Distraction 101

What a tangled web the White House weaves.  Benghazi is a word that the media and President wish you would forget.  Keep this all in your brain for future use.  Rice has pulled her name from contention for Secretary of State.  Hilary has fallen and can't get back up.  Her concussion will keep her from testifying.  Not only that she is slated to be replaced by John "why the long face" Kerry.  He will be the one who has to tackle this tough issue.  Being the new SoS he will not have any answers.  As it was best said by the Madagascar Penguins "smile and wave boys, smile and wave".

Sad X 2

I would never ever want to minimize the tragedy that took place in CT.  What those families are dealing with is unimaginable.  My heart truly goes out to them.
However I do feel compelled to say something about the larger issue.  The President and his media minions cannot let this opportunity pass.  He and they alike have taken full advantage of the tragedy to once again talk about gun control in the United States.  Why would any of us expect anything different.  The left has proven time and time again that the constitution has no value.  This would be just another example of how they spit on it.
Taking guns out of the hands of good guys, only empowers bad guys.  We all know that law following citizens would be those who would suffer the most from any type of gun control.
Lets look at all of the high profile examples that innocent people were killed by nut jobs.  Virginia Tech ( a gun free zone ) no honest person was on that college campus with a fire arm.  Naturally, the loser who did the killing did not stop when he read the sign "no guns allowed".  He was a law breaker, they ignore the rules.  He walked in and shot.  Not one person there was able to return fire.
Denver movie theater, again a "no gun" business.  If just one of those people had a gun, maybe one less person would have lost their life.
Let's arm the principals.  Train them to use a gun.  Create a deterrent.  We the people have the right to bear arms.  Let us use that right to defend ourselves from enemies foreign and domestic.

The End is Nigh

One week from today is our next MNCC meeting.  Questions?  Post to the blog and I will get back to you.

I just needed a change.

Congressman's view: President blames Republicans but is the one holding the economy hostage

Republicans have put revenue on the table to a level the President once sought. Now he says double it. We have shown a willingness to negotiate. It is the president who has announced positions that are non-negotiable. It is the president who continues to divide the country. He is showing a willingness to tank our fragile economy and send it back into recession. It is he who is holding the economy hostage.
By: U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack, special to the News Tribune

 

U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack

“Fiscal cliff” is a term repeated so often many Americans cringe when they hear it. Although hearing about it is grating, it is critical everyone comprehend what is at stake, how we got here, and what is preventing us from confronting this perfect fiscal storm.
Some brief history may provide insight. The “cliff” did not suddenly appear. It has been years in the making. Getting the most attention is the expiration of tax cuts passed a decade ago during President George W. Bush’s first term. Those tax rate cuts, referred to as the “Bush Tax Cuts,” helped everyone.
Two years ago, almost to the day, President Obama agreed to extend the existing tax rates for two more years. The president, while signing the extension, called maintaining the existing tax rates “a substantial victory for middle-class families across the country.” He said the tax cuts “will grow our economy and will create jobs for the American people.” He said it was not the time to be raising people’s taxes.
Apparently he doesn’t believe that anymore.
Also two years ago, the president formed a debt commission to at least begin addressing what is obvious to everyone: our country’s deteriorating financial condition. The Bowles-Simpson Commission worked diligently and compiled a detailed bipartisan report that contained more than $4 trillion in proposed spending cuts and tax increases to attack our mounting debt, a balanced approach if you will. What did the president and the Congress do with the commission’s report? Nothing. It was completely ignored, and the debt has continued to grow. Our national debt now exceeds $16 trillion, and we are on the fast track to $20 trillion and beyond.
Last year brought another significant aspect of the pending “cliff.” It was the Budget Control Act of 2011. The act amounted, again, to inaction. During the contentious debt-ceiling debate in late July 2011, an agreement was reached whereby a select committee was formed to work out a compromise between the two bodies of Congress. In order to compel an agreement, Congress decided to include provisions in the act that were thought to be so onerous both sides would fear the fallout if an agreement was not reached. Failure would result in automatic cuts amounting to more than $1 trillion with half coming from Defense budgets and the other half coming from social programs over the next 10 years. What happened? The committee failed and here we are with no plan to bring the debt under control.
So what stands in the way of compromise? Strip away the finger-pointing for a moment and some things have become apparent. The president refuses to lead in any serious way. He seems comfortable with his “lead from behind” style. Proposals he has made do not address our massive fiscal problems. On the contrary; what he has proposed would, if adopted, make matters much worse.
One of the president’s proposals is for the federal government to not have a debt ceiling. He sent Tim Geithner, his Treasury Secretary, to Capitol Hill last week to advocate that there should be no limit to what the federal government can spend; it should be infinite, endless.
Really? Infinite debt? Is there any thinking person who doesn’t see the fiscal irresponsibility in that? Yet this is what the administration offers as an idea to address our debt crisis. Common sense has gone out the window.
Some numbers the president has chosen to ignore include 99-0 and 414-0. Those were the results of votes taken in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House earlier this year when Congress decisively rejected the president’s “blueprint” for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget. Notice the zeroes. No one bought it. It was a total, complete, bipartisan rejection of what the president proposed to do.
One has to marvel at the president’s relentless attempt to twist the argument in such a way that portrays Republicans as standing in the way of extending tax cuts for the middle class when it is the Republican position to extend existing tax rates for everyone. Republicans want to make the current tax rates permanent for all taxpayers. That would include the middle class.
Republicans have put revenue on the table to a level the President once sought. Now he says double it. We have shown a willingness to negotiate. It is the president who has announced positions that are non-negotiable. It is the president who continues to divide the country. He is showing a willingness to tank our fragile economy and send it back into recession. It is he who is holding the economy hostage.
Why is he willing to do this? He is convinced the American public will again buy his rhetoric that Republicans are to blame. He sees the numbers that re-elected him to a second term last month and believes he can continue to get away with his divisive class-warfare rhetoric. Hopefully, he is wrong.
My message all along, and those of my Republican colleagues, has been clear. We have to stop spending money we don’t have. We have stated repeatedly that we have to stop kicking the proverbial can down the road. Our pleas for fiscal sanity seem to fall on deaf ears or they just evaporate into the ether. Half the country sees what’s happening and dreads about the financial calamity that is inevitable if we stay on our current course. Yet the other half of the country seems either oblivious to it, sees it but doesn’t fully comprehend it and therefore chooses to ignore it, or sees it and understands it but doesn’t care.
I care.
I care very deeply about the country we are leaving our children, a sentiment I believe is shared by all. I don’t want to see us or them buried under a growing mountain of debt. The serious debate and the decisions the president and the Congress have been putting off are needed more today than ever, and it is a mistake if we continue to resort to the practice of ignoring the problem.
I urge the president to join us, work with us and not bring the country to financial ruin, something which at the moment he seems intent on doing.
U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack represents Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, including Duluth and Northeastern Minnesota, in the U.S. House.

Interesting.

Nullification The Rightful Remedy: What do we do when the federal government steps outside of it’s Constitutional boundaries? Do we ‘vote the bums out’ and hope that the new bums limit their own power? Do we ask federal judges in black robes to limit the federal government’s power? Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn’t think so, and neither do we. The rightful remedy to federal tyranny rests in the hands of the people and the States that created the federal government in the first place. It’s called Nullification, and it’s an idea whose time has come. This documentary explores the history of state nullification, and how it is being used today to push back against the encroachment of federal power.

Thanks Scarecrow for the link.  http://www.brotherjohnf.com/archives/91573

Tea Party vs. Progressive Republicans — Battle for the Soul of the GOP

–

Since Nov. 6, there has been no shortage of opinions as to why challenger Mitt Romney and the Republican Party failed to ouster President Barack Obama.  Pre-election divisions in the Republican Party between moderates and conservatives have only widened since Romney’s defeat and the party’s strategy for the future remains unclear, a source of contention and heated internal & external debate.Specifically, many now wonder what the sobering 2012 election results means for the right-leaning Tea Party, the champions of personal freedom and smaller government who exploded on the political scene in the 2010 midterm elections.  The re-election of a progressive like Barack Obama would seem to signal the end of the conservative Tea Party, but the movement’s conservative leaders insist that last month’s election results only vindicate the group’s message.

“The Tea Party is not a political party; it’s an informal community of Americans who support a set of fiscally conservative issues,” says FreedomWorks’ Matt Kibbe.  “And when you take a look at the roster of new fiscal conservatives being sent to Congress next year, it’s clear our issues are winning.”
Indeed, although the Tea Party may be focusing the vast majority of its ongoing efforts on local issues, the conservative movement has left an undeniable mark on the national GOP establishment.  The group’s mantra of uncompromising fiscal conservatism and limited government has remained a driving force in shaping Republican platform.
For proof of this, one need look no further than Rep. Paul Ryan’s ascendancy to the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket.  Once considered a fringe of the congressional conservative coalition, Tea Party-backed fiscal hawks like Ryan are now considered key players at the core of today’s Republican Party.
Critics, of course, will argue that Romney’s defeat in November signals a rebuff of these ideals.  “The 2012 elections have been the undoing of the 2010 Tea Party tsunami that crashed upon Washington,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) proclaimed in November.  “The Tea Party is over.”
But the actual election results suggests this declaration is a bit exaggerated and vastly underestimates the conservative Tea Party’s influence in the GOP.
Despite defeats in states like Indiana and Missouri, the Republican Senate caucus gained three new Tea Party-backed members with the addition of Ted Cruz of Texas, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Deb Fischer of Nebraska.  In the House, the Congressional Tea Party Caucus had 60 members before election day.  Of those 60, six did not seek re-election, seven lost their races and 47 were re-elected.  In addition, candidates endorsed by former GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum’s conservative PAC — Missouri’s Ann Wagner and Montana’s Steve Daines — also secured victories for the right.
“The Election Day losers were not the so-called ‘tea partiers,’” Kibbe points out, “they were the candidates embraced by (and some hand-picked by) the Republican establishment who failed to run on the winning message of economic freedom.”  When you boil it down, Kibbe argues, the lack of serious conservative candidates in 2012 meant many principled Republican voters chose to just stay home on Election Day.
This much is true — GOP turnout in 2012 was lower than both the 2008 and 2004 elections.  Turnout this year dropped by 7.9 million voters, falling to 123.6 million from 131.5 million in 2008. This year’s underwhelmed electorate marked the first decline in a presidential election in 16 years. Additionally, only 51.3% of the voting-age population went to the polls.  When you couple low turnout with a few obnoxious and offensive comments on rape from gaffe-prone politicians, it’s hard to say whether the GOP ran with bad policies or just bad candidates.
History also seems to be on the Tea Party’s side. Election results aside, Bloomberg News‘ Albert Hunt predicted the end the GOP establishment and continued rise of the conservative movement after Romney clinched the party’s nomination:

From Washington to the state capitals to the local level, the movement conservatives are in the ascendancy. For years, the Republican base was divided; it’s now dominated by the movement types.
A comparison of Reagan’s last year in office to today illustrates the dramatic change. Then, more than one-third of Senate Republicans were either genuine liberals such as Mark Hatfield, Lowell Weicker and Arlen Specter or moderates such as Bill Cohen, Bob Packwood and Nancy Kassebaum. With the retirement of Olympia Snowe of Maine there’ll be no more than two or three moderate Republicans in the Senate next year.
A quarter-century ago there were dozens of moderate Republicans in the House, members like Chris Shays of Connecticut, Amo Houghton of New York, Bill Gradison of Ohio, Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Bill Frenzel of Minnesota. Today there are very few House Republicans who break with conservative orthodoxy.
The changes are equally dramatic at the state and local level. Moderate Republican governors are relics. In Kansas this month, the right wing, led by the state’s conservative governor, drummed a number of the Bob Dole-type centrist Republicans out of the party.

Columbia University political science Professor Brigitte Naco has studied the rise and influence of the Tea Party movement. “Some Democrats say the Tea Party is dead. That’s all baloney,” Naco says. “The fact of the matter is when you look at the basic agenda of the Republican ticket, it’s pretty much what the Tea Party likes.”
But does the GOP’s Old Guard establishment acknowledge or understand this fact?
In recent weeks, House Speaker John Boehner has appeared wobbly on his commitment to the New Guard’s steadfast fiscal conservatism.  Before the election, Boehner downplayed any likelihood of a Republican compromise on the so-called fiscal cliff — the $1.2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts coming at the end of this year.  But after Romney’s defeat, Boehner seemed to pivot, then characterizing Republicans’ re-elected House majority as a mandate to find “common ground” with House Democrats who demand increased spending and higher taxes.
“There will be some kind of war” between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party over the future direction of the party, longtime Republican Party consultant Mike Murphy told the New York Times.  On one side of the divide there are “mathematicians” like Murphy who argue that the GOP must shift its political strategy and policy focus to attract the votes of Hispanics, blacks, younger voters and women; on the other, there are those who believe that basic conservative principles — when articulated appropriately — will ultimately restore unity within the party and attract a wider base of national voters in the future.
Whatever course the party chooses to pursue, it will need to decide quickly as the countdowns to the 2014 midterms and 2016 presidential election have already begun.  “We are in a situation where the Democrats are getting a massive amount of votes for free,” Murphy warns.
“Republicans need not jettison their principles. But they must avoid appearing judgmental and callous on social issues,” esteemed GOP strategist Karl Rove argued in the days following the election.
Tea Party favorite and Florida Senator Marco Rubio agrees: “The party has to continually ask ourselves, What do we represent?  But we have to remain the movement on behalf of upward mobility, the party people identify with their hopes and dreams. People want to have a chance.”
FreedomWorks’ Kibbe predicts the party’s pivotal shift that began in 2010 has put the GOP’s Old Guard on a collision course with a new generation of Republican leaders, including Rubio, Ryan, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose steadfast support of small government and limited spending launched him to national fame in a (successful) battle against some of the country’s most ruthless labor unions.
“You are going to see a continuation of the fight between the Old Guard and all of the new blood that has come in since 2010, but I don’t know how dramatic it is going to be,” Kibbe says. “It is getting to point where you can’t reach back and pull another establishment Republican from the queue like we have done with Romney.”
With Republicans holding onto their strong majority in the House of Representatives, we may see a more conservative voting bloc emerge in the 113th Congress than the 112th, and the ongoing debate over the nation’s fiscal crisis may be a good indicator of the divided Republican Party’s trajectory for the next four years.
Will the party establishment steer the party to be more conciliatory when pressured by the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill, or will the GOP dig in against political concessions that threaten their undermining ideological principles?
“Republicans lost this year because they failed to recognize that economic freedom is trending in America.  The shareholders in America have spoken, and they want senior management to stay out of their homes and to stop spending money we don’t have,” Kibbe wrote days after Obama’s re-election.  “The party that can communicate that message is the party that will win over the American electorate come 2014.”

• Posted on December 3, 2012 at 9:22am by Meredith Jessup

Detroit Councilwoman’s Actual Rant: We Voted for You, Obama, Now Give Us Some of That Gov’t ‘Bacon’

Speaking before the Detroit City Council on Tuesday, Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said President Barack Obama owes the ailing city a government bailout because its residents supported him in the 2012 presidential election.
“Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that,” said Watson, according to FOX 2 Detroit. “Of course, not just that, but why not?”
“After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young [Detroit’s former mayor of 20 years and former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee], he went to Washington, D.C. and came home with some bacon,” she added. “That’s what you do.”
As of this writing, the White House has announced no plans to bailout the crumbling Motor City.
But, you know, this video got us thinking: Following the 2012 presidential election, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh were savaged by top GOP leaders for saying President Barack Obama won because he promised to give people “free” stuff.
Romney accused the president of promising “gifts” to minorities, young voters, and women, while Limbaugh dubbed the president “Baracka Claus” (a play on “Santa Claus”).
“In a nation of children,” said Limbaugh, “Santa Claus wins.”
“It’s a proven political strategy, which is give a bunch of money to a group and, guess what, they’ll vote for you,” said Romney.
Romney continued:

What the president did is he gave them two things. One, he gave them a big gift on immigration with the DREAM Act amnesty program, which was obviously very, very popular with Hispanic voters, and then number two was Obamacare … For a home earning — let’s say $30,000 a year — free health care, which is worth about $10,000 a year, I mean it’s massive, it’s huge. So this — he did two very popular things for the Hispanic community.

Exit Question: Given the “tit-for-tat” sentiments expressed by the Detroit Councilwoman, how far off do you think Limbaugh and Gov. Romney are? That is, is it really so outrageous to say that some people voted for President Obama because they were hoping he’d give them “free” stuff?
Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

• Posted on December 5, 2012 at 9:30am by Becket Adams 

 http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8033524

Debt Cliff talks.

How do you feel about the GOP offering up tax deductions, such as charitable contributions?  Wouldn't it make more sense to just pass the Bush tax cuts permanently and force the Senate and Obama to react?

Great

A must watch. And a lesson for the right.

http://blip.tv/davidhorowitztv/bill-whittle-6444929

A case of another fool.

Bob Costas is a damn idiot.  If you did not know that already, now you do.  Costas decided to preach to us yet again from his pulpit.  Suggesting that guns have a personality and brain to commit terrible acts.  When did our society and those who have positions to speak to the masses, give inanimate objects life.  Somehow we have to attach human action and emotion to things made of plastic and metal.  Rush put it best, "Are forks responsible for making people fat?"  Americans watch sports to be entertained, yet, television has decided to educate "we dolts" to understand the dangers in our lives.  Tell them to stick it up there...............you get the idea.  Weigh in!

Today's question.

The President is demanding that the GOP lead Congress allow the "rich" Bush Era tax cuts to expire.  The GOP (most of them) are not interested in any extension that doe not involve all income levels.  Some have even indicated they wouldn't discuss any options that did not include spending cuts.  So what would you like to see happen?

Durbin Wants No Entitlements in ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal

Medicare and Medicaid savings should be part of future debt-reduction efforts, but not on the table in talks regarding the impending “fiscal cliff,” the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate said.
In the prepared remarks of Sen. Richard Durbin’s speech today to the liberal Center for American Progress, he writes that progressives cannot “pretend” the programs can “continue forever” without changes to ensure their solvency. But the majority whip from Illinois insists that any adjustments should come after the immediate budget is passed.
“Progressives should be willing to talk about ways to ensure the long-term viability of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” it reads. “But those conversations should not be part of a plan to avert the fiscal cliff.”
During the event, the Illinois lawmaker skipped over that section of his notes, which were released to the media, but told reporters that he stood by every word.
“We can’t be so naive as to believe that just taxing the rich is going to solve our problems,” he told the crowd, adding that his caucus needed to be open to issues “painful and hard for us to talk about.”
Durbin said he continued to be opposed to some conservative proposals, including voucher programs for Medicare and a block-grant system for Medicaid. But he also maintained he’s wary of raising the eligibility age for the safety-net programs, for fear of creating coverage gaps. President Obama floated that idea last year.
The statements offer a window into what might be congressional Democrats’ proverbial “line in the sand” as each party sharpens their negotiating teams. Both sides must reach a budget agreement by Dec. 31, or else trigger the $607 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts economists agree would plunge the economy back into recession.
Some members of Congress see the talks as an opportunity to reduce the national debt, and it has become a central talking point as the deadline draws closer.
Members of both parties discussed cuts to entitlement programs earlier this month in a meeting with Obama as a way to bring about deficit reduction. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the sum total of US entitlement programs — including Social Security — make up a projected 62.4 percent of the federal budget in 2012.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/durbin-wants-no-entitlements-in-fiscal-cliff-deal/

Iron Range company Magnetation passes over Minnesota for $350M plant Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal by Ed Stych, Web Producer

Magnetation Inc. said Tuesday it is building a new iron ore pellet plant outside of Minnesota, despite receiving incentives from the state.
Grand Rapids, Minn.-based Magnetation said in a news release that it will build the $350 million facility in Reynolds, Ind., between Chicago and Indianapolis. The company plans to break ground early next year, with the facility opening in late 2014 or early 2015. It will employ 100 to 120 people.
Magnetation said it will transport iron ore concentrate from its northern Minnesota plant to Reynolds, where it will be made into pellets, a critical raw material in the steelmaking process. The pellets will be used by AK Steel Corp., which is a 49.9 percent owner of Magnetation.
"With convenient access to major railways and highways, Reynolds is an outstanding location for the company's new pellet plant," Magnetation CEO Larry Lehtinen said in a statement. "We thank our local and state officials in Indiana for their ongoing support of our company."
Minnesota and Iron Range officials have long been frustrated with Magnetation in their efforts to have the facility built in Minnesota. The state passed laws to make it easier for the project to get started, and the company received $1 million in grants and loans from the state.
But the company said earlier this year that Minnesota was out of the running for various cost and regulatory reasons.
Manetation did say on Tuesday it will spend $120 million in northern Minnesota to add iron ore concentrate capacity to its operations.

Go for it.

If you could ask newly re-elected Senator Sean Nienow or Representative Bob Barrett on equestion going into a new year, what would it be?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Take the day to give thanks to all of the great things we celebrate as Americans.

Convention calling.

Minnesota GOP has given it's window for BPOU conventions.  February.  Chisago has decided that they will hold thier's on February 21st.  Are you going to yours?  Why would you not get involved?

Romney alone?

Last week Romney had suggested it was impossible for him to win the election given the promises of gifts by Obama.  Do you agree with him?  Bobby Jindal and others have turned there back on Romney for his comments.  Are they correct to do that?

Submitted to the Star Tribune.

The Problem with Vikings Stadium Funding

In a letter to the Vikings earlier this week concerning terms in the stadium agreement he negotiated, signed and touted, Governor Dayton took exception to Personal Seat License revenue (PSL’s) the Vikings are counting on to help fund their portion of the stadium costs.   

As a sitting lawmaker, I worry that this bit of political theatre, may now be water under the bridge and, either intentionally or not, takes us farther away from recognizing a increasingly significant problem concerning stadium funding -- how the taxpayer's portion of the stadium will be paid for.

The taxpayer portion of stadium financing relies on taxes generated from charitable gaming revenue, specifically new “electronic pull-tabs.”. This revenue has to exceed $1.8 billion per year so that the resulting taxes can pay for the public's share of the costs.  Simple math tells us that monthly sales of electronic pull tabs need to reach $150 million.  If the first month of operation is any indication, this may be a losing bet for taxpayers. Electronic pull tab revenue reached just slightly more than $1 million in its first month of operation.  While there is no question this revenue will increase, the public needs to understand the increase has to be substantial to reach $150 million in sales each and every month.

If this doesn’t happen, then backup funding sources, like Viking scratch off lottery games and additional suite revenue taxes, kick in.  These back-up funding sources, however, were never substantial in amount so when they don’t fill the hole, the state’s general fund will inevitably be tapped.  Therein lies the problem. The Vikings stadium will then compete with schools, roads, bridges and health care for the poor/disabled for funds, or will result in tax increases to make up for the deficit.

So while the Governor professes concern about how the Vikings will be paying for their portion of the stadium using a clause in the contract that was specifically given to them by Governor Dayton, many lawmakers, including myself, will be getting headaches over how the State of Minnesota will find the money to pay for the taxpayer portion when taxes from gambling revenue don't come in as projected.

State Representative Bob Barrett

Romney: Obama’s ‘gifts’ to key demographics helped him win Posted by Natalie Jennings on November 14, 2012 at 6:09 pm

Mitt Romney, on a call with top donors on Wednesday, referred to some of the policies enacted under the Obama administration as “gifts” that helped him win young, minority and low-income voters.
Here’s The New York Times’s account of the call:

“In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” Mr. Romney said.
 “With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest, was a big gift,” he said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.”

According to that account and another in the Los Angeles Times, Romney also apologized to donors and said he was surprised by the loss.
Just a few hours earlier, Obama said in his news conference that he hoped to meet with Romney to discuss ideas for ways they could work together.

Benghazi

Say that name 10 times...............do you feel like Washington is hoping we forget it.  Don't!!  The scandals that have engulfed the news media have conveniently pushed BENGHAZI to the side.  Talk to your friends and remind people on social media.  This administration cannot get away with this unchecked!

In 59 Philadelphia voting wards, Mitt Romney got zero votes

Miriam Hill, Andrew Seidman, and John Duchneskie, Inquirer Staff Writers

Posted: Monday, November 12, 2012, 3:01 AM
 

It's one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch.

These are the kind of numbers that send Republicans into paroxysms of voter-fraud angst, but such results may not be so startling after all.
"We have always had these dense urban corridors that are extremely Democratic," said Jonathan Rodden, a political science professor at Stanford University. "It's kind of an urban fact, and you are looking at the extreme end of it in Philadelphia."
Most big cities are politically homogeneous, with 75 percent to 80 percent of voters identifying as Democrats.
Cities are not only bursting with Democrats: They are easier to organize than rural areas where people live far apart from one another, said Sasha Issenberg, author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns.
"One reason Democrats can maximize votes in Philadelphia is that it's very easy to knock on every door," Issenberg said.
Still, was there not one contrarian voter in those 59 divisions, where unofficial vote tallies have President Obama outscoring Romney by a combined 19,605 to 0?
The unanimous support for Obama in these Philadelphia neighborhoods - clustered in almost exclusively black sections of West and North Philadelphia - fertilizes fears of fraud, despite little hard evidence.
Upon hearing the numbers, Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, brought up his party's voter-identification initiative - which was held off for this election - and said, "We believe we need to continue ensuring the integrity of the ballot."

The absence of a voter-ID law, however, would not stop anyone from voting for a Republican candidate.
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia who has studied African American precincts, said he had occasionally seen 100 percent of the vote go for the Democratic candidate. Chicago and Atlanta each had precincts that registered no votes for Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008.
"I'd be surprised if there weren't a handful of precincts that didn't cast a vote for Romney," he said. But the number of zero precincts in Philadelphia deserves examination, Sabato added.
"Not a single vote for Romney or even an error? That's worth looking into," he said.
In a city with 1,687 of the ward subsets known as divisions, each with hundreds of voters, 59 is about 3.5 percent of the total.
In some of those divisions, it's not only Romney supporters who are missing. Republicans in general are nearly extinct.
Take North Philadelphia's 28th Ward, third division, bounded by York, 24th, and 28th Streets and Susquehanna Avenue.
About 94 percent of the 633 people who live in that division are black. Seven white residents were counted in the 2010 census.
In the entire 28th Ward, Romney received only 34 votes to Obama's 5,920.
Although voter registration lists, which often contain outdated information, show 12 Republicans live in the ward's third division, The Inquirer was unable to find any of them by calling or visiting their homes.
Four of the registered Republicans no longer lived there; four others didn't answer their doors. City Board of Elections registration data say a registered Republican used to live at 25th and York Streets, but none of the neighbors across the street Friday knew him. Cathy Santos, 56, founder of the National Alliance of Women Veterans, had one theory: "We ran him out of town!" she said and laughed.
James Norris, 19, who lives down the street, is listed as a Republican in city data. But he said he's a Democrat and voted for Obama because he thinks the president will help the middle class.
A few blocks away, Eric Sapp, a 42-year-old chef, looked skeptical when told that city data had him listed as a registered Republican. "I got to check on that," said Sapp, who voted for Obama.
Eighteen Republicans reportedly live in the nearby 15th Division, according to city registration records. The 15th has the distinction of pitching two straight Republican shutouts - zero votes for McCain in 2008, zero for Romney on Tuesday. Oh, and 13 other city divisions did the same thing in 2008 and 2012.
Three of the 15th's registered Republicans were listed as living in the same apartment, but the tenant there said he had never heard of them. The addresses of several others could not be found.
On West Albert Street, Duke Dunston says he knows he's a registered Republican, but he's never voted for one.
The leader of the 28th Ward is Democrat Anthony Clark, who grew up under the tutelage of the late power broker and Democratic ward leader Carol Ann Campbell. Clark is also a city commissioner, one of three elected officials who oversee Philadelphia elections.
"In the African American community from 33d to 24th between Ridge and Somerset, there is a large population of Democrats and there are not many Republicans in there at all. I think it's the issues. People are not feeling that Romney is in touch with them," Clark said.
Despite the Democratic advantage in the 28th Ward, Clark says he also makes sure party workers are getting the vote out.
"People get out, give out literature, talk to people about the issues. Also, they work the polls," Clark said. "People know them in their divisions."
Clark struggled to recall anyone in his area who ever identified as a Republican. Though that is not something anyone would likely volunteer to a Democratic ward leader, Clark eventually remembered Lewis Harris, the GOP leader in the nearby 29th ward, and that rare species: an urban black Republican.
Harris, in an interview, said he works for the GOP mostly because he believes city neighborhoods need attention from both parties.
"I open the door to the community and let them be exposed to diversity in the political party," Harris said. "I want political community-based leverage."
Harris cast his vote for Romney, but he's also an Obama fan.
"I love both of those people," he said.
Nationally, 93 percent of African Americans voted for Obama, according to exit polls, so it's not surprising that in some parts of Philadelphia, the president did even better than that.
In the entire city, Obama got 85 percent of the vote. His worst showing was in South Philadelphia's 26th Ward. There, the president garnered 52.3 percent of the vote, compared to 46.6 percent for Romney.
Paula Terreri, 57, a 26th Ward Republican who describes herself as a devout Catholic, said outside the polls on Tuesday that she voted for Romney because she opposed abortion.
Many parts of Philadelphia and other big cities simply lack Republican voters, a fact of campaigning that has been true since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Stanford University's Rodden said.
In 2008, McCain got zero votes in 57 Philadelphia voting divisions. That was a big increase from 2004, when George W. Bush was blanked in just five divisions.
As the first African American president, Obama held immense appeal to black voters, but skin color is only part of the story, said Mark Sawyer, a political science professor at UCLA.
Previous Republican candidates, including Richard Nixon and Jack Kemp, supported affirmative action and urban development, but their party has abandoned those stances, Sawyer said.
Romney's comments, including talking about people who want "more free stuff from the government" after a visit to the NAACP, only further distanced African Americans who felt the comments played to stereotypes about welfare, Sawyer said.

Petraeus mistress may have revealed classified information at Denver speech: The real reason for the attack on CIA operation in Benghazi

Biographer Paula Broadwell may not be getting investigated by the FBI for sending threatening e-mails to Petraeus family friend Jill Kelley, who neither works for the State Department, nor Joint Special Operations Command.
Now, Broadwell could be facing questions about whether she revealed classified information that she was privy to due to her relationship with then-CIA director David Petraeus.
At an Oct. 26 speech at her alma mater, the University of Denver, Broadwell was asked about Petraeus’ handling of the Benghazi situation.
Her response was reported originally by Israel’s Arutz Sheva and Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell.
Broadwell quoted the Fox report when she said: “The facts that came out today were that the ground forces there at the CIA annex, which is different from the consulate, were requesting reinforcements."
Broadwell’s affair with Petraeus was likely known to Holly Petraeus, according to family friends. The FBI reportedly knew about it months beforehand and White House Counterterrorism advisor John Brennan reportedly was aware that there was a relationship in the summer of 2011.
Broadwell went on to explain more details from the Benghazi attacks.
“Now, I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually, um, had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that's still being vetted.”
Click here to watch Broadwell's speech on YouTube. 
In the original October 26 Fox News report, sources at the Annex said that the CIA’s Global Response Staff had handed over three Libyan militia members to the Libyan authorities who came to rescue the 30 Americans in the early hours of September 12.
A well-placed Washington source confirms to Fox that there were Libyan militiamen being held at the CIA annex in Benghazi and that their presence was being looked at as a possible motive for the staged attack on the Consulate and Annex that night.
According to multiple intelligence sources who have served in Benghazi, there were more than just Libyan militia members who were held and interrogated by CIA contractors at the CIA Annex in the days prior to the attack. Other prisoners from additional countries in Africa and the Middle East were brought to this location.
The Libya Annex was the largest CIA station in North Africa, and two weeks prior to the attack, the CIA was preparing to shut it down. Most prisoners, according to British and American intelligence sources, had been moved two weeks earlier.
The CIA categorically denied these allegations in response to a query by reporter Eli Lake: “The CIA has not had detention authority since January 2009, when Executive Order 13491 was issued. Any suggestion that the Agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless.”
Broadwell, whose affair with Petraeus reportedly ended earlier this year, continued to serve as an informal spokesman for the CIA director. She suggests in her Denver speech that Petraeus knew almost immediately that the attack was a terror attack - possibly to free militia members.
A few days later, Petraeus testifies in a closed session to Congress that the attack was due in large part to an anti-Islam video and a spontaneous uprising, according to reports from the hearing.
Congressional leaders say privately they believe they were lied to by Petraeus when he testified shortly after the attack. Some of these members already considered charging Petraeus with perjury, but said they planned to withhold judgment until he testified this week. After resigning as CIA director, the CIA said acting director Mike Morrell would testify in his place.
All of this raises the question: what was the CIA really doing in Benghazi in addition to searching for Qaddafi’s stash of more than 22,000 shoulder held missiles that could bring down commercial airplanes, and who in the White House knew exactly what the CIA was up to?

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/12/petraeus-mistress-may-have-revealed-classified-information-at-denver-speech/#ixzz2C0ohzSKl

Distraction?

Is the recent news of Petraeus' affair just a distraction?  Was it held until after the election on purpose?  What are your thoughts?  Notice not one word about Benghazi since.  Is it all tied together or is it simply coincidence?

Sean Nienow

Sean deserves this win.  He showed real leadership in trying to track down the HMO fleecing of our tax dollars.  You will have an uphill battle this session but......I cannot think of anybody better to tackle it.  I am proud to call you my friend!

Bob Barrett

Congrats buddy!  You won! Chisago County did not let you down.  That is because you did not let them down.  Continue to fight.  Continue to be accessable.  Allow your friends to help you plant the seeds in 2013 that will blossom at the polls in 2014.

Well?

Post election hangover is still in effect.  Many of us are bothered.  We cannot believe that he won again!  We also cannot stomach the other losses.  So, ask yourself......did you do everything you could?  Did you get involved?  Did you do more than go to the election box on November 6th?  If not why?  2014 midterms are just arround the corner.  What will you do next time to be part of the solution?

Post Election Day 1

Shit.......................................Don't quit!

Keep this in mind voting tomorrow.

This was sent out by Kurt Bills to his supporters.  Read this before voting.

In June 2009 Norm Coleman conceded his Senate race to comedian Al Franken.

He lost the race, after 6 months of recounts and legal battles, by 312 votes.

In December 2010, Tom Emmer conceded his race for Governor after a similar recount, losing by fewer than 9000 votes.

Both races have something in common much more important than the fact that they ended after recounts: they ended with extremely liberal politicians taking power entirely due to the defection of Republicans to third-party candidates.

In a very real way, Democrats didn’t win those elections as much as Republicans chose to lose them.

In my mind, that is shameful. Do any of the Republicans who voted for Dean Barkley or Tom Horner really believe our state and our country are better off with Al Franken and Mark Dayton as Senator and Governor?

The reasons for some Republicans to defect from Coleman and Emmer are a mirror image of each other. Some Republicans expressed dissatisfaction with Coleman because he was not conservative enough for their taste; in Emmer’s case, others thought he was too conservative.

They were looking for the “Goldilocks” candidate in the race, and voted for a third party candidate or stayed home. In the Emmer race, former Republican Tom Horner garnered over 250,000 votes, more than 25 times the margin by which Emmer lost. Not all those votes were disaffected Republicans, of course, but too many of them were.

The results are stark: Minnesota didn’t get a centrist, “goldilocks” Senator or Governor. They were saddled, instead, with two of the most liberal politicians in the country representing them in Washington and St Paul.

Republicans who didn’t vote for their Republican candidates are responsible for the passage of Obamacare, a bill that would have been stopped had Norm Coleman been in the Senate.

I am not one to believe that we should abandon our principles and simply adopt the Party line. Many of you recall that I am the Republican Senate candidate today because I ran an insurgent campaign from outside the Party structure.

I firmly believe it is our responsibility to fight within the Party to ensure it represents our principles. Ronald Reagan was an insurgent, and eventually won out against the Rockefeller Republicans after nearly two decades of work in the trenches.

During that time Reagan was both a loyal Republican and a principled warrior for his cause.

That is what each of us needs to be today. Day in, day out each of us needs to work tirelessly to persuade other Republicans to our side when we disagree; and day in, day out we need to fight to defeat Democrats who are pushing policies which if left unchecked will bankrupt our country and undermine the constitutional foundations of our country.

Ronald Reagan hit it on the nose when he declared: “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.”

That is why I am voting for a Republican straight ticket this Election Day…and why you should, too.

Chisago Lakes School Board

We recommend Jim Green for the Chisago Lakes School Board.  He is known for his fiscal responsibility.

Interesting thought stream.

October 28, 2012 Obama's Taqqiya Unravels By Nonie Darwish I have never entertained the idea that Obama was a Muslim and always believed he was a socialist. But Obama's behavior over the last four years regarding Islam has convinced me that Obama has a Socialist/Islamic centered worldview -- a combination that is not uncommon in many parts of the Muslim world. Having been a journalist in Egypt for six years in the seventies, I have witnessed socialism with an Islamic twist to be a popular political ideology, especially amongst Arab journalists and intellectuals. Socialism, and even communism, have managed to survive in the ruthless Islamic political system as an alternative to full-fledged Sharia. The two ideologies have blended together in cases including the Baath Party in Syria and Iraq and socialist regimes in Egypt and Yemen. One major difference between the two ideologies is that Islam uses Allah, while socialism uses atheism, to fight the God of Christianity. Free democracies, such as the United States, are alien to Islam and socialism both because they regard government as a servant of the people and hold that human rights are granted by God and not by government or the code of Sharia. Both Sharia and socialism are united in their envy of Western society and need to change it. That is why Obama has become the savior of both Islam and socialism. He embodies both ideologies. The claim that Obama is a Christian was a silly joke, but a necessary lie for the greater cause of changing America to fit the goals of both creeds. Obama became the One, the savior of both Islam and socialists. To do that, Obama had to deny who he really was, which explains why his actions and words have never added up. At the recent Alfred E. Smith Catholic Charity dinner speech, Obama did not seem to be just kidding when he said that Romney uses his middle name Mitt and "I wish I could use my middle name." Obama was referring, of course, to his Islamic middle name of Hussein. In Obama's mind, he was not ashamed for having deceived America -- he blamed America for putting him in the position of having to deny his true pride in his middle name. That brings us to an important discovery by WND in an article by Jerome Corsi titled: "Obama's Ring: 'There is no God But Allah'." The article featured close-up photos of a ring still worn by Obama today in the White House, one that he has worn since his visit to Pakistan as a young man. The ring, which later also became his wedding ring, has very tiny and discrete Arabic calligraphy that means nothing to Americans, but to Arabic-speaking people like myself and Dr. Mark Gabriel, means quite a lot. Such Islamic calligraphy is commonly found throughout the gold markets of the Muslim world. I am not a writing expert, but I can clearly see on the ring the word 'La Ilaha IllaAllah. ("There is no god but god.")' Such a sentence in Arabic has a lot of the letters A and L which in Arabic are simply a straight line like the number one. The only explanation for Obama's exciting ring secret is that he is a closet Muslim and feels that he can serve Islam best if he denies his being a Muslim for the purpose of a higher aspiration to serve the Muslim world from the White House, in Islamic terms the "higher jihad." Obama has no problem whatsoever in lying for the sake of "Hope and Change" since lying about being a Muslim in a majority non-Muslim country is allowed under Islam. Lying for the purpose of jihad (known as "taqqiya") is not only allowed, but an obligation to be proud of and even serves as a reason to blame the enemies of Islam for one's lies. Sharia law states: "Lying is obligatory if the purpose is obligatory." Muslim clerics have no problem in lying not just to the non-Muslim world but even to the Muslim masses, since Islam also allows Muslims to lie in order to bring Muslims together in harmony and friendship. That brings us to the current debacle in Libya, which can only be understood if we grasp Obama's worldviews as regards the "Muslim World." Like the so-called 'moderate' Muslims, Obama insists Islam in and of itself has nothing to do with terrorism and blames previous American foreign policy (along with Israel), for Islamic anger. Obama narrowed down the problem of Islamism to Al Qaeda while embracing other Islamic groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as moderate. In the process, Obama dismissed the Brotherhood's long history of terror, which in fact gave birth to Al Qaeda and hundreds of other terror groups. Nothing in Obama's world is the fault of Islam, which is why he ordered the Fort Hood massacre to be classified as "workplace violence" and not Islamic terrorism. Obama believes that he uniquely understands the Muslim world and will bring about a new era of peace with Islam, at least during his administration. There are strong rumors in Egypt that when Obama met with the Egyptian foreign minister, he confided in him that he was a Muslim and that he would assist the Islamic cause in America after he passes the Health Care Bill. But as president of the United States, Obama was caught in a quagmire between protecting American lives and appearing loyal to Islam. Placing American Marines at US consulates in dangerous terror-infested Islamic countries created the possibility of a bloody confrontation between American security and Islamists. That would discredit Obama's attempt to separate Islam from terrorism. Also, if Obama confronted militant Muslim jihadists in Islamic countries, his entire claim to opening a new page in American/Islamic relations would fall apart. He would then be no different from his predecessors, Bush or Reagan. That explains why the demands for American security by U.S. ambassador Stevens went unanswered. Obama did not want to deal with the possibility that American Marines would shoot at Muslim attackers in order to save American lives. According to Sharia, it is a capital crime for a Muslim individual or leader to shoot at fellow Muslims -- even Islamists -- for the purpose of protecting Americans. That would make Obama a violator of Sharia and an apostate. If Obama considers himself a Muslim and wears an Islamic ring, then he must have had a very hard time deciding on how to protect the consulate without killing Muslim attackers. His solution? Settling for the lesser of two evils: getting Muslims, in the form of Libyan security, to guard the property and in this way, forcing Muslims to shoot other Muslims in order to defend the consulate. But that plan was useless because even the Muslim guards had to follow Sharia, and ran away and left the Americans to be killed rather than violate Sharia themselves by killing other Muslims. Obama gambled with the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others and left them as sacrificial lambs rather than violate the dictates of Sharia. The Benghazi fiasco merely underlined Obama's failed promises of peace with the Muslim world. The murder of Americans at the hand of Muslims did not even get us an apology from any Muslim leader or cleric. No one is taking responsibility, not even Obama himself. With the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Islamists and jihadists made it clear to us that they could care less about Obama, his appeasement, his apologies, and even his Islam. They could not put jihad on hold or restrain themselves on behalf of an American president who wanted to help build a better image of Islam. They could not play the game with Obama and refrain from jihad even during the Obama presidency. The jihadists in effect declared that Obama, Muslim or not, is just another American president who should not be trusted. No leader, Muslim or not, can get away from the wrath of Islamic jihad, and that is why angry Islamic mobs were recently seen torching Obama's effigy. It is unfortunate that it took a tragedy in Libya and the lives of decent Americans to prove that Obama is unfit to be president of the USA. Obama has fooled many Americans for four years and that is why, when he sees the face of Mitt Romney, he is reminded of a reality that he could not fully eliminate. Obama knows the game, and his presidency, is over. Nonie Darwish author The Devil We Don't Know and President Former Muslims United.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/obamas_taqqiya_unravels.html#ixzz2AdoIIgX1