Associated Press Gets It Right

If you have been like me, yelling at the television whenever Obama, or Harry Reid or some other Democratic stooge say's something to the effect that the Republicans are holding up the jobs bill and are killing any possible economic progress that Obama has plans for, then you'll appreciate one of the mainstream media articles exposing Obama's spin of the facts.

It has been a long time coming for the love affair between the liberal mainstream media and Obama to mellow. It had to sooner or later or the mainstream media, both television and print, will lose whatever respect and credibility that they have left from the public. They already have lost significant respect and viewers as evident by viewer ratings for CNN, MSNBC and others.......nonetheless still glad to see there is some good sense still in print.

The AP article, entitled: "SPIN METER: Obama disconnects rhetoric, reality"

WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Barack Obama's sales pitch for his jobs bill, there are two versions of reality: The one in his speeches and the one actually unfolding in Washington.

When Obama accuses Republicans of standing in the way of his nearly $450 billion plan, he ignores the fact that his own party has struggled to unite behind the proposal.

When the president says Republicans haven't explained what they oppose in the plan, he skips over the fact that Republicans who control the House actually have done that in detail.

And when he calls on Congress to "pass this bill now," he slides past the point that Democrats control the Senate and were never prepared to move immediately, given other priorities. Senators are expected to vote Tuesday on opening debate on the bill, a month after the president unveiled it with a call for its immediate passage.

To be sure, Obama is not the only one engaging in rhetorical excesses. But he is the president, and as such, his constant remarks on the bill draw the most attention and scrutiny.

The disconnect between what Obama says about his jobs bill and what stands as the political reality flow from his broader aim: to rally the public behind his cause and get Congress to act, or, if not, to pin blame on Republicans.

He is waging a campaign, one in which nuance and context and competing responses don't always fit in if they don't help make the case.

For example, when Obama says his jobs plan is made up of ideas that have historically had bipartisan support, he stops the point there. Not mentioned is that Republicans have never embraced the tax increases that he is proposing to cover the cost of his plan.

Likewise, from city to city, Obama is demanding that Congress act (he means Republicans) while it has been clear for weeks that the GOP will not support all of his bill, to say the least. Individual elements of it may well pass, such as Obama's proposal to extend and expand a payroll tax cut. But Republicans strongly oppose the president's proposed new spending and his plan to raise taxes on millionaires to pay for the package.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tried to force a vote on the bill last week, innocently claiming that the president was entitled to a vote. McConnell knew full well that the result would be failure for the legislation and an embarrassment for Obama. Cowboy's comment:Harry Reid would not let the vote happen, which of course is a fact lost from any public commentary or Obama speech.

Anyway, I think you get the idea,......click here to read the full article.

Needed: Food Stamps Reform

I was in a convenience store the other day and a young very overweight, even obese mother with her approximate 6 year old very overweight daughter was in front of me, buying big Fountain soft drinks, bags of chips and hot dogs, paying for them, of course, with food stamps.

I know, I know it's seemingly really none of my business, but if this woman has a right to buy whatever she wants with tax payer funded food stamps, then I have a right to get mad about it, both from the aspect of what she is buying and the point that this woman and her daughter are going to be burdens on the healthcare system (not to mention the welfare system). The damn shame of it is that the daughter
doesn't know any better and relys on her mom to take care of her. Well, like I have been told "you don't have to pass a test to be a parent."

Another thing to get mad about is a grocery recepit found in a parking lot in Michigan,....all bought on tax payer funded food stamps mind you.

In case it's hard to read the receipt lists: Five 24 can packs of (sugar laden) Mountain Dew, a bunch of Lobster and Porterhouse Steaks,....

You tell me with a straight face that we don't need food stamp reform. Drug testing for receiptants, for sure. Credit card type Food Stamp Photo Identification cards with a spending limit and has to be re-charged at a HHS office so the benefits cannot be sold or bartered for alcohol or drugs,...damn right. Let's include income means testing and visits by HHS investigators as well.

Housing Crunch Explained

Does anyone really understand the the housing crunch and how Democrats (can anyone say Barney Frank and Chris Dodd?) worked to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to give mortgages to people who could not pay them back? People are scratching their heads and thinking "just how does that create a problem other than for the people who now have to be evicted because of their inability to pay?" Well, maybe this story will help.......

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINK BONDS.

These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINK BOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the
presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!