defeat in court so they leaked the idea that Obama was born in Kenya. The opposition took the bait and went off chasing the rainbow of an alien President. As a result the natural born part was virtually ignored. The Obama brain trust adamantly refused to provide a copy of the long form birth certificate if there even is one and instead gave a copy of a Certificate of Live Birth to a sympathetic source that reeked of being fabricated. They then stonewalled like mad until Obama had been inaugurated knowing that after Gore vs. Bush and the uproar that caused, there was no way the U. S. Supreme Court would ever disqualify a sitting President. If some court did actually insist on a copy of the "official" birth certificate, they could reluctantly release it knowing that it stated that Obama was born in Hawaii and leaving their opposition with a whole omelet on their faces.

Who would have believed that any group of people could pull off the greatest scam in modern history? Add in the fact that this group never made any secret of what kind of an America they wanted to install and you have to wonder how they ever got away with this. One answer is that our supposedly ever vigilant media was totally in the tank for Obama but that still does not explain why so many Americans were taken in by this unbelievable con game. Why didn't alarm bells ring much more loudly than they did? Another part of the answer is that the McCain folks were totally intimidated by the race issue. In the end though, the real answer was the weakness that Gang of Four first spotted and exploited. Too many Americans were bound and determined to prove that America is not a racist country by electing a black person President before ever electing a female one. Who would have believed that fifty years ago? To accomplish that goal they elected a man who could not have gotten elected national dog catcher if his skin had been white instead.

Note To GOP On Debt Limit: You Do Not Fold When Holding A Full House

All talk of financial Armageddon by the Obama administration aside, it seems that the majority of Americans, who now hold the lowest "mood" level in two years, also are opposed to raising the debt limit. (Source-CBS News/New York Times poll)

Just 27 percent of Americans support raising the debt limit, while 63 percent oppose raising it.

Eighty-three percent of Republicans oppose raising the limit, along with 64 percent of independents and 48 percent of Democrats. Support for raising the debt limit is just 36 percent among Democrats, and only 14 percent among Republicans.

The current debt ceiling is at $14.3 trillion and as you can see from the National Debt Clock above this post, we are at $14,277 trillion and change. (yeah pocket money huh?)

While politicians admit the need to raise the debt limit Republican politicians are demanding a way to raise the ceiling at the same time as assuring the public as part of the debt limit deal that spending will be cut by placing caps, assuring that taxes will not be raised and/or a concrete balanced budget amendment in order to guarantee the pattern of spending, borrowing and raising the limits over and over again is stopped.

Democratic politicians and Obama simply want the debt ceiling raised in a "clean bill" to continue to borrow more money without addressing the causes.

The Obama administration still wants Congress to pass a “clean bill” that raises the debt limit without additional spending curbs, White House Budget Director Jacob Lew said on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”

“Let’s not link them,” Lew said.

Ryan rejected that approach today, saying Republicans can’t support greater borrowing without taking additional steps to reduce the federal deficit at the same time.

“Nobody is saying we want to see default,” Ryan said. “We want to get cuts in controls and on spending going forward, and that is what we’ve been telling the White House.”

Republican senators are considering a plan to tie an increase in the debt ceiling to a cap on federal spending at 20.6 percent of gross domestic product within 10 years.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air digs into the CBS poll's samples and weighting system expresses surprise, that given the unbalanced weighting giving Democrats in the poll a huge edge, the opposition despite Obama's White House messaging of impending doom if the debt limit is not raised, the numbers in opposition are still so high.

It wouldn’t be a CBS poll without looking at the sample and their weighting techniques — and this one’s a doozy. Somehow, their pollster ended up with a raw sample that was almost half Republican, with 543 registered GOP voters in a sample of 1,116, while only 277 Democrats took part in the survey. Pollsters correct those imbalances through weighting, which was necessary for a sample that had a raw D/R/I of 25/49/36.

So how did they weight it? They ended up with a D/R/I of 33/25/41, almost as badly skewed as their raw sample. They ended up pumping Democrats up by a third while cutting Republicans in half and giving independents a slight bump upward, leaving Democrats with an advantage among registered voters that they haven’t enjoyed in years. Remember, Obama won 2008 election popular vote by seven points, with significant numbers of independents and some crossover Republican support as well.

With every two Democratic survey respondents getting three votes to a half-vote for every Republican, it’s somewhat surprising to see that Obama’s campaign on the debt limit hasn’t resonated better than we see here.

This shows that Obama's message has not even resonated well with Democratic supporters.

BUSH YEARS

The debt limit was increased under Bush seven times in the eight years he was president, the end of which had a Democratically controlled Senate and House.

Under Bush the debt limit went from almost $6 trillion on the day he took office in 2001 to $10.63 trillion on the last day of his second term.

Any wonder why Americans turned against the GOP?


OBAMA YEARS

February 17, 2009, the debt limit was raised from $11.315 trillion to $12.104 trillion. From then until now, under a Democratically controlled House and Senate it has been increased three more times and now sits at almost $14.3 trillion.

Almost $3 trillion in two years of an Obama presidency.

2010 midterms gave the GOP the largest increased in House seats in over 70 years and a gain in the Senate. The GOP promised to get Washington's spending under control and work on lowering our debt and to focus on jobs.

Americans gave the GOP a second chance in 2010.

The GOP needs to understand that in this particular issue they have, according to this latest poll and others conducted before it, not only a majority of Americans, but two-thirds of the country behind them in sticking to their guns, demanding the root problem be addressed before raising the debt limit yet again.

Even then some will not be happy the limit was raised again but at least the GOP will have solid actions to back up what they promised during the campaigns that gave them control of the House.

You do not fold when you are holding a full house.


[Update] Going through the discussions on this topic I see I am not the only one using the card game analogy and Patterico's Pontifications thinks the GOP might very well fold their full house.

If they do, the 2012 elections will not be the happy-happy moment the 2010 midterms were for the GOP.

Bet on it.

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Barack Obama's Unholy Thursday

As Jews and Christians celebrate Passover and Easter, Barack Obama had a most Unholy Thursday disrupting all of Los Angeles. I have LASIK eye surgery later today, and am glad I will not be able to look at him.

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2011/04/barack-obamas-unholy-thursday/

Keep me in your prayers that my LASIK goes smoothly.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

PolitiFact Calls DCCC Ad 'Misleading' Gives 'Pants on Fire' Rating

PolitiFact:

Our ruling

Both Republicans and Democrats would no doubt agree that Ryan’s plan for Medicare is a dramatic change of course. But we don’t agree with the ad’s contention that the proposal ends Medicare. Additionally, images in the ad imply that current seniors will have to go back to work to pay for changes to the program. That’s not true either. It’s actually those 54 and younger who will need extra money. With its scenes of seniors going back to work, it seems intended to frighten those who are currently enrolled in Medicare. Finally, the Republicans' vote was symbolic and didn’t actually change the program. When you add up all those distortions, we find the ad highly misleading.

The ad’s aged firefighter says, "Did someone call the fire department? Because it's about to get HOT in here!" We agree. Pants on Fire!

You can go read the details for yourself at PolitiFact.

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Trump Calls Out Media For Focusing On 'Birther' Topic Instead Of Real Issues

Watch the whole video, after answering their questions, they keep going back to the Obama birth certificate issue and Trump finally points to the fact that they refuse to address issues and continue to push the birther topic.



Trump:

"...I think my strength is jobs, the economy and protecting our nation from OPEC, China and all these other countries that are ripping us off. That's my strength. The problem is every time I go on a show like, as an example, this morning, the first question you asked me is about the birth certificate.

So, I go on a show, I want to talk about how we are going to salvage ourselves from losing $300 billion this year to China and the person always asks 'Mr. Trump, lets talk about the birth certificate."

A little further into the discussion they do it again and you can hear the incredulity in Trump's voice as he points out they are still doing it!!!

This is a point I have previously pointed out, how the media pushes the story then claims Trump is "dwelling" on it or pushing it in every interview. This is also a point Sarah Palin has mentioned calling it unfair treatment of Trump.

Related:

Trump says he'll reveal ‘interesting things’ on Obama- CNN

Trump to McCain: 'You're Hired!' - Daily Beast interview with Trump by Meghan McCain

Poll: 45 percent of Republicans think Obama born out of US- The Hill.

Obama sees his approval ratings drop after launching 2012 reelection bid- The Hill.

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A Mideast Devoid Of Christians

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

This is the goal of the Muslim world.  In every Muslim nation there is an official systematic policy to destroy every Christian church, community, life in order to free themselves of the blight they see within their midst.  This isn't a new phenomena in these countries, they rid themselves of Jews decades ago.

This is the saddest Easter in the long epic of Arab Christianity: The cross is near extinction in the lands of it origin. The much-vaunted diversity of the Middle East is going to be reduced to the flat monotony of a single religion, Islam, and to a handful of languages.

In 1919, the Egyptian revolution adopted a green flag with the crescent and the cross. Both Muslims and Christians participated in the nationalist revolution against British colonialism. Now, according to the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights, more than 70 Christians a week are asking to leave the country due to Islamist threats.

The numbers are telling. Today there is only one Middle Eastern country where the number of Christians has grown: Israel. As documented in the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the Christian community that numbered 34,000 people in 1949 is now 163,000-strong, and will reach 187,000 in 2020.

In the rest of the Middle East, the drive for Islamic purity is going to banish all traces of pre-Islamic pasts. This has affected not only Christians, but other non-Islamic communities too, such as the Zoroastrians and Baha’is in Iran (the late also found refuge in Israel, in Haifa.)

The silence of the global forums, the flawed conscience of human rights groups, the self-denial of the media and the Vatican’s appeasement is helping facilitate this Islamist campaign. According to a report on religious freedom compiled by the US Department of State, the number of Christians in Turkey declined from two million to 85,000; in Lebanon they have gone from 55% to 35% of the population; in Syria, from half the population they have been reduced to 4%; in Jordan, from 18% to 2%. In Iraq, they will be exterminated.

Should the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem continue in the next two or three decades, there may be no clergy left to conduct religious services in Jesus’ birthplace. In Iran, Christians have become virtually non-existent since 1979, when Khomeini ordered the immediate closure of all Christian schools. In Gaza, the 3,000 who remain are subjected to persecution. In Sudan, Christians in the South are forced into slavery.

Israel’s flag a symbol of hope

In Lebanon, the Maronites, the only Christians to have held political power in the modern Arab world, have been reduced to a minority because of Muslim violence and Hezbollah’s rise. In Saudi Arabia, Christians have been beaten or tortured by religious police. Benjamin Sleiman, archbishop of Baghdad, is talking about “the extinction of Christianity in the Middle East.”

The Christian Egypt was symbolically represented by former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a Christian married to a Jewish woman whose sister was the wife of Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban. In 1977, Boutros-Ghali, who was then Egypt’s foreign minister, accompanied President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem.

Sadat, who as a child had attended a Christian school, was killed because the treaty his signed with the “Zionists,” among other reasons, and his cold peace is now under attack from the new rulers in Cairo.

In 1948, the Middle East was cleansed of its ancient Jews. Today is the Christians’ turn. Just as Islamist totalitarians have ruthlessly persecuted Christians in the Middle East, they have been waging war for the past 63 years to destroy the Jewish state in their midst. That’s why the fate of Israel is intertwined with the fate of the non-Muslim minorities.

Should the Islamists prevail, the Middle East will be completely green, the colour of Islam. Under atomic and Islamist existential threats, the remnant of the Jewish people risks being liquidated before Israel’s centennial in 2048. It’s time for Christians to recognize that Israel’s survival is also critical and vital for them. During the Holocaust, when most Christians were bystanders or collaborators, the Yellow Star was a symbol of death for the Jews. Today, the white flag with the beautiful six pointed star is a symbol of survival and hope for both Jews and Christians.

Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism

Full Story

After

Before

I wrote in 2008 that the PA is planning to turn the Church of the Nativity into a Mosque.  It is only a matter of time until there are almost no Christians in Bethlehem. Then the PA can evict the Nuns, Priests and Brother who reside at the church (Their usefulness as mouth pieces will be done.), and then loot the place and rework it into a Mosque.

It is not as if Muslims have any respect for the Holy sites of other people.  The desecration of Joseph's Tomb or the Statues of Buddha is the best example of what will happen to every Christian holy site that falls under the sway of these madmen.

Joseph's Tomb

Why is it the Christian churches for the most part, are silent on this? Only a few will cry out for their persecuted brethren.  What is scaring them into silence?

The silence of the Christian world is deafening. Especially to those communities who are being erased from the lands they lived in since way before Mohammad was born.