Friday Fume...and it's meant to be sarcasm people so don't get bent out of shape...

By: Craig Andresen

How ‘bout that State of the Union speech, huh?

In Egypt, when a guy wins a “DEMOCRATIC” election and then, declares himself the DICTATOR…The OPPOSITION PARTY has him ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL!!!

Over here…The opposition party offers a trio of rebuttals and then goes on a retreat.

In Orange County California…Police served a search warrant…5 MONTHS AFTER NEIGHBORS REPORTED A STENCH COMING FROM A HOUSE…SO BAD IT MADE THEM PUKE…And found a TEACHER living amongst approximately…450 SNAKES AND RATS…MANY OF WHICH WERE DEAD WITH THE LIVES ONES CANABALIZING THE DEAD ONES!!!

Sounds like the assembled audience at the  SOTU but only stinking half as bad.

AND…

It’s Super Bowl week and we now why the Falcons went 4 and 12 last year.

They knew the big game was set for NEW JERSEY in FEBRUARY and…

THEY WERE AFRAID THERE MIGHT BE 2 INCHES OF SNOW!!!

Patriots and friends…It’s Friday and…

I’m fuming.

And then…There were 3…Heading for the elected socialists retirement VILLAGES, where they can relax, play golf and REAP THE REWARDS OF BEING CAREER A-HOLES!!!

That’s right…

First, it was George Miller from the house…THEN…Max Baucus…2 ARCHITECTS OF OBAMACARE to announce THEIR impending “CAN’T WIN BECAUSE OF OBAMUNISM” 

retirements and now…

YOU CAN ADD HENRY WAXMAN to the list.

When it comes to the Obamacare criticism he’s been getting from people who have been thrown from their insurance policies…

I guess Waxman’s had…

A SNOOT FULL!!!

According to the groundhog…

“After 40 years in Congress, it’s time for someone else to have the chance to make his or her mark.”

It’s California folks so, don’t get to expecting even so much as a RINO is gonna get THAT seat.

It’ll be just another mark making Marxist.

But you can SEE what’s happening…All those who DREW UP THE SOCIALIST MANDATE are the FIRST democRATS TO JUMP OFF THE SINKING SHIP!!!

The cowards…PUT IN PLACE A SYSTEM THAT IS DESTROYING THE ECONOMY AND COSTING AMERICANS…THROUGH THE WAXMAN…I mean…NOSE…MAKE THE CORRUPT IRS ENFORCE IT AND LAUNCH A WEBSITE DESIGNED FOR IDENTITY THIEVES TO STEAL ALL OUR PERSONAL INFO AND THEN…

RUN AWAY AND TELL US IT’S TIME TO MAKE WAY…FOR A NEW SOCIALIST???

And you morons think anybody’s convinced that Obamacare’s working and the Tea Party is FINISHED???

If that wasn’t so LAUGHABLE…I’d be…

Fuming.

Well…Isn’t this nice.

DISNEY has introduced their FIRST GAY CHARACTERS to one of their shows.

In a throwback to the 1920’s, Disney will ditch their “HAPPIEST” place on earth moniker for…

DISNEY…THE “GAYEST” PLACE ON EARTH!!!

Sorry San Fran…Your queens have been replaced by RODENTS.

In the story from “Good Luck Charlie” the girl’s parents invite her little friend over for a play date and “Taylor” who could be a boy OR a girl…Shows up with His or HER 2 moms.

According to Disney and their PR department, they did it, “to be relevant to kids and families around the world and to reflect themes of diversity and inclusiveness.”

GREAT!!!!!

So…We’ll be expecting to see DUCK DYNASTY moving to DISNEY soon???

Maybe Disney could REALLY break new ground and be TOTALLY RADICAL by producing a NEW show called…

“TEA TIME WITH TED CRUZ!!!!!!”

No???

Well then, SOMEBODY needs to inform Disney that being, 

“relevant to kids and families around the world and to reflect themes of diversity and inclusiveness,” is NOT a ONE WAY STREET before we wind up with a bunch of BLACK, GAY, HOMELESS, ILLEGAL ALIEN, GUYS GETTING FREE,TAXPAYER FUNDED SEX CHANGES AND STICKING THEIR ASSES IN THE AIR 5 TIMES A DAY TO THE CALL TO MUZZIKETEER PRAYERS!!!!!

I’m fuming.

And finally…

Let me take a moment and address the end of the world.

Dear Atlanta…

IT WAS 2 INCHES OF FREAKIN’ SNOW!!!

2 INCHES!!!

Okay, I realize it doesn’t snow in Atlanta very often and they don’t have a fleet of snow plows on standby but…

YOU DIDN’T NEED A FLEET OF SNOW PLOWS…WHAT YOU NEEDED WAS…

A BROOM!!!

IT WAS 2 INCHES OF SNOW FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!

Are You Smarter Than a Communist?

John Ransom / Townhall Columnist

Well it’s official.

We’ve known that I'm smarter than a communist, but now comes confirmation that I’m smarter than government economists—which still is a rather hollow accolade.

GDP figures for 2013 came out and despite a doubtful surge that came in the last half of the year GDP still managed to squeak under 2%, just as I predicted at the beginning of the year.

“For 2013 as a whole,” says ABCNews, “the economy grew a tepid 1.9 percent, weaker than the 2.8 percent increase in 2012, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Growth was held back last year by higher taxes and federal spending cuts.”

And Obamacare.

And Dodd-Frank.

And the War on Energy, the EPA, the IRS, the Fed and the general problems that Democrats have with adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing conspired to keep growth slow. You'd have to be a communist not to admit of theses facts.

But, if you like your abacus, you can keep your abacus.

“For some reason, today pundits are appalled by the loss of Fed credibility…. Perhaps instead of that,” writes ZeroHedge, our favorite finance crime fighter, “the sophisticated financial community should focus on the core of the problem: the Fed's chronic inability to look even more than a couple of years into the future without being dead wrong about what transpires, even in the absence of a great financial crisis (which the Fed never could predict in the first place of course).”

In graph below ZH details the various revisions to GDP for 2013 that the Fed has made as it got closer and closer to its target date.

What’s most appalling about it is that even in June and September of this year, the Fed was still forecasting high even as the economy needed 4.1% and 3.2% annual growth rates in quarter three and four respectively just to come in under 2% for the year.

But don’t worry say economists. This year should be much, much better.

“This year, economists think the economy will get a lift from continued gains in hiring,” writes ABCNews. “Further steady job growth would give more households money to spend and help lift consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity.”

Yeah, steady job growth?

The jobs numbers are at best mixed, as are a whole host of other data on the economy going into 2014.

How one sees the economy depends on whether one is a glass half-full kind a guy or a glass half empty kind a guy.

Personally I’m more like a Washington is half full of it kind of guy, and always the wrong half.

Job gains of always been the key to economic growth, and there’s not a lot of good news on that front. While it’s true that unemployment claims of been trending down the last several years, 2013 has been sideways. And a late surge of volatility in the index could point to a reversal of the trend since about September 2013.

US Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance data by YCharts

 

As seen in the chart above claims volatility has picked up substantially since September. Much of that volatility is due to unemployment claims not being processed in a timely manner in certain large states. But if you apply just a little technical analysis since September to the chart, there's no doubt that there's been at least a temporary reversal. Claims are not trending downward, they’re trending upward.

And even the mainstream media has recently acknowledged that much of the improvement in the unemployment rate is coming via a shrinking workforce, not a growing number of jobs.

That’s akin to breaking a 12-inch ruler in half, and then claiming that one half of the ruler is still equal to one foot.

David Williams of WilliamsEdge and PageTrader.com, a sponsor for Ransom Notes Radio and a specialist at forecasting market direction, has told me that 2014 will mark an important market top.

By the time of the midterm elections in 2014 the market should be reversing course, or at least sideways, in my estimation. Williams believes that this could mark the beginning of a multi-year bear market.

That’s a good news and bad news scenario.

The bad news obviously is that nobody likes the stock market to go down when all of us in one manner another are vested in stock markets returns for our retirement plan.

The good news however could be that 2014 might be the year where Main Street and Wall Street start to work in tandem to affect change.

Because as usual Washington, DC has it wrong: Wall Street and Main Street will always have more in common than anyone has with Washington, DC. We don’t need Washington protecting Main Street from Wall Street.

We just need Washington to stop being the uninvited third wheel to the economic machine driven by Wall Street and Main Street.

Remember: I’m not a government economist. Or a communist.

I’m just smarter than either.

But then so are you.

School Choice and Common Core: Mortal Enemies

Michelle Malkin / Townhall Columnist

 

The freedom-enhancing, life-improving power of school choice is more than a theory for me. It's more than a talking points memo or teleprompter speech. Unlike many of the politicians paying lip service to National School Choice Week this week, the issue of expanding educational opportunity and freedom for all is something I live, breathe, practice and witness every day. 

 

My mother was a public school teacher who taught in a majority-minority district in New Jersey for more than two decades. She and my father worked hard to put their own children in a mix of public and private Catholic schools. My own two children have been enrolled in private schools, religious schools and public schools. After a great deal of research, we moved from the East Coast to Colorado to escape the corrupted, dumbed-down curriculum of an overpriced private girls' school.

Life lesson: It's not just government schools that are the problem. Many supposedly "elite" schools indulge in the senseless pedagogical fads that infect monopoly public schools.

Every family in America deserves maximized, customized choices in education. It is the ultimate key to closing that "income inequality" gap the politicos are always gabbling about. Yet, the White House and Democrats beholden to public school unions and their money are the ones blocking the school choice door.

We were blessed to find a community of parents and public school educators in Colorado Springs who embrace high standards, academic excellence and strong character education for students of every race, creed and class. Competition in the secondary-school marketplace provided a desperately needed alternative for educational consumers who wanted more and better for their kids.

For the past four years, our kids, now 13 and 10, attended a high-achieving public charter school that caters to a truly diverse student body.

Our 13-year-old is now in 8th grade at the charter school. This year, we opted to homeschool our youngest. We cobbled together a 5th-grade curriculum with excellent materials from the Calvert homeschool series, Memoria Press and classic Saxon Math. Another nearby public charter school offers a homeschool collective once a week.

Family participation is not an afterthought. It's the engine that drives everything. The dedicated parents, grandparents, foster parents and legal guardians I've met in the charter school movement and homeschooling community see themselves as their children's primary educational providers. Not the U.S. Department of Education. Not the White House. Not GOP politicians cashing in on top-down "education reform."

After several years of educational satisfaction, however, we've encountered another sobering life lesson: There is no escape, no foolproof sanctuary, from the reach of meddling Fed Ed bureaucrats and cash-hungry special interests who think they know what's best for our kids.

Big-government Republicans such as Jeb Bush and flip-flopping Mike Huckabee pay lip service to increasing school choice and supporting charter schools, private schools and homeschooling. Yet, they have been among the loudest GOP peddlers of the Common Core "standards"/textbook/testing/data collection regime thrust upon schools who want nothing to do with it.

"Alignment" with the new regime means mediocrity, mandates, privacy invasions and encroachments on local control and educational sovereignty. I've seen it in my daughter's polluted math curriculum. We are not alone. The threat is not just in one subject. It's systemic.

Derek Anderson, principal of Ridgeview Classical Schools in Fort Collins, Colo., wrote to me last fall about the existential threat his charter school faces. "Ridgeview Classical Schools is a K-12 charter school that offers a classical liberal arts education to approximately 800 students. We were established in 2001, and we have generally been one of the top three schools in Colorado since opening," he said. "Our most significant issue with Common Core and the PARCC exams is that we feel we will lose the autonomy and other protections granted to us when Colorado adopted its Charter Schools Act in 1994."

As I've noted, PARCC is the behemoth, federally funded testing consortium (the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) that raked in $186 million through President Obama's Race to the Top program to develop nationalized tests "aligned" to the top-down Common Core program. Anderson and informed administrators, educators and parents like him understand: "PARCC is truly the enforcement mechanism that will coerce schools into adopting the Common Core curriculum. We cannot do this. It is entirely against the mission and philosophy of our school."

It is, in short, sabotage. Anderson calls it an "almost existential dilemma. Our mission and philosophy are irreconcilable with Common Core's."

Homeschool mom of six and blogger Karen Braun of Michigan sees the threat to her choice, too. Her trenchant message: "True school choice allows a parent to choose any school that meets their child's needs, not just those that adopt Common Core State standards and assessments."

No fully funded school voucher system in the world can improve the educational experience if Fed Ed controls the classroom and homeschool room. Coerced conformity kills choice.

State Department adviser on “extremism” urges U.S. to “befriend” al Qaeda

Robert Spencer  / Jihad Watch

 

Establishment “experts” on foreign policy and Islamic jihad terror generally suffer from willful ignorance about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, and traffic in comforting politically correct fictions about Islam being a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists — a fiction that has led the U.S. into numerous disastrous, indeed catastrophic, foreign policy errors. This is one of the more egregious manifestations of the self-defeating, futile courses of action they advocate: three members of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations (Michael Doran, Will McCants, and Clint Watts, pictured above left to right in that order), including a former State Department Senior Adviser (McCants), advocate that we befriend an al Qaeda group that they think is “moderate” in order to wean it away from “extremism.”

This strategy has been followed again and again, and never accomplished anything but the loss of American lives and the waste of American money and materiel. For months now numerous people have claimed that if we didn’t aid the Syrian “moderates,” they would have nowhere to turn but to the “extremists.” We aided them, although not as much as some people would have liked (including Barack Obama and John Kerry), and they turned to the “extremists” anyway.

It is not surprising that the puerile and silly Will McCants is fronting this notion. He is one of the learned analysts who are essentially children in adult’s clothing, babbling on like fifth graders about “bad guys” and ideas that are “crazy pants.” McCants also harbors a Reza Aslan-like fondness for contemptuous Twitter abuse of those who dare to suggest that Islamic texts and teachings may sometimes incite believers to violence.

This is the kind of boy who sets State Department policy these days. No wonder we’re in the fix we’re in.

“State Department Adviser on Extremism Urges US to ‘Befriend’ Al Qaeda,” by Daniel Greenfield at FrontPage, January 29:

Officially there are no more terrorist attacks, just man-caused disasters brought about by offensive YouTube videos. Also there are no more terrorists. Just Violent Extremists. And there’s no more counter-terrorism, just experts on Countering Violent Extremism.

William McCants was a U.S. State Department senior adviser for countering violent extremism and is a director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings liberal think tank.

At the CFR’s Foreign Affairs, McCants joined together with two others to argue that Ahrar al-Sham is, and I quote, “an al Qaeda–Linked Group Worth Befriending.”

With the collapse of the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front is now the only game in town for the people who insist that we should counter Al Qaeda by supporting Al Qaeda.

The article begins by defending Obama’s stupid jayvee crack, denounces the “political rights” and argues that, “The al Qaeda of yesterday is gone. What is left is a collection of many different splinter organizations, some of which have their own — and profoundly local — agendas.”

That line is a bit misleading. The Al Qaeda of yesterday is not  gone, it’s overshadowed by local organizations, meaning that Al Qaeda has accomplished its goal of serving as a vanguard for a global movement of terrorist groups committed to its worldview.

The “jayvees” have overshadowed the Lakers because they have more people, more weapons and more territory. While the Lakers are content to sit and watch the expansion of new franchises around the world.

“Today, two different al Qaeda affiliates, the al-Nusra front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), are battling each other in Syria’s Raqqa province. Perhaps Oliver North might argue that it is incumbent on the United States to take out both groups. But a more nuanced take would lead the president to ask key questions before taking precipitate action.”

The article conveniently avoids answering the question while taking the time to sneer at Oliver North. But as the experts know full well, the old Al Qaeda had its share of violent conflicts.

The outcome of such a conflict is responsible for Zawahiri’s current position.

Then the article argues that Ahrar al-Sham and the rest of the Islamic Front are the best hope for defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq. That may or may not be so, but the article fails to qualify why we should care which flavor of Al Qaeda emerges victorious in the battle to lose to Assad.

“Second, designating Ahrar al-Sham as a terrorist group would destroy what little chance the United States has of building relationships with the other militias in the Islamic Front. Those relationships will be important for ensuring that the Front treats Syrian civilians well during the war and after, should Assad ever be toppled. Making a direct enemy of Ahrar al-Sham would also make it extremely difficult for U.S. nongovernmental organizations to move aid through territory controlled by it and the Islamic Front, because U.S. law prohibits working with terrorist organizations.”

Which would be a good thing, because we could finally stop providing aid to terrorists.

Are we supposed to collaborate with Al Qaeda in the hopes that it will treat civilians and NGOs well when it takes over? Does that sound like the behavior of any Al Qaeda linked group?

“Finally, Ahrar al-Sham’s leader, Hassan Abboud, has never endorsed bin Laden’s vision of a global jihad. His struggle is limited to Syria. Designating his group as a terrorist organization might backfire by pushing it completely into al Qaeda’s camp.”

And this is where it gets truly stupid.

The vision of a global Jihad wasn’t something that Bin Laden came up with, it was something that Islam came up with. A group that believes in the primacy of Islamic law and rule in Syria also believes that this state of affairs should exist worldwide.

Furthermore Al’Suri was Al Qaeda’s representative in Syria all along and was a co-founder of Ahrar al-Sham. That means a direct Al Qaeda involvement in setting up this flavor of Al Qaeda.

The article clings to the idea that we shouldn’t push an Al Qaeda linked group all the way into Al Qaeda’s camp by designating it as a terrorist group.

How exactly is this appeasement supposed to turn back time?

Op-ed:

Except for one...shameful cowards all

By: Diane Sori

To have the inner strength to stand by one's convictions and act in accordance with those beliefs, especially in spite of criticism...that's the definition of courage. And those with courage act in defiance of any inner fear of reprisal they might have for they put others before themselves.

I think our Founder's expected our leaders to be men of courage, especially when attending to 'the people's business.' How disappointed they would be if they saw the Republicans of today cowering in fear before the man, who on Tuesday night, declared himself to be America's first king...NO...dictator is more like it...for when Barack HUSSEIN Obama basically rendered Congress politically impotent by saying he will bypass them and do what he wants to do...he NOT only trampled on the Constitution, he totally rendered it null and void in his mind.

And so the knife was dug deep into America's back...a knife that the Republicans in this Congress are just plain out and out too afraid to remove.

Fear of the race card being used against them now takes precedence over the oath of office they took...an oath to do their constituent's bidding and to protect and defend the law of our land...the Constitution. Shameful to say the least...complicit in America's downfall at most.

When Barack HUSSEIN Obama said that, he would "go it alone" and "Whenever and wherever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that is what I am going to do," and then added in that "every mayor, governor and state legislator in America...you don't have to wait for Congress to act," every single Republican member of both Houses of Congress should have stood up and walked out en-masse as that would have sent a powerful message to the man who would be king...to the man who would be dictator...that he will NEVER be either.

And then after a hush fell over those remaining...those NEVER expecting the Republicans to have actually grown a spine...then the provost marshal should have entered the room and arrested this sham of a president for his deliberate violation of his Constitutional oath of office.

But sadly, this was NOT to be for as a collective body the Republicans who comprise this Congress... and even those in the TEA Party...just stood there and applauded the words of the man who NOT only rendered them politically impotent but who also made them a cowardly laughing stock. And now we know that come November all must be voted out of office...well maybe NOT all for one man...Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas)...had the courage, strength of conviction, and simple guts to do what in his heart he knew had to be done as he and he alone stood up and walked out on this sham of a president who spewed traitorously mocking words against the Constitution.

"Tonight I left early after hearing how the President is further abusing his Constitutional powers," Stockman said. "I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers...Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in the tone and content of tonight’s address."

Stockman has in the past been a vocal critic of Obama and his policies, especially his use of Executive Orders when he doesn't get Congress to do his bidding... Executive Orders which Stockman says are "a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense."

And how right he is.

But what is on par shock value wise with Stockman's walking out but diametrically opposite in its nobility is the media's...and that includes FOX News...total lack of coverage of this most honorable display of love for our Constitution and love for all America stands for.

The media...the in-the-pocket for Obama media...instead of doing their job of reporting the news NOT hiding the news instead stumbles over itself to see who can best throw the protective blanket around Obama and his abomination of a speech...a media who stumbles as they try to see who can keep the myth of 'the anointed savior of us all' going the longest. Never mind that this man just basically said the Constitution be damned...NEVER mind that Obama has successfully used fear of the race card to keep those elected to serve 'We the People' subservient to his wishes and wants... NEVER mind that the 'Free Press' clause of the Constitution has now been turned into the 'What Obama Says We Can Report On' clause...NEVER mind all that for the American media by their very lack of action has now been rendered as null and void as the Constitution Barack HUSSEIN Obama deems a relic of the past.

Remember this is the man who said before he ran for the presidency that "the U.S. suffers from a fundamentally flawed Constitution"...this is the man who told Vladimir Putin at the Asian/Pacific Summit “It doesn’t matter since for all intent and purposes the US Constitution is dead”...and this is the man who in a 2001 public radio interview said the Constitution was a “charter of negative liberties, full of constraints imposed upon us by our Founding Fathers."

And then when a man of courage stands up and walks out in defense of the Constitution...our nation's founding document...the media chooses to remain silent as they instead fawn over the one they helped 'anoint' to the highest office in our land...NEVER mind that his address bordered on treason.

And so today things continue on as usual...the media is keeping all criticism off Barack HUSSEIN Obama and his most grievous and treasonous State of the Union address yet...those in Congress still have NO spine or courage to do what they know needs to be done...and 'We the People' just got screwed again by the man who has now crowned himself king.

And saddest of all is that the America our Founder's envisioned has been lost to a man who revels in his destruction of all we hold dear...and Congress' lack of actions has aided him every step of the way.

The New 2016 GOP Frontrunner?

Daniel Doherty / Townhall Tipsheet

 

Hardly. But according to one left-leaning PPP poll -- with a D/R/I split of 39/36/26 -- Mike Huckabee does lead the Republican pack heading into 2016. Curiously, his recent “offensive” comments seem only to have bolstered his appeal with the GOP electorate:

Following the controversy over his 'Uncle Sugar' speech Mike Huckabee has...taken the lead in the Republican primary race for 2016. He's at 16% to 14% for Jeb Bush, 13% for Chris Christie, 11% for Rand Paul, 8% each for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Paul Ryan, 6% for Scott Walker, and 5% for Bobby Jindal. 

There's been more movement than usual over the last month, with Huckabee and Bush each gaining 3-4 points, and Chris Christie and Ted Cruz each falling by 6 points. Cruz had been leading the field among 'very conservative' voters for months but in the wake of Huckabee's press attention last week he's taken the top spot with that group. He's at 20% to 15% for Paul, 11% for Cruz, and 10% for Bush. In the wake of Bridgegate Christie's supremacy with moderate voters is being challenged- a month ago he led Bush by 23 points with them, but now his advantage is down to 3 points at 28/25.

Fully 43 percent of respondents described themselves as either “somewhat conservative” or “very conservative.” By contrast, only 31 percent described themselves as “very liberal” or “somewhat liberal.” The rest were “moderates.” So while the D/R/I split seems to benefit Democrats, those who self-identified as conservatives out-sampled those who self-identified as liberals by double digits. Is this why Huckabee is the frontrunner? But if so this doesn’t really explain why conservatives are drawn to Mike Huckabee of all people and not, say, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio or Scott Walker. One possible explanation is name recognition. Unlike Huck, none of these candidates have run for president before; plus, candidates like Christie who are well-known are damaged goods at the moment. Another is that 61 percent of the population surveyed was 46 years old or older; therefore, the majority of conservative Republicans surveyed were perhaps middle-aged/elderly social cons who are attracted to Huck’s continued and explicit defense of Christian moral values. The sheer demographics of the survey could have given him the edge. Maybe?

But far more interesting, perhaps, is how much Democrats are utterly banking on Hillary Clinton running for president in 2016. Look at these numbers:

Clinton's leads might be modest but there's not much doubt Democrats would be in a far, far better position with her than any of their other potential candidates. Even with Christie's declining popularity he would still lead Elizabeth Warren by 9 points (43/34) and Joe Biden by 11 points (46/35) in hypothetical contests. 

Clinton continues to be as dominant as ever when it comes to the Democratic primary. 67% want her to be the candidate to 7% each for Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, 2% each for Cory Booker and Andrew Cuomo, and 1% each for Kirsten Gillibrand, Martin O'Malley, Brian Schweitzer, and Mark Warner. Clinton continues to have the strong support of every Democratic constituency- she's over 60% with liberals, moderates, men, women, whites, African Americans, and Hispanics alike.

If Clinton sits it out Joe Biden is the favorite, getting 32% to 16% for Warren, and 7% each for Booker and Cuomo. And if Biden doesn't run either it's Warren 24%, Cuomo 13%, and Booker at 11% with no one else over 4%.

There’s always the fleeting chance that an Obama-esque candidate emerges out of left field to win the nomination. I’m not ruling that out. But of all the candidates rumored to be running for president, no one even comes close to challenging Hillary for the nomination at this stage in the game. Granted, it’s early. But if she doesn’t run Democrats' electoral hopes and dreams fall to…Joe Biden. By contrast, the Republican bench is stacked with conservative reformers, many of whom have executive experience. So no matter who wins the Republican nomination, Republicans will presumably be well situated to recapture the White House in 2016. But if Hillary Clinton doesn’t run, Democrats could be in deep, deep trouble.

A “Human Right” to Other People’s Money

Daniel J. Mitchell   Townhall Columnist

 

One of the many differences between advocates of freedom and supporters of statism is how they view “rights.”

Libertarians, along with many conservatives, believe in the right to be left alone and not molested by government. This is sometimes referred to in the literature as “negative liberty,” which is just another way of saying “the absence of coercive constraint on the individual.”

Statists, by contrast, believe in “positive liberty.” This means that you have a “right” to things that the government will give you (as explained here by America’s second-worst President). Which means, of course, that the government has an obligation to take things from somebody else.

How else, after all, will the government satisfy your supposed right to a job, education, healthcare, housing, etc.

Sometimes, the statists become very creative in their definition of rights.

• Across Europe, a satellite dish is now a human right.
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development asserts there is a right to “emotional support animals” in college dorms.
• In Finland, broadband access is a basic right.
• In France, it is against the law to say your husband is under-endowed or that your wife is fat.
• There’s now an entitlement for free soccer broadcasts in Europe.
• In Italy, you have the right to…um…your testicles.
• Both the United Nations and the Obama Administration think there’s a right to taxpayer-financed birth control.

You may laugh at these examples, particularly the ones that focus on seemingly trivial issues.

But don’t laugh too hard, because our friends on the left are busy with very grandiose plans for more “positive liberty.” 

The EU Observer reports on efforts in Europe to create expanded rights to other people’s money.

Austerity programmes agreed with the troika of international lenders (the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) are in breach of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, according to a German legal expert. …under the EU charter of fundamental rights, a legal text which became binding for member states in 2009, several austerity measures enshrined in the MoUs can be fought in courts. 

…His study highlights that the MoUs “have seriously limited the autonomy of employers and trade unions to negotiate wages.”

…Education and health care reforms prescribed in the memorandums are also questionable because they are focusing too much on cutting budgets, he said.

…He noted that the concept of “financial stability” was put above all other considerations. “But financial stability cannot be achieved without social stability,” he said.

But it’s not just one oddball academic making these claims.

…the Council of Europe’s social rights committee noted that public policies since 2009 have been unable to stem a generalised increase in poverty on the continent. The committee identified some 180 violations of European Social Charter provisions on access to health and social protection across 38 European countries. In the bailed-out countries, the committee found several breaches – particularly in terms of wages and social benefits. Ireland was found in breach of the social charter for not ensuring the minimum levels of sickness, unemployment, survivor’s, employment injury and invalidity benefits. Greece and Cyprus have “inadequate” minimum unemployment, sickness, maternity and old age benefits, as well as a restrictive social security system. Spain also pays too little to workers on sick leave.

This crazy thinking also exists in the United States. A former Carter Administration official, now a law professor at Georgetown, has written thatcountries with good policy must change their systems in order to enable more tax revenue in nations with bad policy.

Do states like Switzerland, which provide a tax haven for wealthy citizens of developing countries, violate internationally recognized human rights? …bank secrecy has a significant human rights impact if governments of developing countries are deprived of resources needed to meet basic economic rights guaranteed by the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. …The Covenant explicitly recognizes individual rights to adequate food, clothing, and housing (Article 11); health care, clean water, and sanitation (Article 12); and education (Article 13). The Covenant also imposes obligations on member states to implement these rights.

And the right to redistribution isn’t just part of the U.N. mission.

There’s also a European set of Maastricht Principles which supposedly obligates nations to help each expand the burden of government.

Articles 19 and 20 of The Maastricht Principles call on states to “refrain from conduct which nullifies or impairs the enjoyment and exercise of economic . . . rights of persons outside their territories . . . or which impairs the ability of another State to comply with that State’s . . . obligations as regards economic rights.” …recognizing the fact that secrecy for offshore accounts makes it difficult for developing countries to implement Covenant obligations. It therefore seems indisputable that offshore accounts impede the fulfillment of internationally recognized human rights.

You may be thinking that all this sounds crazy. And you’re right.

You may be thinking that it’s insane to push global schemes for bigger government at the very point when the welfare state is collapsing. And you’re right.

You may be thinking that it’s absurd to trample national sovereignty in pursuit of bad policy. And you’re right.

And you may be thinking this is a complete bastardization of what America’s Founding Fathers had in mind. And you’re right.

But you probably don’t understand that this already is happening. The IRS’s awful FATCA legislation, for instance, is basically designed for exactly the purpose of coercing other nations into enforcing bad American tax policy.

Even more worrisome is the OECD’s Orwellian Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, which is best viewed as a poisonous acorn that will grow into a deadly World Tax Organization oak tree.

P.S. And the Obama Administration already is pushing policies to satisfy the OECD’s statist regime. The IRS recently pushed through a regulation that says American banks have to put foreign tax law above U.S. tax law.

P.P.S. Statists may be evil, but they’re not stupid. They understand that tax havens and tax competition are a threat to big government.

“170,000 rockets aimed at Israel”

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

“What’s this fear that’s struck us suddenly? They’ll kill Jews? Today?” — Shimon Peres

No, those rockets are to send origami floating peacefully in the Israeli skies.

“’170,000 Rockets Aimed at Israel,’” by Tova Dvorin for Israel National News, January 29:

Israel’s Chief of Military Intelligence, Major General Aviv Kohavi, painted a clear and graphic picture of what Israel faces on a daily basis on Wednesday: a constant barrage of terrorist threats.

“Israel is surrounded by 360 degrees of actual enemies,” Kohavi stated, in a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) quoted by Walla!.

“We call this period in time the “Era of Fire”, in light of the amount of missiles and rockets we face as a constant threat. There are about 170,000 rockets and missiles that threaten Israel,” Kochavi said.

“The fighting in Syria, as well as operation ‘Pillar of Defense’, has resulted in a slight decrease. However, it will increase again,” he added.

“For the first time the enemy now has the ability to hit Israeli cities hard.”

Kohavi issued a new term to describe Israel’s enemies: “paramilitary terrorist groups.”

“We cannot continue to call Hezbollah a terror group,” Kohavi maintained. “They have over 100,000 rockets and missiles, some of them advanced. The same can be said of Hamas. The line between a terror organization and a military organization continues to blur.”

“Today, Israel is threatened with warheads that contain half a ton of explosives – but also warheads that contain 900 kilograms of explosives,” Kohavi explained. “Our enemies are working on procuring weapons systems in the air and on the sea to break through our Air Force and Navy. IAF pilots can no longer move freely toward their targets and have to dodge missiles that threaten them.”

Kohavi also related to Syria, which has been caught in an all-out Islamic holy war since 2011. According to the Major General, the security threat is enormous: over 30,000 global jihad terrorists are concentrated there, and many are in training camps to bring terrorism abroad.

“Syria has become a magnet for terrorists in Europe, America, Asia and North Africa,” he noted. “The terror will not stay there, but will spill over into sleeper camps in Lebanon and Sinai and infect the entire region.”

Jihadists have been slowly crossing the border into Turkey, Kohavi stated, “where they are a threat to Europe. The distance between Syria and Turkey is not far.”

“We are talking about extremists clinging to extremist ideologies – anti-Western and anti-Modern ideologies,” he continued. “We are talking about exceptional cruelty and brutality close to our borders.”

In addition, Kohavi warned that Iran’s nuclear program remains an imminent threat.

“Iran’s nuclear program continues,” he stated. “It is just waiting on Iranian leaders to decide whether or not to produce one bomb, or more.”

Kohavi does remain slightly optimistic, however, about threats closer to Israel’s borders.

“The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hamas in Gaza are under great distress right now,” he said. “This is a serious opportunity for the State of Israel.”…

Indeed. If the U.S. doesn’t bail the jihadis out.

Op-ed: 
The State of the (Dis)Union Speech
By: Diane Sori

We all know that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is a narcissistic LIAR of the first degree who will do any and everything to fundamentally change our beloved America into something totally unrecognizable to 'We the People.' And so on Tuesday, true to form, the man who is a traitor to everything America stands for stood before Congress and the America people, looked straight into the cameras and said he "would go it alone" if Congress did NOT work with him. In other words, the President of the United States...for all to hear...threatened Congress to either do his bidding or else his word and his word alone will be the law of the land...period.

"Whenever and wherever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that is what I am going to do," a blatant in-our-face abuse of his executive power...of our Constitutional declared system of checks and balances...and a clear violation of his oath of office, as in “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Gives new meaning to his previous threat to 'use his phone and his pen' to issue Executive Order after Executive Order to force the American people to accept and live by his socialist agenda. And when he spoke the words that "every mayor, governor and state legislator in America...you don't have to wait for Congress to act," he basically was saying to Congress that they were now politically impotent to do the job they were elected to do...as in to represent and do the people's bidding.

Hopefully these words...threatening and fighting words...will finally open Congress' eyes to see the blatant misuse of power with its overstepping of presidential bounds this man now speaks of...and will finally force those in Congress to grow a spine and call for the immediate arrest of Barack HUSSEIN Obama for refusing to uphold the very Constitution he swore to protect and defend...but I'm NOT holding my breath for it.

And the media...even FOX News...gave either NO or but cursory coverage to this most grievous of acts any president can perpetrate on the American people.

And there's more...focusing a majority of this speech on his intended policies...and using rude and snide rhetoric to describe what he can and will do without Congressional approval, Obama said he will start by issuing an Executive Order post-haste to raise the minimum wage for certain government contract workers. While this would affect less than half a million people, he strongly "urged" (as in threatened) Congress to follow suit for all low-wage workers in America...translating into having low-wage workers NO longer striving to improve their lot in life as in it's easier for them to just get by and rely on government handouts for the rest, for even with this raise in wage they would still qualify for his government handouts and freebies...thus remaining loyal to the Democratic party.

Clever little socialist isn't he...

And more highlights of note of this most grievous yet at the same time most boring rehash of his previous State of the (Dis)Union addresses and failed to implement policies, Obama included his discourse on early education with a focus on pre-K for minorities. Wanting universal pre-school for all 4-year olds especially those in the inner-city...something that would cost we taxpayers a NOT so pretty penny...what this man and his liberal bleeding heart cronies do NOT understand is that the best investment in America's children is NOT early education...the best investment in our children is a loving two-parent household that raises their own children until they are of school age. Parents should be their children's first teacher NOT the (freakin') federal government.

And Obama waited 45 minutes into his address to even mention his so-called 'legacy' achievement (gag)...the monstrosity known as ObamaCare. ObamaCare... flawed from its conception to its roll out...had Obama saying, "Let's not have another forty-something votes to repeal a law that's already helping millions of Americans," forgetting completely the to-date five million+ Americans forced off policies they liked and could afford...forced off through cancellation...simply because those policies did NOT cover what now Dr. Barack HUSSEIN Obama has deemed as necessary medical coverage. And let's NOT forget all the 'verbal props' he used...stories of previously uninsured folks who now are just happy as clams that they're covered by ObamaCare...NOT saying that those same folks were actually 'covered' for treatment before ObamaCare by simply walking into any emergency room in this country as they could NOT be turned away.

Climate change...global warming and cooling...a fraud perpetrated and pushed by former vice-president Al Bore...I mean Gore...was given the Obama touch ad-nausem. Still NOT understanding that there is NO such thing as climate change...it's simply naturally occurring weather cycles that have happened since the Earth first formed and will continue until the Earth is NO more...Obama introduced emissions limits on power plants to cut pollution, and wants to cut through the red tape to help states build factories that use natural gas. He also "urged" (translation: threatened) Congress to end tax benefits for the oil industry and use revenues to invest in advanced vehicles that use cleaner fuels. He then spoke of eliminating $4 billion in tax subsidies for the fossil fuel industries "that don't need it" and instead "invest more in fuels of the future." But what he did NOT touch upon is the only source of true 'green' energy that leaves NO carbon footprint and would create millions of jobs in the process...nuclear energy. But Obama dare NOT upset the sensibilities and money flow to the party coffers of the environmentalists by even considering or mentioning this.

And of course he bloviated his usual blah-blah nonsense about income inequality...formally known as redistribution of wealth...and his so-wanted bi-partisan support on amnesty for ILLEGALS...NO need for me to repeat his usual rhetoric concerning both...for focus needs to be put upon Obama's trying to silence his critics who claim...and rightly so...that he is soft on terrorism and has done NOTHING to fight to win in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And so Obama reserved a major amount of time to address foreign policy where he, unfortunately, has more leeway to act without Congressional approval. As he spoke of ending a war instead of finishing...as in fighting to win...a war, Obama completely forgets that it's his announcing to the enemy our timetable for withdrawal that has allowed al-Qaeda and the Taliban to just sit back and wait until we've reduced troops and/or left completely and then walk-in and take back what American blood was shed to free. And this has already been done in Fallujah and Rimaldi.

And speaking of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group Obama once claimed was "decimated and on the run" he now has done a sort of about-face for the cameras and said, "Even as we aggressively pursue terrorist networks - through more targeted efforts and by building the capacity of our foreign partners - America must move off a permanent war footing." 

Only a 'sort of about-face' because Obama still refuses to admit that he was WRONG...totally and completely WRONG about al-Qaeda being decimated but hey, this is the man who is sending our taxpayer dollars and sending American guns and weapons to aid the al-Qaeda backed Syrian rebels in their fight against Bashir Assad's government. Can't outwardly condemn the very terrorists he is actually funding now can he....grrrrrrrr....

And another major foreign policy issue Obama spewed his true intentions on was Iran. This most miserable of presidents actually threatened to veto any new sanctions that Congress passes during ongoing Iranian nuclear disarmament talks adding that, "for the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed." Give diplomacy a chance...NO...we've given diplomacy too much of a chance as it is while Iran uses that time to complete their nuclear weapons quest and then try to wipe Israel off the map. Good going Obama...more proof of whose side you really are on.

And while Obama did address other issues, the one thing that irked me to my core occurred as he was wrapping up his address, and that was his use of one of our wounded warriors (Cory Remsburg) as a 'prop' to push his socialist agenda. Shameful beyond mere words as our wounded warriors, returning troops, and veterans are those that this man's policies have hurt the most...as he cuts their medical coverage, retirement benefits, and adds even more red tape for them to wade through to secure what's rightly theirs. These most brave amongst us who lay their lives on the line everyday to keep us safe and free at home deserve better than to be used as props by a man who dishonors and defames them every chance he gets.

And so the bottom line of Barack HUSSEIN Obama's State of the (Dis)Union address is that he will continue on with his destruction of our beloved America as he sees fit as our gutless, spineless Congress will most likely continue to sit back and do NOTHING even after being threatened and dishonored by a man who hates this country as much as we patriots love her.

“Palestinians”: No Jews will be allowed to stay in “Palestinian” state

Robert Spencer  / Jihad Watch

 

When Pamela Geller devised the ad above and we tried to run it in Seattle (in response to bogus “Palestinian” ads claiming that “Palestinians” don’t have equal rights in Israel), Seattle transit balked, saying that the statement wasn’t true. We then provided proof from statements by Mahmoud Abbas and other “Palestinians,” and the ads ran — whereupon local news reports prominently featured a “Palestinian” activist saying that the claim was false. But since then Abbas has said it again, and as has Sheikh Hammam Saeed, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. And now it has been affirmed yet again by someone in the prime minister’s office.

“Palestinians: No Settlers Allowed to Stay in Our State,” from the Washington Free Beacon, January 27, 2014 10:54 am

Palestinians dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that Judea and Samaria settlers should be able to remain in their homes even if they fall within a possible future Palestinian state, Israel Hayom reports.

On Sunday, a Prime Minister’s Office official was quoted as saying that Netanyahu believes all settlers should have the right to remain in their homes in a future Palestinian state.

“The prime minister believes that in peace, just as Israel has an Arab minority, there is no logical reason why the Palestinian state could not contain a Jewish minority and that Jews living in Judea and Samaria would be given the option to stay,” the official said. “It should not be accepted a priori that in peace the Palestinian state must be ethnically cleansed.” [...]

High-ranking officials in the Palestinian Authority outright rejected the idea.

“Anyone who says he wants to keep settlers in the Palestinian state is actually saying that he doesn’t want a Palestinian state,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday.

“No settler will be allowed to stay in the Palestinian state, not even a single one, because settlements are illegal and the presence of the settlers on the occupied lands is illegal.”

Obama Needs to Do Less Finger-Wagging and More Apologizing

David Limbaugh / Townhall Columnist

President Obama's policies continue to produce results that are the opposite of what he promises, yet he brazenly cites the abysmal state of his economy to announce -- indignantly -- that he will double down on his failures.

Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven -- notorious leftist professors who devised a sinister plot to overburden the American economy to the point of collapse and then replace it with a socialist system -- would be quite proud of their understudy.

Obama's policies are drowning America in debt, unemployment, dependency and despair, yet he blames us for his failures -- as if he's been an innocent bystander -- and says he's going to ride to the rescue on his unconstitutional horse of unilateral executive orders to restore "equality" by fiat.

Even if Obama could get Congress to go along with his scheme to further burden success, opportunity, small businesses and major producers in this country and even if it were a desirable state of affairs for the tyrannical hand of government to decide how assets and income are divided among citizens, history conclusively shows that such socialist and communist ideas lead to increased poverty.

Obama is probably going to cite a recent Pew Research Center poll that supposedly indicates that most Americans want the government to take action to reduce income disparities among Americans.

Even if we can take this poll at face value, it doesn't necessarily mean Americans want government just to confiscate wealth from some and transfer it to others. But it wouldn't be that surprising if they did favor action along those lines, given the left's 75-year systematic assault on capitalism, the free market and our founding American principles.

But David Harsanyi, a senior editor of The Federalist, points out that Obama is omitting a significant factor in the equation. Most Americans, says Harsanyi, still believe in upward mobility, and empirical evidence shows that upward mobility still exists as much as it did decades ago. Though Obama and his fellow socialists want us to believe that the American economy is a finite pie -- a zero-sum game -- the reality is that people move up and down the income ladder all the time. Many of yesterday's poor are today's middle class, and a significant number of them are wealthy.

In fact, Obama's oppressive spending, taxing and regulation exacerbate income inequality and impede upward mobility. The way out of our economy malaise is to reduce the federal government's chokehold on the private sector and producers, expand opportunity, increase the pie and unleash the possibility of growth across the board.

Do people think America is invincible just because it is named America or because of its unique constitutional guarantees of liberty through limited government? Do they think that socialists can continue to overburden the private sector, ignore our founding principles and destroy our liberties without tragic economic consequences?

America has never been about guaranteeing equality of income; it's about equality of opportunity.

That's because human beings are born with God-given rights of liberty and because unleashing such liberties invariably produces the most economic good for the most people.

These dangerous ideas that Obama keeps pounding to forcibly redistribute income are anathema to the American dream, incompatible with liberty and devastating to prosperity, no matter what Cloward, Piven and Obama propagandize to the contrary. They are part of Obama's big lie, and they have to be beaten back, with vigor.

It's time that Obama be held to account for his miserable failures. We can't let him pretend he is not the primary causal agent in the ongoing economic disaster we are experiencing in this country.

This is Obama's economy, and he's sapping the economic lifeblood from this country, its businesses and its entrepreneurs. He has presided over -- and caused -- the worst recovery in a half-century.

Actual unemployment is frighteningly, horrifyingly high -- because of his policies, with minorities being the hardest hit. He is destroying America's health care system, driving people against their will out of the private insurance system, severing people's ties to their doctors, reducing their access to care, reducing their choices of care and greatly increasing the individual cost of care and the cost to government of health care. Everything about Obamacare has been a premeditated Obama lie.

Before anyone listens to Obama about any major new policy initiatives, he must be held to account for his homicide of the American health care system and the critical injuries he's inflicted on the economy, as well as a host of other failed policies he's engineered and false promises he's made.

Sen. Ted Cruz is hardly being facetious with his suggestions that Obama apologize in the State of the Union address for his Obamacare lies and answer questions about Benghazi, the political targeting of conservative groups by his Internal Revenue Service, and other abominations.

This time, the Republican establishment should not leave Cruz hanging out by himself but join him in demanding accountability from President Obama.

Standing Up Against Wealth-Shaming

Michelle Malkin / Townhall Columnist

 

America, we have a bullying epidemic. No, not the school bullying issues that get constant attention from Hollywood, the White House and the media. No, not the "fat-shaming" and "body-shaming" outbreaks on Facebook. The problem is wealth-shaming. Class-shaming. Success-shaming.

 

The State of the Job Creator is under siege.

Last week, a prominent self-made tech mogul dared to diagnose the problem publicly. His passionate letter to The Wall Street Journal decried the "progressive war on the American 1 percent." He called on the left to stop demonizing "the rich," and he condemned the Occupy movement's "rising tide of hatred."

The mini-manifesto was newsworthy because this truth-teller is not a GOP politician or conservative activist or Fox News personality. As he points out, he lives in the "epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco." No matter. The mob is shooting the messenger anyway. But maybe, just maybe, his critical message in defense of our nation's achievers will transcend, inspire, embolden and prevail.

The letter-writer is Tom Perkins, a Silicon Valley pioneer with an MIT degree in electrical engineering and computer science and a Harvard MBA. He started out at the bottom at Hewlett-Packard, founded his own separate laser company on the side and then teamed up with fellow entrepreneur Eugene Kleiner to establish one of the nation's oldest and most important venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

A hands-on dynamo, Perkins immersed himself in the science and technology of the companies in his portfolio. He even accompanied them on sales calls. He poured his heart and soul into the business of business. Perkins achieved great wealth for himself, his partners and his clients -- and the world is a better place for it. Kleiner Perkins' groundbreaking investment in Genentech planted the seeds of the biotech revolution. An MIT profile notes that in its first three decades, the firm "made more than 475 investments, generating $90 billion in revenue and creating 275,000 jobs" and "funded 167 companies that later went public, including Amazon, AOL, Genentech, Google and Netscape."

Because he dared to compare the seething resentment of modern progressives to Kristallnacht and Nazi Germany, the grievance industry attacked Perkins and dismissed his message. His former colleagues at the venture capital firm he founded threw him under the bus. Left-wing punk journalists immediately branded him "nuts" and a "rich idiot."

Please note: Not one of those sanctimonious grievance-mongers had anything to say about the Molotov cocktail-fueled riots and fires set by the Occupy mobs at banks, car dealerships and restaurants in Oakland that provoked Perkins' comparison in the first place.

While he regrets invoking Kristallnacht specifically, Perkins unequivocally refused to back down from his message defending the "creative 1 percent." He reiterated his fundamental point in a TV interview on Monday: "Anytime the majority starts to demonize a minority, no matter what it is, it's wrong. And dangerous. And no good ever comes from it."

Perkins also chastised those who bemoan "income inequality," including his erstwhile "friends" Al Gore, Jerry Brown and Barack Obama: "The 1 percent are not causing the inequality. They are the job creators. ... I think Kleiner Perkins itself over the years has created pretty close to a million jobs, and we're still doing it. It's absurd to demonize the rich for being rich and for doing what the rich do, which is get richer by creating opportunity for others."

Amen, amen and amen. Perkins barely scratched the surface of the War on Wealth that has spread under the Obama regime. Anti-capitalism saboteurs have organized wealth-shaming protests at corporate CEOs' private homes in New York and in private neighborhoods in Connecticut. Hypocrite wealth-basher and former paid Enron adviser Paul Krugman at The New York Times whipped up hatred against the "plutocrats" in solidarity with the Occupy mob. New York state lawmakers received threatening mail saying it was "time to kill the wealthy" if they didn't renew the state's tax surcharge on millionaires.

"If you don't, I'm going to pay a visit with my carbine to one of those tech companies you are so proud of and shoot every spoiled Ivy League (expletive) I can find," the death threat read. In Perkins' own backyard, Bay Area celebrity rapper Boots Riley infamously penned "5 Million Ways To Kill a CEO" ("Toss a dollar in the river, and when he jump in/If you find he can swim, put lead boots on him and do it again.") before making cameo appearances at vandal-infested Occupy Oakland marches over the past few years.

But the most dangerous threats to the nation's job creators don't come from Oakland rappers or social justice guerillas or San Francisco neighbors griping about tech workers' private buses and big homes.

The deadliest threats come from the men in power in Washington who stoke bottomless hatred against "millionaires and billionaires" through class-bashing rhetoric and entrepreneur-crushing policies -- while they pocket the hard-earned money of the achievers trying to buy immunity. It's high time to shame the wealth-shamers and their cowed enablers. Silence is complicity.

Op-ed:
Hillary now 'regrets' Benghazi...we've always regretted Hillary
By: Diane Sori

"My biggest regret is what happened in Benghazi.” - Hillary Clinton 1/27/14

Oh dear...Hillary 'What Does It Matter' Clinton now suddenly has had a change of heart...mind you a year and a half later that is...and 'regrets' the happenings in Benghazi.

Sorry, but what Hillary 'regrets' is that Benghazi is the albatross hanging around the neck of her 2016 oh-so-wanted presidential run and NOTHING more.

“It was a terrible tragedy losing four Americans — two diplomats and now it is public so I can say two C.I.A. operatives...You make these choices based on imperfect information.” So said Hillary during a Q&A session after her Monday address at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention.

NO...Hillary made NO choices based on imperfect information or on any information because Hillary made NO choices at all as she and her buddy Obama deliberately and with malice left them there to die. Hillary ignored Ambassador Stevens' desperate pleas for help, and then she NOT only LIED about the cause of the attack but she spewed that LIE all over television and in print as well.

And know that Benghazi is liability number one...and will remain so if Hillary does indeed decide to run in 2016, and there will be NO allowing for this issue to go away. 'We the People' must NOT and will NOT allow the deaths of these four brave Americans to be swept under the rug like so many other issues of importance that seem to just vanish from the public consciousness...and do so with the alphabet media's help I might add...a help that comes in the guise of them simply NOT reporting on a story. If it's NOT reported on it either never happened or it was NOTHING but just another little mere 'bump in the road.'

Yet being just a mere 'bump in the road' is what Hillary hopes all this brouhaha over Benghazi will become as she tries to play the masses with her anything but a true regret. Never mind that while Hillary's supporters extol her supposed "expertise" and supposed “smart power,” the truth remains that her tenure as Secretary of State was riddled with NOTHING but fundamental incompetency and failure.

Benghazi is and will always remain Hillary Clinton's flash point...her defining moment as Secretary of State and NOTHING any of her supporters do or say...including claiming that it was on her recommendation that Obama ordered U.S. commandos (the Navy SEALS) to go into Pakistan to takeout Osama bin Laden...will stop her critics from calling her to task and rightly so for this vile woman has as much blood on her hands as has Barack HUSSEIN Obama...the most miserable of presidents who reveled in watching them die in real time and then jetted off for a fundraiser early the next morning.

And Hillary's failures in Benghazi...in her capacity as Secretary of State...are just a harbinger of what would be her failures as president for Hillary is plain and simply a liar and I think...NO I know...that 'We the People' have had quite enough of liars being in the office of president. And besides her outright lies revolving around everything Benghazi, Hillary has a zero record of accomplishment on anything...and her racking up the most 'sky miles' in her jaunts around the world do NOT count.

Since becoming Secretary of State in 2009, Hillary has done NOTHING to change or improve the lives of every day Americans, and simply knowing how to maneuver, play, and 'schmooze' the power brokers via her stints as First Lady, New York carpetbagger Senator, unsuccessful presidential candidate, and Secretary of State does NOT an accomplishment make...for can you name one...I sure can't.

Failures though I can name...her so-wanted HillaryCare failed...to be resurrected as the even worse (if that's possible) monstrosity known as ObamaCare, and as Senator her legislative proposals were below even being minor at best. Her bargaining and people skills were...and still are...so bad that she could NOT find co-sponsors for even the most innocuous of bills...her liberal cohorts even poo-pooed her wanting to increase benefits for members of the Coast Guard.

And on the world stage in her role as Secretary as State her lack of actions mirrored her Senatorial failures...where she should have been a determining factor. And as such Hillary did next to NOTHING when it came to Iraq and even less when it came to Afghanistan. Hillary was NO driving force in smoothing over our differences with Pakistan and I can NOT remember any mention of her hand when tougher sanctions on Iran were first being proposed. And Hillary did unequivocally NOTHING to either broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord or to stand behind our ally and friend Israel with NO questions asked.

So what the hell did she do as Secretary of State or as Senator to justify her being capable to be president...NOT a damn thing...NOT one damn thing...except as Secretary of State to be as low and vile a human being as Barack HUSSEIN Obama is in his capacity as president.

So as the 'ghosts of Benghazi' hover over her head and hopefully forever invade her soul...if she has a soul that is...let it be known that she and Obama built Benghazi and will forever own Benghazi complete with all the ramifications that come with it. And NO phony regrets on her part will be enough to help put this woman in the White House...NOT if we Republicans and TEA Partiers have anything to say about it...and hopefully come November we will have a hell of a lot to say.