Sunday, January 22, 2012
Video: Newt Gingrich on 'Meet The Press' (1-22-12)
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Dow up 60 percent since Obama took Office
It is proof that the Republican criticism of Obama being unfriendly to big business is a myth. This President, like his recent predecessors, are all tools of the Wall St. bankers and corporations. In fact, the Democrats, the so-called party of working people, have seen the stock market increase more than under the previous President:
60 percent: Increase in the Dow Jones Industrial average during the first three years of President Barack Obama's term, up 4,771 points to Friday's close of 12,720 as his fourth year begins.Full article
-24 percent: Decline in the Dow during President George W. Bush's second term from 2005 to 2009, dropping 2,522 points to 7,949.
-1 percent: Decline in the Dow during President Bush's first term from 2001 to 2005, dropping 116 points to 10,471.
55 percent: Increase in the Dow during President Bill Clinton's second term from 1997 to 2001, increasing 3,744 points to 10,588.
The Doomsday Clock Sounds a Warning
Republicans might want to run on this in the Fall against Obama:
Full article
As if the Mayan calendar and all the hype surrounding Dec. 21, 2012, weren't enough to distract the average pessimist, this week the Doomsday Clock maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was moved up a full minute to 11:55 p.m.
The bulletin cited two reasons for resetting the symbolic clock a minute closer to mankind's witching hour: the failure to curb nuclear arms proliferation and the lack of a meaningful global response to climate change that includes the world's biggest producers of carbon dioxide.
Moving the minute hand forward represents a retreat from a brief moment of optimism the scientists had when they nudged the clock back a minute two years ago. The scientists were heartened then by the international talks in Copenhagen on climate change. They also believed that nuclear stockpiles would begin shrinking. As a result, the optimism of the Nobel laureates and other scientists who represent the bulletin has turned to disappointment.
Yemen's Saleh says to leave for treatment in United States
It's a mistake. But typical of the U.S. government. Let's not forget what happened with the Shah:
Yemen's outgoing president Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Sunday he would leave for medical treatment in the United States and return to continue leading the ruling party, but gave no indication of when he would leave the troubled country.Full article
A source close to Saleh said he was set to leave within the next few hours for the United States via neighboring Oman.
"God willing, I will leave for treatment in the United States and I will return to Sanaa as head of the General People's Congress party," Saleh was quoted by the state news agency Saba as telling a meeting with party officials.
Saleh, who was granted immunity from prosecution under a law passed by parliament on Saturday, also asked Yemenis to forgive him for mistakes made during his rule.
"I ask for pardon from all Yemeni men and women for any shortcoming that occurred during my 33-year rule and I ask forgiveness and offer my apologies to all Yemeni men and women," he said. "Now we must concentrate on our martyrs and injured."
Thousands of Yemenis protested on Sunday against Saleh's immunity and demanded he be put on trial for offences they say he committed during his rule.
'This Week' Transcript: GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum (1-22-12)
Full transcript. Excerpt below:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Senator, you've been making that case for some time right now. But looking at the exit polls coming out of South Carolina, among the voters who thought that electability, who can beat Obama, was more important -- there were a lot of them, 45 percent -- Newt Gingrich got 51 percent of them, Romney 37 percent. You were way down at 7 percent. And then of candidates looking for a very conservative candidate, a lot of those, as well, 36 percent, but Newt Gingrich gets almost -- more than double what you got.
So if you're not winning among the very conservative and you're not winning among those who want to beat Obama, what's your rationale?
SANTORUM: Well, look, we -- if you look at the numbers in Iowa, they were just the opposite. You look at the numbers in New Hampshire, they were -- they were tilted in a different direction. I mean, Newt put his flag here in South Carolina. It's a state that he knows well. It's a neighboring state for him. He spent all of his time and money down here. I spent a lot -- most of my time and money -- and certainly time, not money -- in Iowa.
And this is -- you know, these three races, in many respects, were -- are baked much more than the races going forward. And now we're going to have an opportunity for folks who haven't had the kind of exposure to the candidates that the three early primary states have, and we're going to see a very, very different dynamic.
George, there's one thing you know, that if you don't like the state of the play of the race right now, just wait until the next race. And we're going to see a completely different story. And that's the dynamism of this race.
So this idea that, because one person did well, Newt finished fourth and fifth. Where was everybody calling him to get out of the race? You know, we finished a very -- you know, we came from single digits in the last week and -- and really had a strong finish, a good debate. You know, we won Iowa, got really no bump from that because it happened the day before the primary.
There's a lot -- there's a lot of races to go. We're going to Florida and beyond.
Transcript: Fareed Zakaria, Time Interview of President Obama
Full Transcript. Excerpt below:
Fareed Zakaria: When we talked when you were campaigning for the presidency, I asked you which Administration’s foreign policy you admired. And you said that you looked at George H.W. Bush’s diplomacy, and I took that to mean the pragmatism, the sense of limits, good diplomacy, as you looked upon it favorably. Now that you are President, how has your thinking evolved?
President Obama: It is true that I’ve been complimentary of George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy, and I continue to believe that he managed a very difficult period very effectively. Now that I’ve been in office for three years, I think that I’m always cautious about comparing what we’ve done to what others have done, just because each period is unique. Each set of challenges is unique. But what I can say is that I made a commitment to change the trajectory of American foreign policy in a way that would end the war in Iraq, refocus on defeating our primary enemy, al-Qaeda, strengthen our alliances and our leadership in multilateral fora and restore American leadership in the world. And I think we have accomplished those principal goals.
We still have a lot of work to do, but if you look at the pivot from where we were in 2008 to where we are today, the Iraq war is over, we refocused attention on al-Qaeda, and they are badly wounded. They’re not eliminated, but the defeat not just of [Osama] bin Laden, but most of the top leadership, the tightening noose around their safe havens, the incapacity for them to finance themselves, they are much less capable than they were back in 2008.
5 Ways Poor Dental Care Makes You Sick
Even if you brush your teeth daily, you may still have dangerous bacteria growing inside your mouth. Not only could that lead to periodontitis (an advanced form of gum disease that comes with symptoms such as bleeding when you brush and gum pain), but studies also find a link between poor oral hygiene and major health issues. Here are some ways that missing the mark on oral care could harm your heath.
It May Hurt Your Heart
People with gum disease are almost twice as likely to suffer from coronary artery disease compared to those don't have periodontitis. Researchers aren't exactly sure of why this might be, but one theory is that harmful bacteria from your mouth enters your blood stream and attaches to fatty plaques in your heart's blood vessels, leading to inflammation and upping your risk of clots that can trigger heart attacks.
Hollywood Typecasting: Some Latina Actresses Are Forever Relegated To Roles As Maids (VIDEO)
Hollywood has always been about typecasting and stereotyping. Which is ironic since so many of them are leftists. It is how bigotry and racism continue to thrive:
Teresa Yenque has appeared in seven episodes of "Law & Order" and "Law & Order: SVU", each time as a different character, as reported by Jezebel. She's played a nanny, a cleaning woman, a grieving mother, a grieving grandmother and three different housekeepers.Full article
The common thread is that they're all stereotypical caricatures of Latinas -- submissive, god-fearing, scared of the police or La Migra.
Like Yenque, other talented Latina actresses have been relegated to similar roles throughout their careers. For whatever reason, they seem to fit nicely into what the creators of shows see as a typical maid, grandma or housekeeper. Still, behind the roles are actresses with many years of experience and well-rounded careers, including significant roles in Spanish-language films and TV.
Consider Lupe Ontiveros, who has played a maid more than 150 times, she told NPR. She played the likable housekeeper Rosalita in "The Goonies," a maid in the original "Charlie's Angels" TV series, a housekeeper in "Who's The Boss," had a recurring role on "Desperate Housewives", and on and on...
Saturday, January 21, 2012
In 2006, Gingrich Backed Censoring the Web
Gingrich is capable of saying or doing anything. It is indeed frightening to think that such a man could conceivably become President:
Full article
At Thursday night's debate in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich painted himself as a friend of a free and open Internet, but in the past he's talked up pretty radical proposals to curtail free speech online.
The question Thursday was about the Stop Online Piracy Act, legislation that has the support of the entertainment industry and powerful members of the House and Senate, but is now on life support after running into a firestorm of criticism from Internet users, tech companies like Google, and activists who shut down websites in protest earlier this week.
"You have virtually everybody who's technologically advanced, including, you know, Google and YouTube and Facebook and all the folks, who say this is going to totally mess up the Internet, and the bill in its current form is written really badly and leads to a range of censorship that is totally unacceptable. Well, I favor freedom," Gingrich said. "The idea that we're going to preemptively have the government start censoring the Internet on behalf of giant corporations' economic interests strikes me as exactly the wrong thing to do."
But back in 2006, Gingrich argued censoring the Internet would be the right thing to do when it comes to Islamic radicals who use the web to organize jihad against the U.S.
"We need to get ahead of the curve rather than wait until we actually literally lose a city, which I think could literally happen in the next decade if we're unfortunate," Mr. Gingrich said during a speech in New Hampshire, according to a story I wrote at the time for The New York Sun. "We now should be impaneling people to look seriously at a level of supervision that we would never dream of if it weren't for the scale of the threat."
Jewish Newspaper Calls for the Assassination of President Obama
All the fears about a terror attack in the U.S. has been directed at Islamic groups. There are other groups, religious or otherwise, whom are just as a threat to us as al Qaeda. We should watch and fight against all of them:
The U.S. Secret Service is looking into a controversial column by an Atlanta Jewish newspaper publisher that mulled the assassination of an American president.Full article
Andrew Adler, owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, wrote a January 13 column about the threat of Iran to Israel. He posed three options for the Jewish state to counter the Iranian regime.
One of them called for a "hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence."
"Give the go-ahead for U.S. based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States' policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies."
U.S. Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie told CNN Saturday, "We are aware of it. We are taking the appropriate investigative steps."
Adler could not be reached for comment, but the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a wire service for Jewish newspapers in North America, quoted Adler on Friday as saying "I very much regret it. I wish I hadn't made reference to it at all."
Adler -- who said he's gotten a lot of flak for the column -- said he would issue an apology in the next edition of the weekly newspaper, the JTA reported.
CIA Collaboration with New York Police Department was never Legally Approved
More evidence that there is an attack against civil liberties continuing from the Bush years and kept going during the Obama administration:
The top lawyer at the CIA never approved sending one of its officers to help the New York Police Department create a domestic spying program, raising the possibility that the agency may have violated a ban on domestic spying.Full article
Last August, the Associated Press reported that the CIA had violated that prohibition when it “played a key role in transforming the New York Police Department’s intelligence unit into a cutting edge spy shop dedicated to gathering information on Muslims.”
Civil Rights in Chile: Maid Refuses to get on Bus
The poor throughout the world are still second-class citizens. This will continue to be the case as long as wealth rules politics:
Felicita Pinto arrived early at the gates of the luxurious community where she labors as a maid, but the minibus to her employer's home was late. So she decided to walk six blocks to work, on streets lined with broad lawns and imposing homes.
Security guards quickly chased her down and forced the 57-year-old widow back to the gate. Pinto's employer protested, as he had before, against the community bylaws that forbid servants to move at will.
Pinto's simple stroll helped set off national soul-searching over discrimination and mistreatment of domestic workers across Chile, where leaders ache to be accepted as representing an enlightened, developed nation. Local news media heard of the case and outrage followed when another homeowner in the El Algarrobal II development sought to justify the restrictions.
[...]Discrimination toward domestic workers is among the more entrenched social ills in Latin America and beyond. In luxury complexes just south of Peru's capital, maids can't swim in the ocean until their employers have left the water. In Mexico City, some luxury restaurants prohibit maids from sitting down to eat and some high-rises force workers to take the service elevators.
Scalia On Citizens United: If You Don't Like The Ads, Turn Off The TV
This is not a judge who should be on the bench. Not the kind of attitude you would expect from a Supreme Court justice. It is why we need a Constitutional amendment to overturn 'Citizens United' and 'Buckley vs. Vallejo':
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia weighed in Saturday on the landmark Citizens United ruling and offered little sympathy for the current barrage of political ads pounding the airwaves in South Carolina.Source: Huffington Post
The Associated Press reports:
Scalia was asked about the decision during a presentation before the South Carolina Bar on Saturday, exactly two years after the court handed down the 5-4 decision in the case that led to the rise of Super PACs. They are outside groups affiliated with candidates that can take in unlimited contributions as long as they don't directly coordinate with the candidate.
"I don't care who is doing the speech – the more the merrier," Scalia said. "People are not stupid. If they don't like it, they'll shut it off."
Keith Ablow, Fox News Psychiatrist: Newt Gingrich's Infidelity Might Make Him A Better President
More twisted propaganda from the FOXNews gang:
A controversial psychiatrist who works for Fox News has written an attention-getting column about Newt Gingrich. The column's conclusion? That Gingrich's infidelity might make him a better president.Full article
Keith Ablow last attracted notice back in September, when he condemned ABC for letting Chaz Bono appear on "Dancing With The Stars" because he was a transgender man who, in Ablow's mind, might make children reconsider their own gender if they saw him. Ablow is also well-known for authoring a book with Glenn Beck.
Dennis Kucinich: The Future of American Democracy
One of the few voices for the people in Congress:
This is not a progressive issue or a conservative issue. This is not a Tea Party issue or a liberal issue. This is an American issue. Money is destroying our politics and our political system. The signs are everywhere. A "super PAC" supporting Mitt Romney spent $3.5 million to knock Newt Gingrich out of the lead in Iowa. A super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich is spending a greater amount of money to return the favor to Mitt Romney in South Carolina. Our electoral system has become such a joke that two late-night comedians are now actually participating in it and are generating great laughter just by demonstrating how it operates.Full article
In the past, Congress has made two bipartisan efforts to control the impact of money on our elections, first in the early 1970s and more recently with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as "McCain-Feingold." Both of these laws tried to restrict the influence of money on our elections. But after each of these efforts, the Supreme Court kicked down the door and allowed campaign money to flow more freely.
First, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Court held that money is the equivalent of "free speech" under the First Amendment, and that no act of Congress could restrict the amount of money that an individual could contribute to his or her own campaign or expend in support of another person's campaign as long as that expenditure was "independent" of the campaign. This decision gave the "one percent" a voice in our elections that greatly exceeds the concept of "one citizen-one vote."
Feds: Religious Employers Must Cover The Pill
This will certainly be very controversial. Obama has overstepped here:
Many church-affiliated institutions will have to cover free birth control for employees, the Obama administration announced Friday in an election-year move that outraged religious groups, fueling a national debate about the reach of government.It's a bizarre policy given the administration's recent 'Plan B' decision:
In a concession, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said nonprofit institutions such as church-affiliated hospitals, colleges and social service agencies will have one additional year to comply with the requirement, issued in regulations under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
"I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services," Sebelius said in a statement.
Yet the concession was unlikely to stop a determined effort by opponents to block or overturn the rule. If they fail, some predicted that religious employers would simply drop coverage for their workers, opting instead to pay fines to the federal government under the health care law.
"Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience," said New York Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "This shouldn't happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights."
For the first time ever, the Health and Human Services secretary publicly overruled the Food and Drug Administration, refusing Wednesday to allow emergency contraceptives to be sold over the counter, including to young teenagers. The decision avoided what could have been a bruising political battle over parental control and contraception during a presidential election season.
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