Texas, Taxes & Brass Tacks

Any story that is about my home state of Texas (yes, I am a Texan living in Iowa) I have to pass on.

From Burt Prelutsky at the Patriot Post:

Rush Limbaugh once described politics as show business for ugly people. If he weren’t such a nice guy, he might have added that it also provides careers for really dumb ones.

For instance, while chatting with Charlie Rose on “CBS This Morning,” Governor Jerry Brown went into a lengthy pitch for California business, pointing out that it is the state that’s always been known for innovation. To prove his case that it is as true now as it ever was, Brown announced that no less an enterprise than Facebook got its start here on the edge of the Pacific. Not wishing to embarrass a fellow liberal, Mr. Rose didn’t start cackling like a loon, as I might have done. Instead, he politely informed Governor Moonbeam that Mark Zuckerberg and a few college pals launched the billion dollar brainstorm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while they were attending Harvard.

Because Brown has spent his entire life in politics, he didn’t say, “Whoops!” the way a normal human being would. Instead, without missing a beat, he pointed out that Zuckerberg and his company had settled in California. In other words, we’re not really the home of innovation and entrepreneurship, but we have a terrific climate, and we’re the go-to place for guys who have piled up a lot of dough and want to get away from New England winters.

The sad truth of the matter is that, when compared to other liberal politicians, Jerry Brown is probably one of the brighter ones. For instance, have you ever heard Sen. Barbara Boxer give a speech or try to answer a simple question? I’ve never even voted for the woman, but it’s downright embarrassing just living in the state that has elected her on four separate occasions.

The fact that it is the same state that keeps electing Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and Barbara Lee, to the House might help explain why some people, including friends, call me “Grumpy.”

On the other hand, California is a huge state. We have well over 40 million people jammed in here. It figures we’re going to have more louts than other places. But when you non-Californians keep on voting for the likes of Charles Schumer, Frederica Wilson, Al Franken, John Conyers, Harry Reid, Bev Perdue, Sheila Jackson Lee, John Kerry and Patty Murray, you’re not exactly in a position to throw stones.

Even Texas, the state that calls to me in my dreams, keeps electing people who wind up proud members of the Congressional Black or Hispanic Caucus, dunderheads who apparently feel a greater allegiance to those who share their skin color than they do to America and the Constitution. The very idea that members of Congress would separate themselves on the basis of their pigmentation makes a mockery of their oath of office. It would seem that for people such as Al Green, Charles Gonzalez, Henry Cuellar. Ruben Hinojosa, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Silvestre Reyes and Sheila Jackson Lee, the notion that ours is supposed to be a colorblind society is their idea of a bad joke.

I have heard, though, that even Democrats on Capitol Hill are getting upset because they aren’t hearing from Obama. Apparently the poor saps expect him to display some leadership. Well, I, for one, don’t blame him for snubbing them. For one thing, he has a campaign to run and a whole lot of money to raise. Besides, how would you prefer spending your time? Meeting with a sourpuss like Harry Reid or hanging out with George Clooney, Selma Hayek and the other cool kids?

Furthermore, when Obama finally put together a budget, it didn’t get a single vote in the House or the Senate. Do those people have any idea how it feels to be dissed that way? You’d have thought that Obama could at least have counted on those knuckleheads in the Black Caucus to give the brother a little love. But even Charley Rangel said, “Ooh, that is one butt ugly budget” or words to that effect.

And while I don’t like to question anyone’s sanity, just how nuts do you have to be to want to raise taxes in the midst of an economy that is already on life support? I suppose when you owe your academic career and just about everything else to affirmative action, it’s not too surprising that Obama seems blissfully unaware of the fact that his idol, FDR, prolonged the Great Depression by twice raising taxes in the 1930s. Getting the country back to work wasn’t nearly as important to Roosevelt as punishing Republican capitalists. Sound familiar?

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Smart freaking egyptians for sure!

Cairo (CNN) — Egyptian protesters threw tomatoes and shoes at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade Sunday and shouted, “Monica, Monica, Monica” as she left the newly reopened U.S. Consulate in Alexandria.

Clinton said she was in the city to answer critics who believe Washington has taken sides in Egyptian politics. There were already vocal protesters at the start of her visit to the consulate, forcing the ceremony to be moved inside.

“I want to be clear that the United States is not in the business, in Egypt, of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which, of course, we cannot,” Clinton said at the ceremony to reopen the consulate, which was closed in 1993 because of budget constraints.

“I have come to Alexandria to reaffirm the strong support of the United States for the Egyptian people and for their democratic future.”

The protesters threw the tomatoes, shoes and a water bottle as the staff walked to their vans after the ceremony and riot police had to hold back the crowd. A tomato hit an Egyptian official in the face.

Clinton urges smooth Egypt transition Clinton’s van was around the corner from the protesters, and a senior State Department official said her car was not hit.

The chants of “Monica” refer to Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern who had an affair with Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.

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And the Christians in Egypt? Just as smart! Somehow I think that Egypt just does not like the USA meddling in their pile of shit!

EGYPT — Prominent Christian Egyptians snubbed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday because they feel the U.S. administration favors Islamist parties over secular and liberal forces in society at the expense of Egypt’s 8 million Christians.

The critical theme was repeated by others Sunday in Cairo and Alexandria despite Clinton denying U.S. interference in Egyptian elections.

The politicians, businessmen and clerics who snubbed Clinton were supposed to take part in meetings between Clinton and influential members of civil society.

Coptic Christian businessman and politician Naguib Sawiris and three other Coptic politicians said in a statement they were objecting to Clinton’s policies in solidarity with the mainstream Egyptian.

They also said that since the revolution, the U.S. administration and Clinton have paid many visits in support of Islamic political currents in society while ignoring other civil movements.

The four prominent Copts consider the meeting with the Islamist parties a form of external pressure to push the Islamists to power and ignore other civil movements. They blamed the U.S. for even showing a preference for an Islamist presidential candidate.

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Eric Holder’s war: Battling on behalf of vote fraud

From Michael A. Walsh at the NY Post:

The president was a no-show, Joe Biden exhorted the crowd to stick with Obama and Mitt Romney gave a frank address to the nation’s oldest civil-rights organization in which he vowed to repeal ObamaCare.

But the most important news out of the NAACP in Houston this week came from Attorney General Eric Holder, who vowed to continue the Justice Department’s war on states trying to ensure the integrity of the electoral system.

“The arc of American history has always moved toward expanding the electorate,” said Holder.

True enough. A series of constitutional amendments, buttressed by acts of Congress and Supreme Court decisions, has expanded the franchise to include blacks, women and young people.

Yet that doesn’t mean it ought to include foreigners, felons or the deceased.

But how else to interpret the Justice Department’s war on in-state efforts to tighten voter-ID requirements and prevent ballot-box fraud?

Whether it’s trying to block Florida from purging its rolls of noncitizens or taking Texas to federal court over its new photo-ID requirement, Holder has signaled an unseemly coziness with potential fraud in pursuit of political advantage.

President Obama’s re-election chances hinge on a substantial minority turnout, which could prove decisive in battleground states like Florida, North Carolina and New Mexico. And what better way to fire up the base than to make it feel like it’s under attack on the historically incendiary issue of voting rights?

The attorney general declared: “Let me be clear: We will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious rights.”

Requirements to prove your identity before voting, he said, are “poll taxes.”

That refers to Jim Crow laws requiring payment in order to vote. But poll taxes were outlawed at the federal level by the 24th Amendment in 1964 and extended to the states by the Supreme Court.

But the reference is baloney. Poll taxes, along with literacy tests and other gimmicks, were naked attempts to prevent southern blacks from voting after Reconstruction.

The Texas law — which requires all voters to show some form of government-issued ID, including a US passport, a state driver’s license or even a pistol permit — is similar to an Indiana one that the Supreme Court upheld by a 6-3 vote in 2008. The court called such requirements “eminently reasonable.”

Three years earlier, a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform — co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker — recommended that “all states should use their best efforts to obtain proof of citizenship before registering voters.”

Holder argues that such a requirement is discriminatory, and poses an undue hardship on minorities and the poor. Other opponents of voter-ID laws insist there’s no evidence that fraud is a serious problem.

But there is.

“In recent years, my office has secured more than 50 voter-fraud convictions,” noted Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in USA Today in March. “Those include a woman who voted in place of her dead mother, a political operative who cast ballots for two people and a city councilmember who registered foreign nationals to vote in an election decided by 19 votes . . . Cases like these are just the tip of the iceberg.”

Florida has compiled a list of 180,000 names slated for possible removal from the voting rolls as noncitizens — a move that Holder unsuccessfully tried to stop in federal court.

“How can you argue against a state identifying people who are not rightfully on the voter rolls?” asked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whose parents immigrated from Cuba.

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This is via WE:

President Obama, one day after reversing the Bill Clinton-era welfare reform by severing the connection between work and welfare assistance, warned a Virginia crowd that “Americans can’t be looking for handouts.”

“Americans can’t be looking for handouts,” Obama said during a campaign stop in Virginia. “There are some folks you can’t help if they’re not willing to help themselves.” Moments later, he invoked former President Clinton as a model for economic leadership: “Bill Clinton did it, and we ended up having 23 million new jobs,” Obama added.

But he was referring to Clinton’s tax policy, not the welfare reform bill undermined by his Department of Health and Human Services yesterday. HHS informed states that they may “test alternative and innovative strategies, policies and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families,” rather than enforce the work requirements attached to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

“Obama’s suspension of workfare requirements is almost certainly illegal, a sign of the jobs failure, and a reminder how liberal [O]bama is,” Newt Gingrich, who negotiated the welfare reform with Clinton as House Speaker in 1996, said in a tweet.

…

This is via American Thinker:

The July 12 gutting of welfare reform, announced as guidance by the Obama administration, serves at least 2 agendas for the Obama administration. On the one hand, it adds to the number of people dependent on feds, as Richard Baehr put it, “vastly expanding the welfare population, as food stamps usage explodes, and ObamaCare creates 30 million more new dependents.” John Hinderaker calls it “A Nation of Dependents”:

The Obama administration is rapidly pursuing its vision of a “transformed” America-an America in which most people are dependent on government, and therefore the party of government, the Democrats, will be dominant. One of the administration’s prime vehicles for stimulating dependence is the food stamp program, which, as we wrote here and elsewhere, has exploded under Obama. Food stamps now make up 80% of “agriculture” spending, and the Department of Agriculture has come under fire for aggressively building up the numbers of food stamp recipients.

But Ed Lasky points out a second, so far unnoticed benefit to the Obama administration:

“By reducing the supply of people looking for work due to the workfare requirement, I think it will help the unemployment rate: these people will not be counted any longer as looking for work and those still looking for work will find — on the margin — less competition for the job openings that do exist.

It’s a disaster for America, impoverishing the nation while making millions dependent on government, but it engineers the electorate in a way that favors Obama, so I am sure the White House gang is yucking it up. The only question is whether the GOP and Mitt will be able to exploit this, challenging Obama on making it easier to be dependent than to work.

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Amazing footage of a close encounter with a great white shark off the coast of Western Australia has surfaced as two divers had to fend off the dangerous beast that came close enough to touch.

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In 1996, Republicans forced through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) bill, also known as welfare reform. It incentivized states to create welfare-to-work programs, trying to transition Americans from government dependency to financial solvency. But states quickly acted to poke holes in that legislation, calling the following activities “work” for purposes of the statute: bed rest, personal care activities, massage, exercise, journaling, motivational reading, smoking cessation, weight loss promotion, participation in parent-teacher meetings, or helping friends or family with household tasks and errands.

This was idiotic. So in 2005, Congress closed the loophole, over the objections of then-Senator Obama.

MORE

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ThePeoplesCube.com

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Why muslims should be thrown out of the USA, along with the liberals protecting them!

The Said Honor Murders: Indict the Mother

From Pamela Geller at American Thinker:

The honor killing of Amina and Sarah Said on January 1, 2008 is emblematic of the government’s and media establishment’s indifference to the plight of all too many Muslim women and girls in the United States today. Over four years after their father, Yaser Abdel Said, brutally murdered them, not only is Yaser still at large, but a private investigator now says that Texas investigators are ignoring considerable evidence that Patricia “Tissy” Said, Yaser’s wife and the girls’ mother, was complicit in the killings.

Thanks to political correctness and the lies of the Islamic media machine, law enforcement authorities in the U.S. are abysmally ignorant about Islamic honor killing. One of the many things they overlook is how the other family members usually approve of the killings, and often help commit them. But now Carrie Huskinson, a retired private investigator who has been investigating the murders of Amina and Sarah on her own for four years, has written to the FBI to file a formal complaint against Patricia Said. Huskinson wants Patricia Said charged under Title 18, sec. 241 U.S.C. Conspiracy Against Civil Rights, for her involvement in an actual conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Amina Said that led to the murders of Amina and Sarah.

Tissy’s alleged complicity in Yaser’s abuse and terrorizing of his daughters has long been known. As I detail in my book Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance, in October 1998, when Amina was eight and Sarah was seven, Tissy reported Yaser to a Hill County, Texas sheriff’s deputy. Amina and Sarah, she said, were telling their grandmother that he was sexually abusing them and had done so for several years. Tissy left Yaser, but they soon got back together again, and the abuse continued, with Tissy doing nothing to stop it. “On several occasions,” Huskinson adds, “Amina appeared at school with bruises, and at one point had a split lip. Amina informed her friends the wounds were inflicted by her father, and her mother refused to allow her to seek medical attention.”

Huskinson has uncovered heartrending details about how Amina Said sought help in vain. On December 11, just three weeks before she was herself murdered, she tried to contact the detective who was investigating the case of Tina Isa, another honor killing victim. Tissy knew this, as she told a documentary filmmaker that Amina was “doing all kinds of research” into Islamic honor killing.

Yet Tissy did nothing to help Amina. In fact, she did just the opposite. “It is my opinion,” says Huskinson, that “instead of helping her daughters, Patricia informed Yaser of their intent to run away. The plan to kill Amina was then implemented.” Yet Tissy “informed Amina and Sarah she would help them run away” — and indeed, she seemed to do so, traveling with them right after Christmas 2007 to her aunt’s house. While there, Patricia repeated the horrifying truth more than once: “If the girls went back, Yaser would kill them.” She said the same thing to police at the time, and assured the girls that she would never take them back to Yaser or go back to him herself.

Yet not only did Patricia Said return to Yaser; she convinced Sarah that she would be safe and should go with her, and then together they worked on convincing Amina to return as well. Amina’s aunt recalled: “Amina called me and was freaking out because Patricia had lied to her and taken Sarah back to Yaser.” Tissy later lied about this to Fox News, claiming that Amina had spoken with Yaser and agreed to return to the home from Oklahoma, when actually Amina did not know that Tissy was taking Sarah back to talk to Yaser. Huskinson says that Tissy also told Yaser the location of the apartment they had rented in Tulsa to be safe from him, and told one of the girls’ boyfriends: “I am not going to throw away a 20 year marriage for the girls. These girls are going to leave and I will be alone.” She adds: “Upon the return to Dallas, Amina gave Eddie her bank card and had him remove the funds, which were handed over to Patricia when they returned to Dallas. This left Amina with no money to run.”

At this point, says Huskinson, “Amina had no money left, and her father knew exactly where the Tulsa apartment was located. She had nowhere left to run or to hide.” She returned home, and shortly thereafter, Yaser Said murdered her and her sister.

Tissy’s complicity doesn’t end there. A SWAT team raided the Said house the day after the murders, but police allowed Tissy to enter the house and remove all the computers (which might have contained crucial evidence regarding the murders), along with information about where Yaser Said owned property in Egypt (which might give clues as to Yaser’s whereabouts).

Huskinson notes that Tissy “had many opportunities to flee her husband, yet made every effort to continue the marriage. It should be noted that she even waited to file for divorce until a year after the murders. Patricia has demonstrated by her own words that she knew right from wrong, and has worked to cover up her involvement in the murders. In the presence of others, she has stated that her marriage was more important than her daughters.” She also “interfered with the homicide investigation by asking the Irving Police not to interview her son Islam while they were physically in the police station. The fact the Irving Police department complied with her request and allowed a key witness and possible conspirator to avoid proper procedure, shows dereliction of duty.”

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Our Disgraceful President

From Derek Hunter at Townhall:

Warren G. Harding was corrupt, as was Richard M. Nixon. Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy were like blind golfers, looking for a hole, any hole, every hole. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were power-mad narcissists convinced they knew best how everyone else should live. Jimmy Carter was clueless. But as we approach the 100-year anniversary of the first of these men to serve as president, all have been lapped in debasing their office by its current occupant: Barack Obama.

It is understandable President Obama would not want to run on his record. Who would? “Give me four more years so I can make up for the first four” is not the stuff of campaign slogan greatness.

But even that wouldn’t work because, as he told CBS News this week, “The mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.” In other words, his only flaw is he’s too damn close to perfect.

It’s like someone bragging about being the most humble person on the planet.

The president of the United States thinks he needs to tell us stories to give us “a sense of unity, purpose and optimism…”

This struck me as odd because a.) he’s already told us stories, the story of his life, in – count ‘em – two autobiographies written before he accomplished anything, and b.) he’s made zero effort to bring people together at any point in his presidency.

Putting aside his autobiographies, which should be moved to the fiction section of the bookstore considering the 38 provable falsehoods uncovered in them – remember the uproar when James Frey’s A Million Tiny Pieces turned out to have exaggerations and lies? Obama does it; crickets – the fact this man would feel comfortable enough to speak the word “unity” without laughing is a testament to just how far we’ve fallen as a nation.

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Again, obama and his regime being freaking hypocrites!

OBAMA TOOK CASH FROM BAIN OUTSOURCING EXECS

Barack Obama’s campaign has been quick to rip Mitt Romney for his association with Bain Capital, which outsourced certain jobs during restructuring of companies. There’s only one problem: many of the very executives who were running Bain Capital during the 1999-2002 period now under media scrutiny donated to Obama’s presidential campaign. And Obama was more than happy to cash the checks.

The same SEC form from February 2001 that lists Mitt Romney as “sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President of Bain Capital … the controlling person of Bain Capital” also lists over a dozen other managing directors of Bain Capital, Inc. — all of whom were undoubtedly more active than Romney was during this period. And President Obama took money from many of them.

Take Joshua Bekenstein. Bekenstein has been a managing director of Bain Capital since 1986. In 2008, he signed Barack Obama a $4,600 check. In 2004, he gave a $50,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee. That’s outsourcing money, plain and simple. And Obama was happy to take it.

Or how about Stephen Pagliuca? Last year, he cut a $35,800 check to Barack Obama’s Victory Fund. Then he cut another $30,800 check to the DNC. And another $30,800 check to the DCCC. Jonathan Lavine and Mark Nunnelly have both maxed out to Obama already, as well as to the DNC. Lavin was a bundler for Obama, and raised over $100,000 for him. Michael Krupka gave Obama $4,600 in 2008.

As we’ve seen, the leftist media thinks it’s a disaster if a private citizen, Mitt Romney, made money from an investment company that outsourced jobs to save companies. But the leftist media seems perfectly comfortable with Barack Obama cashing checks from the executives who actually made the decisions to outsource.

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