This comes via Time:
Personally, I think the ad reeks of desperation. What do you think?
Others: The Other McCain, Hot Air and USA Today
(H/T Memeorandum)
This comes via Time:
Personally, I think the ad reeks of desperation. What do you think?
Others: The Other McCain, Hot Air and USA Today
(H/T Memeorandum)
There is not much more than I can really say about the man who simply believed that freedom applied to all. Most of it has been written by those who are better educated, and write better than I ever will. All I can truly say, is that Martin Luther King Jr’s commandment to those fighting for freedom to “Stand up for what you believe in,” in 2012 should be our mandate. As it has been observed by Martin Luther King Jr’s niece, he was a registered Republican and would be considered a social Conservative today.
In 2006, after seeing President’s George W. Bush pathetic handling of the Iraq War, I started a blog called “The Populist”— mainly because I was tired of yelling back at the TV. On December 21, 2007 my blog was hacked and on December 30, 2007, I started “Political Byline” with the idea that neither of these political parties were political or moral absolutes.
For six long years, I stood for what I felt was right; I made enemies, some of which hate the ground that I walk on today. I could quite honestly care less. Because frankly, as the lyric of Steve Camp says in “Judgment Begins in the House of God”, “Sometimes you’ll stand alone to live a life that’s true.” I have, in my day stood for what I simply thought was right. Sometimes, I stood along with the rational people who stood against injustice; and sometimes, I stood alone. I have been doing that for 29 years now, on that day —- June 7, 1982 — 29 years ago, I took a stand for the one who died on the cross for my sins, — and so, I think I know a little bit about fighting.
On October 31, 2011, my old blog “Political Byline” had some problems with the hosting provider and seeing that Barack Obama announced that the war in Iraq was, for the most part, over. I decided that the blog’s original purpose had been fulfilled and I pulled the blog. I had originally planned to hang it up and quit. However, there were people e-mailing me, asking, “Where is the blog?” and “Why did you quit?”
On December 31, 2011, I bought some hosting from a very nice person named Paul in Florida. He is a Ron Paul fan, but I will not hold it against him. I spent $120.00 for a year’s worth of hosting, with any luck; I will make business out of it. I also brought the old blog back up and imported the Blogspot site to this domain, thoughtsnadrantings.com. This blog, Thought and Rantings is simply a continuation of the old blog. I am going to try to much better on this blog than I did on the other. I will try to avoid conflict and ignore my detractors. I also hope to blog about policy and less about other people. I hate having to rip on the President constantly.
However, I will continue to keep whoever is in the White House honest, Republican Party or Democratic Party. There will be times when I will simply disagree with the Right. There will be also times when I sharply disagree with the left. Sometimes, standing for what one feels is right, goes well beyond partisan politics.
Remembering Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy should be done, by carrying on his vision — of standing for the principles that fueled his campaign for liberty. This is what I hope to do this year in 2012 with this blog.
To be fair to the man, he really had no path to the nomination.
Via The NYT’s Caucus:
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will announce Monday that he is ending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsing Mitt Romney, narrowing the field and erasing a challenge to Mr. Romney from the moderate wing of his party.
Mr. Huntsman, who had hoped to use the South Carolina primary this week to revive his flagging candidacy, informed his advisers on Sunday that he was bowing to political reality and would back Mr. Romney, whom he accused a week ago of putting party ahead of country.
Mr. Huntsman, who had struggled to live up to the early expectations of his candidacy, was to deliver a speech Monday morning in Myrtle Beach, where the five remaining major Republican candidates will gather hours later for a debate. His endorsement of Mr. Romney is indication of the party establishment getting behind Mr. Romney and trying to focus the party on defeating President Obama.
“The governor and his family, at this point in the race, decided it was time for Republicans to rally around a candidate who could beat Barack Obama and turn around the economy,” Matt David, Mr. Huntsman’s campaign manager, said in an interview Sunday evening. “That candidate is Gov. Mitt Romney.”
But Mr. Huntsman’s decision was unlikely to have any particular influence where Mr. Romney needs it most, among social and religious conservatives who remain wary of Mr. Romney’s ideological inconsistency. With the withdrawal of Mr. Huntsman, who despite his efforts to portray himself as more conservative than Mr. Romney was often viewed as the moderate in the race, the South Carolina primary is now Mr. Romney against an array of opponents coming at him from the right.
I have a theory as to why Huntsman could not win. Partially it is because of his association with President Barack Obama. However, there is another reason too; it is because the man was seen as too moderate, and the GOP had been down that road before. You see, for all of George W. Bush’s great performance during and after the attacks on 9/11; Bush was, for the most part a very moderate Republican. A Rockefeller Conservative, if you will. No child left behind, the bail out of the banks and other such things were seen by many of the rib-rocked Conservatives, as Big Government actions. The Republican establishment never forgot this, neither did the grassroots. So, they decided against a man, who I felt personally could have made a difference in Washington D.C.
I am not a fan of Mitt Romney, as you already have read here. However, I will concede on thing, he can debate very well and he can also think on his feet. I believe that, if anyone, Mitt Romney will be able to beat Obama in the general election. Santorum is too far to the right; a radical in some eyes. Romney strikes a more measured moderate tone, and I believe that is important. Because as Barry Goldwater found out in 1964, that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue; but it just does not win elections. Americans recoil away from extremist views and beliefs. This explains why people like David Duke or Madalyn Murray O’Hair were never President. 😀
Others Via Memeorandum: Washington Monthly, FiveThirtyEight, Mediaite, Hot Air, Pirate’s Cove, Swampland, msnbc.com, Weekly Standard, Proof Positive, News Desk, The Page, Outside the Beltway, Weasel Zippers, Firedoglake, Hit & Run, The Moderate Voice, NO QUARTER, The Other McCain, Fire Andrea Mitchell!, The Hill, The Hinterland Gazette, Rumproast, The Right Scoop, Gawker and Ricochet Conversations Feed
Both of these idiots must be really desperate. 🙄
Instance one, Newt Gingrich sucks up to a black Church in SC:
GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich faced a round of tough questions in a campaign event before an African-American church in South Carolina on Saturday.
Gingrich spoke with members of the Jones Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church in Columbia, S.C. for an hour according to media reports.
Many of the questions focused on a statement from the former House Speaker in December that “really poor children” have bad work habits, a remark which attracted criticism from civil rights groups.
“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works, so they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday,” Gingrich had said at a campaign event.
Since when does a white man, running as a Republican go down to SC and grovel before a bunch of blacks, who will most likely not vote for him anyhow? This reeks of nothing more than USDA choice desperation. I personally do not believe that Newt owes these idiots a thing at all. Gingrich spoke the truth, and if they do not like it — screw em. 😡
Instance number two, Mitt Romney is trying to buy the black vote in SC, I guess:
SUMTER, S.C. — Amid shaking hands and signing campaign posters, Mitt Romney did something he has never done before on the ropeline: He took out his wallet and handed a wad of cash to a woman waiting to shake his hand.
The woman, 55-year-old Ruth Williams, says she has been following the Romney campaign since he arrived in the state on Jan. 11, when she said she received a message from God to track him down.
“I was on the highway praying and said, ‘God just show me how to get [my] lights on,’ and I pulled up to a stop sign and his bus was there,” said Williams, who has been unemployed since last October. “And then God said, ‘Follow the bus,’ and I followed the bus to the airport.”
According to Williams, she followed the campaign bus to the Columbia airport on Wednesday, the same day Romney was arriving from New Hampshire. When Romney wasn’t on the bus, aides told her to go to the rally scheduled in Columbia later that day. When she showed up, Romney found her to say hello and pulled over South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to say “hello” too.
“He was kind to me and he made Gov. Haley come see about me,” Williams said. “He stopped doing everything.”
I have a shiny twenty-dollar bill that says that the only thing this woman was thinking is, “I found me a stupid honky that will give me money!” Nice going Mittens. Try to buy the black vote; modern-day slavery, all that is. I figure Mittens does not own a plantation for her to work on and that stuff is illegal now, so he figures he will just buy her vote. 🙄 Smart, real smart Mittens.
In short: We….are….so…..screwed. 🙁
What’s next? Perry allows some black man to wash his car? 🙄
Others: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, The Strata-Sphere, Outside the Beltway, Mediaite, Taylor Marsh, Washington Post, The Lonely Conservative, The Hinterland Gazette and CNN — CNN, The Politico and The Hinterland Gazette
Cross-Posted to Alexandria
Man, Israel must not be feeling the whole idea of, “we need to be careful, we do not have a friend in the White House,” at all.
The Story via the WSJ:
WASHINGTON—U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning to safeguard U.S. facilities in the region in case of a conflict.
Iranians on Friday carried the flag-draped coffin of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a scientist working in Iran’s nuclear sector assassinated in Tehran.
President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike. The U.S. wants Israel to give more time for the effects of sanctions and other measures intended to force Iran to abandon its perceived efforts to build nuclear weapons.
Stepping up the pressure, Mr. Obama spoke by telephone on Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will meet with Israeli military officials in Tel Aviv next week.
The high-stakes planning and diplomacy comes as U.S. officials warn Tehran, including through what administration officials described Friday as direct messages to Iran’s leaders, against provocative actions.
Again, I am sure some will disagree; but this just does not strike me as being overly smart. At least, not right now. I would be able to understand, if there was a Republican in the White House; but there is not, and Democrats abandoned Israel years ago. Choose wisely Israel — choose very wisely.
This is not a good way to work with the United States:
Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran, Foreign Policy revealed on Friday, quoting U.S. intelligence memos.
Foreign Policy’s Mark Perry reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government, and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.
Perry quotes a number of American intelligence officials and claims that the Mossad agents used American dollars and U.S. passports to pose as CIA spies to try to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization that has carried out a series of attacks in Iran and assassinations of government officials.
According to the report, Israel’s recruitment attempts took place mostly in London, right under the nose of U.S. intelligence officials.
“It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. “Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.” — Via ‘Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA spies to recruit terrorists to fight against Iran’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
Not a smart way to do things if you ask me. I support Israel and the Country’s right to exist. However, doing this sort of thing, does nothing to garner support among those who might not be rabid supporters of the Country; you know, like our current President? I can well understand why Bush would be quite upset about something like this. I can almost assure you, that if this story had broken during the tenure of President George W. Bush; the outcry of the liberal media against Israel would have deafened me. Furthermore, the anti-Israel rats here in America would have crawled out of the woodwork and saying that we needed to sever ties with Israel or worse.
Again, as it does say in my sidebars, I am supporter of Israel; as Christian I understand the biblical significance of this wonderful Country. However, I am also mindful of those, who would want to see this Country removed from the face of the earth. These actions do nothing more than hand the anti-Israel crowd ammunition in their warped quest to see God’s chosen people destroyed and that land given to those who do not have rightful ownership of it. Israel should know this, but not everyone is given a measure of common sense.
The fallout from the housing market bust here in America continues:
The Story:
Standard & Poor’s will cut the credit ratings of Italy, Spain and Portugal by two notches and downgrade France and Austria by one notch, a French newspaper said Friday, without citing its sources.
The newspaper, Les Echos, said that S&P would spare Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg in its long-awaited adjustment of euro zone sovereign ratings.
It said the announcement would come at around 4:30 pm ET, after the US stock market has closed.
“Remain alert tonight when U.S. markets close,” one euro zone source told Reuters.
US stocks slumped in reaction, though were well off their lows, while European shares closed lower.
In December, S&P placed the ratings of 15 euro zone countries on credit watch negative— including those of top-rated Germany and France, the region’s two biggest economies—and said “systemic stresses” were building up as credit conditions tighten in the 17-nation bloc.
Since then, the European Central Bank has flooded the banking system with cheap three-year money to avert a credit crunch. At the time, the U.S.-based ratings agency said it could also downgrade the euro zone’s current bailout fund, the EFSF.
Five European Nations to Be Downgraded by S&P: Report – Business News – CNBC.
This is what happens when progressives game a system and it comes all crashing down around them. Now you would think that they would learn from this little idiotic mistake; well, you would be wrong. They honestly believe the way to recover from this, is by spending their way out of a recession. Idiots, all of them. 🙄
Related:
Speaking of the federal reserve bank’s stupidity….
You would not believe what they are thinking of doing again: (H/T HotAir.com)
Federal Reserve officials are seriously considering giving the US economy—and especially the housing market—an added jolt with more quantitative easing.
Fed officials are likely to discuss such a move at their Jan. 24-25 meeting, when the central bank will issue its first quarterly forecast on interest rates under the new communication policy.
Two of the new voting members this year on the Federal Open Market Committee , which sets interest-rate policy, have recently suggested they would support more assets purchases.
San Francisco Fed President John Williams said that sustained high levels of unemployment, as forecast by many Fed members, “does make an argument that we should have more stimulus.”
Another new voter, Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto, said in a recent speech that economic models indicate the Fed “should be even more accommodative than it is today.”
They join other members, including New York Fed President Bill Dudley and several Fed governors, who have openly suggested they would support more QE .
As part of an normal rotation of presidents, the makeup of the FOMC will become more dovish this year.
Three hawkish members are losing their FOMC vote—Richard Fisher of Dallas, Narayana Kocherlakota of Minneapolis and Charles Plosser of Philadelphia—along with only one dovish member, Charles Evans of Chicago.
They will be replaced by two more dovish members—Williams and Pianalto—and Dennis Lockhart of Atlanta, who is moderate but is seen as unlikely to dissent.
But a more dovish makeup is just one reason that more QE could become a reality this year.
Fed officials harbor doubts about the strength of the economic recovery and note there is considerable slack. And they expect inflation to remain moderate this year.
It is also significant that financial markets expects the Fed to act.
The newly released primary dealer survey from the Fed shows that top Wall Street fixed income dealers put a 60% probability on the Fed boosting the size of its balance sheet within a year.
Much will depend on the economic data during the first quarter. One concern inside the Fed is that much of the recent economic strength results from one-time factors, such as rebuilding inventories.
Taking out inventories, underlying GDP still looks weak to some Fed officials. Meanwhile, income growth has also been lagging, suggesting any spending gains from the holiday season likely came from savings. Fed officials generally see this as unsustainable.
The most likely course for the Fed is to gauge what kind of effect its latest innovation—publishing the expected interest rate path from its members—will have on bond yields.
There is hope that if the path shows that Fed officials put the date of the first rate increase further down the road than the market expects, that could edge down long-term rates.
But the minutes of the December meeting also showed that for “a number” of officials, this new communications strategy is not a replacement for more easing, but rather, a precondition.
Already some Wall Street banks are building QE3 into their forecasts. Morgan Stanley fixed income economist David Greenlaw said he expects more easing to be announced this spring.
I believe that it would be a accurate statement that the psychos are running the nut house. I wrote that once, it is still true. I should also point out, that doing this to our money supply does nothing to stimulate economic growth at all. If anything, it causes inflation of the money supply, which drives the cost of everything up, which kills jobs growth; because if you are a business and you are having to pay more for everything, you are going to be less likely to hire people to work for you. But with Liberals, it is like talking to a tree; this is normal for them.
This is why the federal reserve needs to be reigned in or better yet, ended:
The leaders of the Federal Reserve went around the room saluting Alan Greenspan during his last day as chairman of the central bank. Then Timothy F. Geithner, the future Treasury secretary, made a prediction.
“I’d like the record to show that I think you’re pretty terrific, too,” Geithner, who was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told Greenspan amid laughter on Jan. 31, 2006. “And thinking in terms of probabilities, I think the risk that we decide in the future that you’re even better than we think is higher than the alternative.”
On Thursday, the Fed released transcripts of its meetings in 2006, offering a new window into what was on the minds of some of the nation’s top economic and financial thinkers just ahead of the financial crisis and subsequent great recession. The transcripts, which are customarily released after five years, show that Fed leaders, armed with the best economic data available, had little idea of what was looming less than two years off.
Trusted to look toward the future and make decisions to keep the economy strong, they spent some of their time patting their leader on the back and even found time to joke about what turned out to be early-warning signs in the markets. While Fed officials — including several who are in key positions today — were aware that the nation’s rapid increase in housing prices was coming to an end, they significantly underestimated how much damage the popping of the real estate bubble would cause in the rest of the economy.
In his first meeting as Fed chairman, in March 2006, Ben S. Bernanke noted the slowdown in the housing market. But he said he shared the view that “strong fundamentals support a relatively soft landing in housing,” adding: “I think we are unlikely to see growth being derailed by the housing market.”
The year began with adulation all around for Greenspan. In that January meeting, Roger Ferguson, then Fed vice chairman and now head of the TIAA-CREF financial services group, called Greenspan a “monetary policy Yoda. — Greenspan image tarnished by newly released documents – The Washington Post
So far there is only one person even talking about the Federal Reserve and his foreign policy is horrible. So, nothing will change. In other words, business as usual. So much for that Tea Party eh?
(via HotAir Headlines)
So, what does President want? More of your money of course!
The story via WSJ:
The Treasury Department has begun maneuvers to avoid hitting the debt ceiling, as the Obama administration waits for Congress to return from the holiday break before it can raise the federal borrowing limit.
The U.S. government was just a hair below the $15.194 trillion debt ceiling on Tuesday, $25 million shy of the limit Congress set last summer. President Barack Obama sent a letter to congressional leaders Thursday, saying the U.S. debt was within $100 million of the ceiling “and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments.”
…and of course:
President Obama formally notified Congress on Thursday of his intent to raise the nation’s debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion, two weeks after he had postponed the request to give lawmakers more time to consider the action.
Congress will have had 15 days to say no before the nation’s debt ceiling automatically is raised from $15.2 trillion to $16.4 trillion.
In a letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), Obama wrote that ”further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments.”
Obama had sought to make the request at the end of last month, when the Treasury came within $100 billion of its borrowing limit. However, with Congress on recess, lawmakers from both parties asked the president to hold off. The House is out of session until Jan. 17, and the Senate until Jan. 23.
Since then Treasury officials have used special revenue and accounting measures to maintain the nation’s solvency. Yet the White House cast the delay as a technicality, saying there is no chance the limit will not be increased, even if Republican lawmakers attempt to object.
16.4 trillion dollars?!?! 😯 That is 16.4 trillion of money from China and/or your money through taxes. Either that or it would have to come from slapping tariffs on imports; and we know an internationalist Democrat like Barack Obama would never do that.
So, to be brief; we’re screwed….badly.