Thursday, April 19, 2012

Levon

Levon Helm has died

Levon Helm came to fame in a rootsy rock group that featured three extraordinary voices. But you could always tell which was his: It was the sound of the lusty wildcat, the stern Southern preacher, the depleted Confederate soldier, the dirt farmer at the end of his day.

Helm, 71, who as a drummer backed a pair of legendary musicians and then became a star himself with The Band and as a solo artist, died today from throat cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

"Thank you, fans and music lovers, who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration," said his daughter, Amy, and wife, Sandy, in a statement released Tuesday before he died. "He has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the backbeat and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage." The Band's Levon Helm dies at age 71

Saw him at Wolf Trap last year, a beautiful concert. The man lived for his music.

This song has been on my mind the last few days, since his family announced he was in the end stage of cancer.
Levon has been released.

25 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

too bad this isn't a facebook page

I'd click the like button

April 19, 2012 10:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A downstate Illinois Catholic bishop said in a message at St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria that President Barack Obama is on "a similar path" as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria likened Obama's "radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda" as violating the First Amendment and proving the president's "intent on following a similar path" as Hitler and Stalin in a Saturday address.

Jenky went on to say that American Catholics are currently in a "war" due to the Obama administration's ruling on birth control and other issues:

"May God have mercy especially on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil."

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria clarified Jenky's comments Thursday:

"Based upon the current government's threatened infringement upon the Church's religious exercise of its ministry, Bishop Jenky offered historical context and comparisons as a means to prevent a repetition of historical attacks upon the Catholic Church and other religions," said Patricia Gibson, Peoria Diocese chancellor.

Jenky's comments are only a slightly ramped-up version of previous remarks Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George -- as well as a number of other Roman Catholic leaders -- made on the Obama administration's birth control mandate. George wrote earlier this year that the policy will have the long-term effect that "the Catholic church would be stripped of the institutions that are her instrument for public service" -- such as hospitals, universities and social service organizations.

The birth control policy, set forth by the Affordable Care Act, allows most women employed in the U.S. to have the cost of their birth control covered with no co-pay.

April 19, 2012 11:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On Thursday, Sarah Palin reacted to the revelation that a Secret Service agent, who was caught up in the Colombia prostitution scandal, had been in her security detail during the 2008 presidential campaign. He also posted photographs of them together on his Facebook page, and commented that he was "checking her out."

"Well check this out, bodyguard, you're fired," Palin said during an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. "I hope his wife ... sends him to the doghouse -- as long as he's not eating the dog, along with his former boss."

Palin's joke was in reference to President Barack Obama eating dog meat as a Muslim child in Indonesia.

Palin continued to link Secret Service misconduct to the president, stating that the carousing agents in Colombia showed a lack of leadership in Washington.

"Boys will be boys, but they shouldn't be in positions of authority, and I think it's pretty embarassing," Palin said. "But if you consider what's going on and the state of our government with, look who's running the show, boys not considering that there are ramifications to their actions."

Palin continued: "I've had enough of these men being dogs and not being responsible and not entrusting, being able to allow us to trust what these boys are doing in Washington."

Secret Service Agent David Randall Chaney was identified by the Washington Post on Thursday, revealing the Facebook photos he posted of Palin while protecting her during her campaign with GOP presidential nominee John McCain. Chaney, who during the Colombia trip was a supervisor in the Secret Service international programs division, resigned Wednesday under pressure.

April 20, 2012 7:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Guy Who Barbequed a Dog Hosting Ann Romney’s Birthday

Mittens’ dog problem went to another level with the discovery that the campaign donor hosting Ann Romney’s birthday fundraiser today, April 16, once killed, skinned and barbequed a dog.

Frederick Malek III is a Republican brahmin, and he was the National Finance Co-Chair of John McCain’s Presidential campaign.

In 1959, a police officer in Peoria, Illinois, discovered five young men acting suspiciously — they and the inside of their car were covered in blood, and three of them appeared to be burying something. Officers then discovered a skinned dog on a spit elsewhere in the park; its insides had been removed.

Eventually, 22-year-old Malek and his buddies admitted that they’d been drinking earlier that night, and one of the group admitted to beating, killing and preparing the dog for the spit — claiming that he was trying to show Malek and the others ‘something about living off the land.’ Malek swore he had nothing to do with the dog murder. He just stood around while his friend beat a dog to death...

April 20, 2012 8:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sounds like Obama and Malek should resign their positions

anything else would be unfair to Michael Vick

April 21, 2012 10:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That quite a leap from an interstate dog fighting ring with Vick's personal abuse of weaker animals to the consumption of meat.

Malek and his pack of drunken friends' killing and roasting of a dog in a park is abusive just like Vick's killing weaker dogs and forcing stronger ones to fight. In countries where dog meat is a source of protein, abuse is not involved any more than it is in the production of chicken, beef, or pork right here in the USA.

ESPN reported:

"RICHMOND, Va. -- Michael Vick was sentenced to prison Monday for running a dogfighting operation and will stay there longer than two co-defendants, up to 23 months, because he lied about his involvement when he was supposed to be coming clean to the judge who would decide his fate....

Despite the early surrender, a public apology and participation in an animal sensitivity training course, Vick was denied an "acceptance of responsibility" credit that would have reduced his sentence. Federal prosecutors opposed awarding Vick the credit.

Dogs that did not perform up to expectations were killed by electrocution, hanging, drowning and other violent means by the dogfighting ring. Hudson said evidence, including statements by the co-defendants, showed Vick was more directly involved than he admitted. Hudson also mentioned that Vick had been deceptive on a polygraph test. Though that evidence was not admissible in court, the results were discussed.

"He did more than fund it," prosecutor Michael Gill said, referring to the "Bad Newz Kennels" dogfighting operation. "He was in this thing up to his neck with the other defendants.""


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat

Dog meat refers to edible parts and the flesh derived from (predominantly domestic) dogs. Human consumption of dog meat has been recorded in many parts of the world, including ancient China, ancient Mexico, and ancient Rome.[2] According to contemporary reports, dog meat is consumed in a variety of countries such as Switzerland,[3] China,[4] Vietnam,[5] Korea.[6] In addition, dog meat has also been used as survival food in times of war and/or other hardships.[7][8] The Donner Party, stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains during the height of the Mexican-American War, is a noted example of having eaten a pet dog for survival purposes, though it became more known over the years due to cannibalism.[9]

In contemporary times, some cultures view the consumption of dog meat to be a part of their traditional cuisine, while others consider consumption of dog to be inappropriate and offensive. In response to criticisms, proponents of dog meat have argued that distinctions between livestock and pets is subjective, and that there is no difference with eating the meat of different animals, while countering that those critical of dog meat consumption are guilty of cultural supremacy, if not racism.[10][11][12] Eating dog is forbidden under Jewish and Islamic dietary laws, as dogs are considered to be ritually unclean in these two faiths.[13]

1 By region
1.1 Arctic and Antarctic
1.2 Canada
1.3 China
1.3.1 Mainland China
1.3.2 Hong Kong
1.4 India
1.5 New Zealand
1.6 Taiwan
1.7 East Timor
1.8 France
1.9 Germany
1.9.1 Saxony
1.10 The Netherlands
1.11 USA
1.11.1 Native Americans
1.12 Belgium
1.13 Ghana
1.14 Indonesia
1.15 Japan
1.16 Korea
1.16.1 South Korea
1.16.2 North Korea
1.17 Mexico
1.17.1 Ancient Mexico
1.17.2 Modern Mexico
1.18 Nigeria
1.19 Philippines
1.20 Poland
1.21 Polynesia
1.22 Switzerland
1.23 Vietnam

April 21, 2012 12:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

let's see,

Obama believes taxes should be raised to make things fairer

Americans believe taxes are to pay for necessary government expenses

Obama believes it's OK to kill an unborn child if the child would be inconvenient

Americans don't

Obama believes gas prices should be higher to discourage consumption

Americans don't

Obama believes presidents aren't responsible for high unemployment

Americans do

Obama wants to be more flexible with the Russians

Americans don't

Obama thinks it's OK to borrow a trillion dollars every year

Americans don't

Obama's father was an anti-colonialist who hated America

fathers of Americans don't

Obama's wife was never proud of America until it elected her husband

Americans were proud before

Obama believes he was born in America

Americans don't

Obama eats dogs

Americans don't

I think he should be president of some other country

April 21, 2012 4:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Republican lawmakers looking for yet another way to enrich Wall Street backers at the expense of the middle-class have their sights set to the future, literally. In July the interest rates on student loans, which are taken out by nearly eight million students each year, will double.

The Obama administration has begun an all-out push to get Congress to extend the low interest rate on federal student loans, but Republicans are deeply opposed to keeping higher education affordable for most Americans. Or, more accurately, they see resisting the extension as a way to immediately reward their political backers while discouraging middle-class and low-income students from pursuing higher education.

Americans currently owe more on student loans than on credit cards with student debt topping $1 trillion for the first time. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the one-year freeze on the interest rate for subsidized Stafford loans would cost $6 billion. Republicans argue the extension is too expensive for taxpayers, despite the fact that it is only slightly more than the annual amount the Buffet Rule would have brought in, which Republicans opposed as political theater.

Just like the Republican attacks on women’s rights, this looming battle over student loans illustrates just how different the Republicans are from the Democrats. The battle over student loans is really a battle over opportunity [Romney:Can't Afford College? Not his problem]. Democrats see government subsidies to help make college affordable for the middle-income and low-income families a matter of creating opportunity for its citizens. Republicans see making higher education unbearably expensive as a means of creating opportunity for themselves.

April 22, 2012 8:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We are not against the rich. We are against using wealth to gain an unfair advantage.

We are not against corporations. We are against corporations governing us.

We are not against capitalism. We are against corruption in capitalism.

We are not against banks. We are against fraudulent banking practices.

We are not against investment markets. We are against legalized fraud in the markets.

We are not against democracy. We are against the sale of influence by our elected representatives.

April 22, 2012 5:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"We are not against the rich. We are against using wealth to gain an unfair advantage."

obviously, being wealthy has its advantages

which do you think are unfair?

do you think government should eliminate the advantages of being wealthy?

so did Stalin, Mao and Marx

"We are not against corporations. We are against corporations governing us."

please provide us with an example of a corporation that governs us

you can't do it, right?

"We are not against capitalism. We are against corruption in capitalism."

well, everyone is against corruption

not sure what "corruption in capitalism" would be

tell us your fantasies

"We are not against banks. We are against fraudulent banking practices."

banks are heavily regulated

fraud happens

everyone, red and blue, opposes it

doesn't mean we support everyone draconian measure possible to overcome it

but, again, why don't you elaborate?

"We are not against investment markets. We are against legalized fraud in the markets."

legalize fraud?

give us the details

"We are not against democracy. We are against the sale of influence by our elected representatives."

you mean like when Obama gets contributions from teachers' unions and then opposes school choice in spite of its proven track record helping disadvantaged youth?

April 23, 2012 10:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of this country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings."
Thomas Jefferson

"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."
Adam Smith

April 23, 2012 12:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

this is quite tiresome

the rich already support the government, educate all the nation's children and support charitable amenities that make our country a paradise

and the poorest half of our country pay NO income tax at all

the average millionaire pays tax at a higher rate than the average secretary

in the few cases where that doesn't appear so, it is because the investment tax of the rich is double-taxed

further, it has been shown historically that every time capital gains taxes have been lowered, Federal revenues have had a net gain

notably, in the last week, Elizabeth Warren who is running for the Senate in the only state already suffering under Obamacare, came out in favor of repealing the part of Obamacare that levies an extra tax on new high-tech medical equipment

why?

says Warren: when you tax something, you get less of it

amen, sister

same applies to investments

if we raise the tax on investments, we'll get less investment

and America really needs more investment right about now

November 2012

the end of an error

April 23, 2012 1:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sugar Daddies - The old, white, rich men who are buying this election.

April 23, 2012 2:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Operator-What does the 2012 campaign’s biggest donor really want?

April 23, 2012 8:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

if elections can be bought, Obama will win

he has raised much more that he should reasonably need

truth is, while a certain critical mass of funds are necessary to communicate your message in the information age, both Romney and Obama have sufficient funds for this purpose

piling on won't make a difference

neither has so deep a need for more money that it would compromise their integrity

while I'm sure that the rich old white men who owns banks and auto cpmpanies appreciate the bail-out Barack gave them, I doubt that's why they contributed so much money to his campaign

April 24, 2012 3:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just how stupid does Mitt Romney think we are? If you’ve been following his campaign from the beginning, that’s a question you have probably asked many times.

But the question was raised with particular force last week, when Mr. Romney tried to make a closed drywall factory in Ohio a symbol of the Obama administration’s economic failure. It was a symbol, all right — but not in the way he intended.

First of all, many reporters quickly noted a point that Mr. Romney somehow failed to mention: George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, was president when the factory in question was closed. Does the Romney campaign expect Americans to blame President Obama for his predecessor’s policy failure?

Yes, it does. Mr. Romney constantly talks about job losses under Mr. Obama. Yet all of the net job loss took place in the first few months of 2009, that is, before any of the new administration’s policies had time to take effect. So the Ohio speech was a perfect illustration of the way the Romney campaign is banking on amnesia, on the hope that voters don’t remember that Mr. Obama inherited an economy that was already in free fall.

How does the campaign deal with people who point out the awkward reality that all of the “Obama” job losses took place before any Obama policies had taken effect? The fallback argument — which was rolled out when reporters asked about the factory closure — is that even though Mr. Obama inherited a deeply troubled economy, he should have fixed it by now. That factory is still closed, said a Romney adviser, because of the failure of Obama policies “to really get this economy going again.”

Actually, that factory would probably still be closed even if the economy had done better — drywall is mainly used in new houses, and while the economy may be coming back, the Bush-era housing bubble isn’t.

But Mr. Romney’s poor choice of a factory for his photo-op aside, I guess accusing Mr. Obama of not doing enough to promote recovery is a better argument than blaming him for the effects of Bush policies. However, it’s not much better, since Mr. Romney is essentially advocating a return to those very same Bush policies. And he’s hoping that you don’t remember how badly those policies worked.

For the Bush era didn’t just end in catastrophe; it started off badly, too. Yes, Mr. Obama’s jobs record has been disappointing — but it has been unambiguously better than Mr. Bush’s over the comparable period of his administration.

This is especially true if you focus on private-sector jobs. Overall employment in the Obama years has been held back by mass layoffs of schoolteachers and other state and local government employees. But private-sector employment has recovered almost all the ground lost in the administration’s early months. That compares favorably with the Bush era: as of March 2004, private employment was still 2.4 million below its level when Mr. Bush took office.

Oh, and where have those mass layoffs of schoolteachers been taking place? Largely in states controlled by the G.O.P.: 70 percent of public job losses have been either in Texas or in states where Republicans recently took control.

Which brings me to another aspect of the amnesia campaign: Mr. Romney wants you to attribute all of the shortfalls in economic policy since 2009 (and some that happened in 2008) to the man in the White House, and forget both the role of Republican-controlled state governments and the fact that Mr. Obama has faced scorched-earth political opposition since his first day in office. Basically, the G.O.P. has blocked the administration’s efforts to the maximum extent possible, then turned around and blamed the administration for not doing enough.

April 24, 2012 7:51 AM  
Anonymous Romney follows the leader said...

WASHINGTON -- Marking the first philosophical convergence of the general election season, likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said on Monday that he supported President Barack Obama's proposal to extend current interest rate levels on federal student loans.

The former Massachusetts governor made his remarks during his first press availability in well over a month. He returned to the podium to offer his support for the idea, after the event ended without a reporter having asked him about it.

"Particularly with the number of college graduates that can't find work and can only find work well beneath their skill level, I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans," Romney said. "There was some concern that that would expire halfway through the year and I support extending the temporary relief on interest rates on students as a result of student loans obviously, in part because of the extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market."

The White House has recently made a sustained push to pressure lawmakers into extending the current 3.4 percent interest rate on federal student loans. The rate is set to double to 6.8 percent on July 1, affecting the cost of paying back loans for an estimated 8 million students. Others in the GOP tent, notably former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, have urged Republicans to extend the rates for one more year. The difficult question is how to pay for the extension, which could cost the government $6 billion.

Romney left out that detail. He also neglected to mention his support for Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget plan, which would revamp the way interest on student loans is calculated. (The Obama campaign argued Monday that the Ryan plan would effectively double the interest rate on student loans.)

Romney's support for an extension of current policy places pressure on congressional Republicans to resolve the issue before the July deadline. It also suggests that his team of advisers sees this debate as a losing issue.

April 24, 2012 8:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

a lot of words, with little substance

ignores the fact that during the Reagan era, when Republicans ruled for all but the first two years of the Clinton administration, cyclical downturns were brief and the rebounds strong

with the Obama strategy of ramped-up government expenditure, the opposite has happened

I do so hope that Obama will continue tp promote the "Bush is to blame" rationale through November

I hopey there's no changey in that

April 24, 2012 8:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The little recessions of the Reagan era had nothing on the Great Bush Recession. The second graph here (click on it to enlarge it) clearly shows the inconvenient truth that job losses were much less severe and the duration of the economic dip was much shorter during the recessions in Reagan's time compared to the Great Bush Recession.

Romney has never had much respect for Reagan or his policies.

"Romney assured Massachusetts voters when he was running for the Senate in 1994 that he did not want to go back to Reaganomics. He said during that campaign, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush."

Romney was also one of the few Republicans in 1994 to refuse to sign on to Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. He said during that campaign, "In my view, it is not a good idea to go into a contract, like what was organized by the Republican Party in Washington, laying out a whole series of things that the party says 'these are the things we are going to do.' I think that's a mistake."

That mistake led to an historic Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. But Romney was one of the few Republicans to lose that year."
- excerpt from American Spectator: "RINO Romney Is the Least Electable, emphasis added

Mitt Romney plans a highly choreographed return to New Hampshire tonight to refit his primary campaign with general election racing stripes.

But even after he's expected to rack up more delegates in five states voting today, some Ron Paul supporters and others plan to protest outside the Romney event in Manchester that he's "not even close" to capturing the nomination.

Here is one message on a Facebook page posted to crash the party:

"Mitt Romney is skipping all the voting states to be in NH on Tuesday, April 24th. He is holding an event he calls 'A Better America Begins Tonight' in which many are speculating he may declare himself the Republican nominee. Others speculate he may name his VP at this event.

Democrats have already organized protests for this event as well.

We have confirmed this event will be heavily covered by the press.

We intend to NOT make this a Ron Paul event per se but more of a protest reminding Romney that he does NOT have the delegates needed to clinch the nomination. We want to remind Romney and the rest of the country that our elections cannot be bought or manipulated and that there are two other contenders in the race at this time.

We plan on making plenty of signs but we are asking that people be as specific to the delegates and election process as possible, rather than bringing Ron Paul signs. The signs we are making will have the number 1,144 with a line through it (indicating 'NO!'), possibly adding the words, 'The Truth: Not Even Close!'"

- http://windham.patch.com/articles/ron-paul-supporters-to-protest-romney-party-in-nh

April 24, 2012 3:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Romney's insult to women on equal pay"

Lilly Ledbetter is the co-author of "Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond" She has campaigned and raised funds for President Barack Obama.

(CNN) -- It took more than 20 years to get an answer for the injustices I suffered as an unfairly paid worker, so I know what it's like to wait. But the six seconds of silence from Mitt Romney's campaign recently seemed like forever.

Romney's advisers held a conference call inviting reporters to ask questions. One was simple and straightforward: "Does Gov. Romney support the Lilly Ledbetter Act?"

In other words, when a woman is paid less than a man for doing the same work, does the presumptive Republican nominee support her right to fight for the equal pay she's guaranteed under the law? That's exactly what the bill that bears my name ensures -- it simply gives workers a fair shot to make their case in court.

It's not a hypothetical question. Women get paid just 77 cents for every dollar a man gets. That means a woman would have had to work from January 1, 2011, until this Tuesday to match what men earned in 2011 alone.

Romney's team has certainly had enough time to think about its candidate's positions -- he's been running for president for six years -- and about the law in question, which was the very first one that Barack Obama signed as president more than three years ago.

But Romney's team drew a blank. The line went silent. Crickets. When an adviser finally piped up, it wasn't to answer the question. It was to tell the reporter, "We'll get back to you on that."

The Republican nominee for president doesn't know whether he supports the principle of equal pay for an equal day's work? He needs some time to think about it? What an insult.

Romney then went on national television, where Diane Sawyer asked him if he would have signed the bill into law. He still wouldn't give a straight answer, saying that he had no "intention of changing that law." In other words, he ducked the question. For all we know, had the Ledbetter bill crossed Romney's desk instead of President Obama's, Romney would have vetoed womens' right to fight back. And if a future Republican Congress tries to repeal the Ledbetter law, we don't know whether Romney would let it. If the Paycheck Fairness Act, which goes even further to outlaw gender discrimination in the workplace, reached his desk, we don't know whether he would stop it...

April 24, 2012 5:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...While Romney decides whether he opposes gender discrimination, here is an important reality he should consider: This isn't just about women. It's about all families and their economic security.

The consequences of unequal pay reach far beyond the paychecks women take home every week. My pension and Social Security were based on an unfair salary, so over the course of my career, I was cheated out of hundreds of thousands of dollars that could have gone to my kids' education or my family's medical bills or to support the shops and small businesses in my community. I also worked countless hours of overtime, but the extra pay I earned was based on the same uneven scale.

The question Romney's campaign couldn't answer is a question of fairness and whether American workers have a level playing field on which everyone has the same opportunity to get ahead.

I know Obama believes in those values. As the grandson of a woman who worked in a bank long after she hit the glass ceiling -- and who was paid less than the men she trained -- he believes equal pay is an essential right. As the father of two girls, he cares deeply about making sure the work force they'll join one day isn't slanted against them.

But I have no idea where Romney stands -- and from the sound of it, neither do those closest to him.

What we do know about whom and what Romney supports is even more unsettling than his silence on this issue. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently took away citizens' rights to fight workplace discrimination. Romney called him a "hero" and a "man of courage."

He'd also repeal Obama's health reforms and bring back the discriminatory days when being a woman was considered a pre-existing condition, which means insurance companies could charge us more than men for the same coverage or deny it to us altogether.

When combined with pay inequality, Romney's promises would mean women would earn less income and then be forced to pay more for basic health care. That's devastating for our families and the economic security of the middle class.

Anyone who wants to be president of the United States shouldn't have to think about whether hardworking, responsible middle-class families deserve the opportunity to succeed. We know all too well what it's like to hear silence when we fight for fairness -- and we've heard enough.

April 24, 2012 5:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A prominent pundit has slammed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's decision to appoint an openly gay man as a national security and foreign policy spokesman.

American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer, who is known for his conservative stance on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues, slammed the appointment of former Bush administration official Richard Grenell.

Describing Grenell as "out, loud and proud homosexual," Fischer noted, "What gays want is...they don't want the rights, they want the title...they are not about commitment. Homosexuals are about short-lived relationships and frequent anonymous sexual encounters...that becomes a significant issue when we're talking about appointing someone to a post as sensitive as national security and foreign policy."

April 24, 2012 9:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

what does the TTF blog have to say about the democrats refusal to pass a budget for the 3rd year in a row ? how do you balance the budget if you don't even mark it up ?

seriously, How do you justify this ?

April 24, 2012 11:40 PM  
Anonymous Four more years! said...

How do you expect the Democrats to pass anything with the GOP threatening to filibuster every Democratic bill, resulting in endless cloture votes, which require 60 votes to even consider legislation?

During Obama's presidency the 111the Congress, from 2009-2011, held 137 cloture votes and the 112th Congress since 2011 has held 82 more for a total (so far) of 219 cloture votes in less than four years.

The GOPs sainted Ronald Reagan was subjected to 31 cloture votes by the 97th Congress between 1981-1983 and 41 cloture votes by the 98th Congress from 1983-1984, for a total of 72 cloture votes in his first full four years in office.

That was back in the day when negotiation and compromise were valued skills on Capitol Hill.

There have been three times as many cloture votes in fewer than Obama's first full four years in office compared to all of Reagan's first full four years in office.

During the 99th Congress, from 1985-1986, there were 41 more cloture votes and during the 100th Congress from 1987-1989, there were another 54. That means there were fewer cloture votes, 167 total, in Reagan's 8 years in office than in Obama's first 3 years in office, with 219 cloture votes so far and counting.

Why? Because the GOP's only goal is to defeat Obama, even if the only way to do so is to screw over US citizens, like women who need the protections of the Violence Against Women Act, and students who need protection from a doubling of the interest rates on their student loans, to name a few.

Also, when you are dealing with an economy in free fall, you suspend worry about the bottom line until you can stop the fall and turn things around like the Obama's policies have done for the stock market and private sector jobs, which have grown markedly since Obama took office.

"In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005."
Barack Obama on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 in the State of the Union address"


According to Politifact, "the increase in 2011 represented the highest one-year total since 2005, when the number of private-sector jobs increased by either 2.22 million or 2.31 million, depending on the time period used....Obama is correct on the numbers."

In Feb, 2012, after 3 years of Obama's leadership even over all the GOP Congressional obstruction, the WSJ reported Dow at Highest Since May 2008

"The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through to its highest close since May 2008, back before the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapse, as investors increasingly put aside fears of economic calamity and focused again on fundamentals.

News of strong job growth, a three-year low in unemployment and other positive developments Friday pushed the Dow ahead 156.82 points, or 1.23%, to 12862.23, its first triple-digit gain since Jan. 3. The blue-chip index would have to rise just 10% to reach its record close of 14164.53, hit Oct. 9, 2007."

April 25, 2012 9:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gallup: Obama Now at 50% Job Approval; Leads Romney, 49% to 42%

April 25, 2012 2:50 PM  

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