Obama – Page 2

Republican Senators: Hero or Traitor

“Republican lawmakers warned the leaders of Iran on Monday that any nuclear deal they cut with President Barack Obama could expire the day he leaves office. The White House denounced the GOP’s latest effort to undercut the international negotiations as a “rush to war.”

Monday’s open letter from 47 GOP senators marked an unusually public and aggressive attempt to undermine Obama and five world powers as negotiators try to strike an initial deal by the end of March to limit Iran’s nuclear programs.

Republicans say a deal would be insufficient and unenforceable, and they have made a series of proposals to undercut or block it — from requiring Senate say-so on any agreement to ordering new penalty sanctions against Iran or even making a pre-emptive declaration of war.

Obama, noting that some in Iran also want no part of any deal, said “I think it’s somewhat ironic that some members of Congress want to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran. It’s an unusual coalition.”

The letter was written by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who opposes negotiations with Iran. It’s addressed to the “Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” and presents itself as a constitutional primer to the government of an American adversary. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky’s signature is on it, as are those of several prospective presidential candidates.

Explaining the difference between a Senate-ratified treaty and a mere agreement between Obama and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the senators warned: “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen, and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif responded via state media, dismissing the letter as a “propaganda ploy” and noting that many international deals are “mere executive agreements.” He suggested the senators were undermining not only the prospective deal with Iran but other international agreements as well.

With Cotton presiding over the Senate on Monday, Democratic leader Harry Reid spoke out, saying Republicans were driven by animosity toward Obama and unwilling to recognize that American voters had twice elected him president.

“Let’s be very clear: Republicans are undermining our commander-in-chief while empowering the ayatollahs,” Reid said.”

Avi Davis, is the President of the American Freedom Alliance, the editor of The Intermediate Zone whose work has appeared in hundreds of papers and periodicals throughout the world including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, The Australian and regularly in The American Thinker.

www.americanfreedomalliance.org

YES WE CAN: Tax you more

By dave

“President Obama and the Republican-led Congress are in agreement that tax reform needs to be a priority this year but the two sides can’t find common ground on how to achieve that goal.

In his State of the Union speech, Obama laid out a sweeping plan that raises some corporate taxes and the estate tax while simultaneously providing cuts for middle class families. The capital gains tax would go from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the proposal would impose a fee on the nation’s largest banks.

During an appearance in Boise, Idaho, in wake of his address before Congress, Obama said he believes “in helping hardworking families make ends meet and I believe in giving all of us the tools we need so that if we work hard we can get good-paying jobs in this new economy.”

“As Americans, we don’t mind paying our fair share of taxes, as long as everybody else does,” Obama said. “Where we get frustrated is when we know that lobbyists have rigged the tax code with loopholes, so you’ve got some corporations paying nothing while others are paying full freight. You’ve got the super-rich getting giveaways they don’t need, and middle-class families not getting the breaks that they do need.”

Obama asserted that the White House and Congress need to “close the loopholes that let the top 1 or .1 or .01 percent avoid paying certain taxes, and use that money to help more Americans pay for college and child care. The idea is, let’s have a tax code that truly helps working Americans, the vast majority of Americans, get a leg up in the new economy.”

Republicans haven’t laid out their scheme yet although the House package likely will look much like the Tax Reform Act of 2014, which among other things restructured individual and corporate rates and provided a larger standard deduction and a larger child tax credit. It’s fair to say whatever emerges won’t look anything like the program promoted by the president. It is expected to rely on business tax breaks – likely a cut in the corporate tax which they complain is the world’s highest – in hopes of spurring economic growth. Tax hikes are not in their sightline.”

Bill Straub, is the former White House correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service and contributor to PJMedia.com.

Just how safe is our Technology

By dave

HOW LONG UNTIL OUR
BANK ACCOUNTS GET EMPTIED?

Michael Daugherty, is the author of “The Devil Inside the Beltway: The Shocking Expose of the US Government’s Surveillance and Overreach Into Cyber-security, Medicine and Small Business.”

NIGHTMARE: Hackers release 13,000 passwords, credit cards of PLAYSTATION ,XBOX, AMAZON users…
CHRISTMAS HACKING BUMMER: PlayStation, Xbox offline due to attacks…

“Every single computer in the world can be hacked. From your personal computer at home to the office workstation of the CIA director, it is not possible to fully protect any computer from cyber penetration. For all the talk about cyber protection and the billions of dollars being spent ($3.2 billion in 2012 for the Pentagon alone) to improve defenses in the public and private sectors, your bank account PIN and the secrets in President Obama’s computer are both vulnerable. The key difference is the number of people with the skill, time and money to exploit these potential targets.

There is a popular misconception that perfect cyber-security is obtainable if you invest in sufficient defenses and practice reasonable access procedures. The cold, hard truth is that we live in an age where cyber-offensive capabilities are dominant.

For example, specialists who test the vulnerabilities of our nation’s computer systems said in private conversations that their success rate is nearly 99 percent—and that penetrating that remaining 1 percent is primarily a question of investing additional time and money. There used to be a famous and much-debated air force concept that “the bomber always gets through.” The sobering fact about the current state of cyber-security is that the “hacker always gets through.” For the foreseeable future, cyber offense is king.”

Commentary on our Emperor

By dave

Black Knight scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”:

32 Statistics That Obama Neglected To Mention During The State Of The Union Address

By dave

By Michael Snyder (The Economic Collapse Blog | Original Link) January 30, 2014

Show this article to anyone that believes that the economy has actually improved under Barack Obama. On Tuesday evening, Barack Obama once again attempted to convince all of us that things have gotten better while he has been in the White House. He quoted a few figures, used some flowery language and made a whole bunch of new promises. And even though he has failed to follow through on his promises time after time, millions upon millions of Americans continue to believe him. In fact, you can find a list of 82 unfulfilled promises from his previous State of the Union addresses right here. Soon we will have even more to add to that collection. At this point, you have to wonder if Obama even believes half the stuff that he is saying. Of course it is extremely unlikely that he is going to come out and admit that he has failed and that he has been lying to us this whole time, but without a doubt the gap between reality and what he is saying to the public is becoming ridiculously huge. To say that his credibility is “strained” would be a massive understatement. No, things have not been getting better in America. In fact, they continue to get even worse. The following are 32 statistics that Obama neglected to mention during the State of the Union address…

#1 According to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 28 percent of all Americans believe that the country is moving in the right direction.

#2 In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be “middle class”. In 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans consider themselves to be “middle class”.

#3 In 2008, 25 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket considered themselves to be “lower class”. In 2014, an astounding 49 percent of them do.

#4 Right now there is approximately a billion square feet of vacant retail space in the United States.

#5 There are 46.5 million Americans that are living in poverty, and the poverty rate in America has been at 15 percent or above for 3 consecutive years. That is the first time that has happened since 1965.

#6 Barack Obama says that the unemployment rate has declined to 6.7 percent, but if the labor force participation rate was at the long-term average it would actually be approximately 11.5 percent, and it has stayed at about that level since the end of the last recession.

#7 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 47 million.

#8 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the percentage of working age Americans that are actually working has declined from60.6 percent to 58.6 percent.

#9 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen from 19.8 weeks to 37.1 weeks.

#10 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, social benefits as a percentage of real disposable income has risen from about 17 percent to nearly 21 percent.

#11 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen to levels that we have not seen in nearly two decades.

#12 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row.

#13 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline has gone from $1.85 to $3.27.

#14 At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, our yearly trade deficit with China was 226 billion dollars. Now it is over 300 billion dollars.

#15 Workers are taking home the smallest share of the income pie that has ever been recorded.

#16 Sadly, 1,687,000 fewer Americans have jobs today compared to exactly six years ago even though the population has grown significantly since then.

#17 One recent study found that about 60 percent of the jobs that have been “created” since the end of the last recession pay $13.83 or less an hour.

#18 Only 47 percent of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.

#19 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#20 The Obama years have been absolutely brutal for small businesses. According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

#21 You can still buy a house in the city of Detroit for just one dollar.

#22 The U.S. cattle herd is at a 61 year low.

#23 It is being projected that health insurance premiums for healthy 30-year-old men will rise by an average of 260 percent under Obamacare.

#24 According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.

#25 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent. Today, it is up to 101 percent.

#26 The U.S. national debt is on pace to more than double during the eight years of the Obama administration. In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate more debt than it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.

#27 Right now, there are 1.2 million students that attend public schools in the United States that are homeless. That number has risen by 72 percent since the start of the last recession.

#28 Only 35 percent of all Americans say that they are better off financially than they were a year ago.

#29 Only 19 percent of all Americans believe that the job market is better than it was a year ago.

#30 According to a recent CNN poll, 70 percent of all Americans believe that “the economy is generally in poor shape”.

#31 According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 19 percent of all Americans trust the government. Back in 1958, 73 percent of all Americans trusted the government.

#32 According to another poll that was recently released, 70 percentof all Americans do not have confidence that the government will “make progress on the important problems and issues facing the country in 2014.”