Obama’s 1st Term: Real Median Income Down $2,627; People in Poverty Up 6,667,000

Census on Obama’s 1st Term: Real Median Income Down $2,627; People in Poverty Up 6,667,000; Record 46,496,000 Now Poor 

From CNS News   By Terrence P. Jeffery

(CNSNews.com) - 
During the four years that marked President Barack Obama’s first term in office, the real median income of American households dropped by $2,627 and the number of people in poverty increased by approximately 6,667,000, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.

The record total of approximately 46,496,000 people in the United States who are now in poverty, according to the Census Bureau, is more than twice the population of Syria, which, according to the CIA, has 22,457,336 people.

In 2008, the year Obama was elected, real median household income in the United States was $53,644 according to the Census Bureau. 
In 2012, the last full year of Obama’s first term, median household income was $51,017. Thus, real median household income dropped $2,627—or 4.89 percent—from 2008 to 2012.

In fact, real median household income dropped in every year of Obama's first term. 
In 2008, when he was elected, it was $53,644. In 2009, the year he was inaugurated, it dropped to 53,285.  In 2010, his second year in office, it dropped to $51,892. In 2011, his third year in office, it dropped to $51,100. And, in 2012, his fourth year in office, it dropped to $51,017.

At the same time the number of people living in poverty in the United States increased. In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, there were approximately 39,829,000 people living in poverty in this country. In 2012, there were 46,496,000.  That is an increase of approximately 6,667,000—of 16.73 percent—from 2008 to 2012.

The number of people in poverty increased during three of the four years of Obama's first term--taking a slight dip from 2010 to 2011, but then rising again from 2011 to 2012. 
In 2008, there were 39,829 people in poverty in the U.S. In 2009, it climbed to 43,569. In 2010, it climbed again to 46,343.  In 2011, it dipped to 46,247. And, in 2012, it climbed to an all-time high 46,496.

In 2008, the year Obama was elected, people in poverty represented 13.2 percent of the national population.  In 2012, they represented 15.0 percent of the population.
The income threshold at which a person was determined to be in “poverty,” according to the Census Bureau, depended on the size of their household. 

If a person lived by themselves and earned less than $11,270 in 2012, they were considered to be in poverty.  A family of two people was considered in poverty if they earned less than $14,937.  The threshold for a family of three was $18,284, for a family of four it was $23,492, and for a family of five it was $27,827.

The data reported here on real median household income and the number of people in poverty come from the Census Bureau’s report “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2012,” which was released today.
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Feel better now...?

(CNSNews.com) - During the four years that marked President Barack Obama’s first term in office, the real median income of American households dropped by $2,627 and the number of people in poverty increased by approximately 6,667,000, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.
The record total of approximately 46,496,000 people in the United States who are now in poverty, according to the Census Bureau, is more than twice the population of Syria, which, according to the CIA, has 22,457,336 people.
- See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-obama-s-1st-term-real-median-income-down-2627-people-poverty#sthash.hS3zGvpP.dpuf

Best Speech of 2012? Maybe So... Listen...

"Leadership"? ... What Leadership...?

Five Leadership Lessons on Syria and Military Power for Commander-in-Chief Obama  

By James Jay Carafano

President Obama's Saturday speech on Syria (where he decided not to decide) offers at least five fine examples of how not to employ military power.

Consulting with Congress is, of course, exactly the right step to take before committing both U.S. armed forces and the American people to ventures overseas. But, how the president got to this point is a lesson in lousy leadership.

Lesson #1.  Surprise is Still a Principle of War. 

If the president's priority was really to punish Assad with shock and awe, he went about it all wrong.  

The regime has had plenty of time to get ready--disperse assets; marshal its allies; deploy human shields; and decide how it will respond or preempt US action.

Lesson #2.  Red Lines Only Work When They Are Red. 

The whole idea of a red line is prevent bad behavior by declaring if the line is crossed there will be swift and decisive action. 

If President Obama was really serious about holding Assad accountable he should have consulted Congress before he issued a red line--not after. 

In all likelihood he didn't because there was a good chance they would have said--no--and well they might. 

Intervening in civil wars;  getting conclusive evidence about what is going on  the ground;  

and defining clear, achievable, realistic military objectives for punitive strikes is really hard- -

And the White House had no good answers for addressing any of these issues.

What happens to Obama's next red line, if Congress rejects this one?

Or will Congress have to rubber stamp a stupid red line to preserve the president's credibility?  Wouldn't that just encourage Obama to make more reckless red lines in the future?

Did the White House think about any of these questions before it stated making declarations?

Lesson #3.  A Shot Across the Bow Only Works if the Enemy Thinks You Are Serious About Sinking Their Ship. 

President Obama has already declared he won't intervene in the civil war, so any strikes will be little more than a nuisance to a regime that plans to fight to the bitter end.

Lesson #4.  Victory Has a Thousand Fathers, Defeat is an Orphan. 

President George W. Bush had a Congressional authorization for a use of force in Iraq, a UN resolution, popular support for military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and support of a broad international coalition. 

That mattered little when the wars did not go well. 

All the legitimacy in the world will mean nothing- -

- if military action does not turn out well. 

The president doesn't have a solid game plane for Syria, a resolution from Congress is not a "get out of jail free card."

Lesson #5.  Think Before You Act. 

In terms of salvaging the president's shattered credibility as a foreign policy leader turning to Congress won't help. 

A wise president would have built a coalition of support before the crisis--not waited for the crisis--then tried to build a coalition. 

And, failing that, then make it seem like military action is all up to Congress--and the president is just a bystander.

From Obama's perspective, turning to Congress now may seem like a brilliant move.  

- If Congress votes no, he has shown he has empathy with the international community--and he is still a good guy. 

- If Congress votes yes--and it all turns out badly--he will say we are all in this together.

But from the standpoint of acting like the world's leader this may be the nadir of American power.

The reality is that every decision on how to employ the armed forces has turned out badly for Obama.

He ran away from Iraq--the violence there is worse now than when he came into office.

He wants to go to "zero" in Afghanistan. The Taliban can't wait for that. 

He led from behind in Libya and that failure became a front page story after Benghazi.  

Moscow mocks him.

Beijing ignores him.

All these acts as president show Obama has not learned his lessons very well.  The Saturday speech just makes his shortfalls as commander-in-chief even more glaringly apparent.

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My Opinion...?

Obama has ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE in foreign diplomacy.

Obama has ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE in dealing with a crisis of ANY kind

Obama IS NOT QUALIFIED to be The President of The United States

Additionally, 'Our President' played golf after his Saturday speech on Syria...

The closest he has ever come to ANY interaction with The Military was when he rummaged through a Military Graveyard looking for a lost ball...

Our President IS A JOKE! 

The entire world is laughing at The United States of America because of this clown...

Are You Ready For Another War?

This video is Insane!

LUCIFER now resides in our White House. 

A free man must not be told how to think, either by the government or by social activists. 

He may certainly be shown the right way, but he must not accept being forced into it. 

Remember, the fate of our world is in GOD’s hands. 

Just buy water and ammo ‘till he gets here.

RACE or HATE Had Nothing to Do With This Crime...

WW II Vet, beaten by teens outside Eagles Lodge, dies..

CBS Seattle/AP

SPOKANE, Wash. -
Police in Spokane, Wash., say they have arrested one of two teens suspected of fatally beating an 88-year-old veteran of World War II who had survived the Battle of Okinawa.

Authorities say the two young African American men, between 16 and 19 years old, approached Delbert Belton in his car at random Wednesday night outside an Eagles Lodge as he was waiting for a friend.


  


Belton was found by police with serious head injuries and died in the hospital Thursday.

Belton’s daughter-in-law tells KREM-TV that the suspects beat him with flashlights.
“They used those great big heavy flashlights,” Bobbie Belton said. “The doctors said he was bleeding from all parts of his face.”

Spokane Police say they have surveillance images of the attackers — at least one of them has been taken into police custody.

The Spokesman-Review reports Belton was born and raised in Spokane before he joined the Army.  Friends say he was shot in the leg during the Battle of Okinawa, where thousands of American soldiers died.

“He was an Army veteran,” Glenn Longsdorff, Belton’s roommate of four years, told KREM.  “In fact, he was shot when he was 18-years-old on the beaches of Okinawa. He’ll do anything in the world for anybody.”

After the war, he spent 33 years working for Kaiser Aluminum, before retiring in 1982
Belton’s sister, Alberta Tosh, told the newspaper her brother “went through hell” during his years in the Army.  Though she was too little to remember her brother going to war, she does remember how reluctant he was to talk about the bloody Okinawa battle in 1945.
“I know he came home shell-shocked pretty bad,” she said.

Belton lived a full and busy life, Tosh said.  He loved to dance, repair old cars and was always surrounded by close friends and loved ones.

“He was a good guy who would help anybody if they needed help,” she said.

A friend, Ted Denison, said he was planning to go to the Eagles Lodge when he heard Belton had died.  “He put his life on the line for our country to come home and 60 years later?  Get beat to death?” Denison said. “That’s not right.”

Denison, a veteran himself, said he used to tease Belton about his membership in the Eagles Lodge, saying that place was for “old fogies.” He didn’t make it to the lodge in time.

“I don’t care who you are, you don’t beat up an old man,” Denison said. “You’re supposed to respect your elders, not beat them to death.”

Another close friend, Lill Duncan, said she can’t imagine what drove anyone to kill him.  “He lived his life every day to make somebody else happy. It wasn’t all about him. It was about what he could do for everybody else.”
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No... not a hate crime at all... just a couple of kids who have 'lost their humanity' to quote a famous TV Psychologist fella...
And where are the Reverend Jackson and Al Sharpton complaining about police brutality...?

'OPEN CARRY' March This Sat. Aug. 24 in Ft. Smith

Arkansas gun rights group plans 'Open Carry' march to highlight new law
August 23, 2013 Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas –  

A dozen gun rights supporters plan to march in a western Arkansas city this weekend with their firearms on display to highlight a law that they argue allows the open carry of handguns, despite an attorney general's opinion saying otherwise.

Arkansas Carry, a gun rights group, on Saturday plans to hold an invitation-only "open carry" march in Fort Smith to highlight the disputed law, which took effect Aug. 16. 

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel last month said the new law makes technical corrections regarding the possession of a handgun but didn't remove the restrictions on carrying weapons openly.

Arkansas law currently states that being on a journey is a defense to prosecution for illegally carrying a weapon, but doesn't define what constitutes a journey. The new law defines a journey as traveling "beyond the county in which the person lives."

The head of Arkansas Carry, which has about 200 members in the state, says the advisory opinion by McDaniel is wrong.

"Basically we're going to do the walk because it's legal and we're trying to show that act 746 does authorize open carry contrary to what the attorney general said," Steve Jones, the group's chairman, said Thursday.

Jones said the group coordinated the event with police and prosecutors, though city officials say they're staying out of the debate over McDaniel's opinion. 
In an email to officers, Fort Smith Police Chief Kevin Lindsey wrote that the city prosecutor advised him there wouldn't be a violation of the law unless "an officer could prove that there was an unlawful attempt to employ a handgun, knife, or club as a weapon against a person."

Jones said the group is looking at holding similar marches in other cities to highlight the law.
____________________________________

Nice goin' fellas!  All the best!

The Great Carol Burnett Skit That NEVER Made it to Air...

Carol Burnett Show outtakes...
- Mr. Tudball needs a secretary...

Mr. Tudball (Tim Conway) is looking for a secretary, but his wife (Vicki Lawrence) doesn't like any candidates until Wanda Wiggins (Carol Burnett) shows up. 

This is the raw recording of the sketch, filled with bloopers and wild lines from the cast....

Enjoy!

US Leak On al-Qaida Threat Could Aid Our Enemy

John Bolton: US Leak on al-Qaida Threat Could Aid Enemy
From NEWSMAX
Tuesday, 06 Aug 2013 05:52 PM
By Jim Meyers and John Bachman

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton tells Newsmax the Obama administration's leaking of information about the new al-Qaida threat is "very dangerous" and could aid the enemy.

Bolton also says Obama still fails to recognize that we are "at war" with terrorism.   
And he asserts that the new Iranian president's promise to be less antagonistic to the West is merely a "charm offensive" designed to buy Iran more time to develop nuclear weapons.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV on Tuesday, Bolton discusses the terrorism threat — reportedly revealed in a telephone call from al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri — that compelled the United States to close many of its embassies.

"I was very surprised when I heard reference to and leaks from the Obama administration about this specific telephone call because it would be very unusual for Zawahiri to break communication security and be caught this way," he says.

"But if in fact it did happen, obviously it's not helpful to the United States to leak about it so that now if Zawahiri had any doubts, he knows that we have heard what he said.

"In general, this is another case of the administration leaking information which it thinks helps ... but which in fact is very dangerous.   
If that is an accurate description of what we heard, though, it's ironically a repudiation of the Obama administration's whole story line on al-Qaida being on the road to defeat, al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan being a tiny sliver of what it used to be and really not responsible for operations worldwide, because that intercept proves exactly the opposite."

Asked if it were possible that at least part of al-Qaida's objective may have been realized - to demonstrate that it has the ability to shut down American embassies just by online and phone chatter - 
Bolton responds: "You can always speculate about whether this was real or not.
__________________________

That goofy Obama and his own remarkable inability to read world events coupled with his lack of leadership has caused this... 
Along with Bill's wife being so naive and stupid!!!
Their combined efforts, or lack thereof, have made America look WEAK!  
And the rest of the world is watching...  SO AM I...!!!

Closures Make US Look 'Like a Bunch of Cowards'!

Embassy Closures Make US Look 'Like a Bunch of Cowards'!
From NEWSMAX - By Audrey Hudson

President Barack Obama made the U.S. look "like a bunch of cowards" when he shuttered 19 embassies in response to threats of a possible terrorist attack, Rep. Louie Gohmert said Monday.

The remarks came as the Texas Republican was guest hosting for Sean Hannity's radio program discussing the current threat as well as last year's deadly attack in Benghazi.

"We don't want any more people to die," Gohmert said, according to The Hill newspaper.

"But it brings us back to the question that [then-Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton asked, what difference does it make at this point?" Gohmert asked.

"The difference it makes is, that if you will bother to find out exactly what went wrong, why you didn't have security where you needed it, where you need security to shore up, what you can do to make sure that doesn't happen again, you don't have to close your embassies like a bunch of cowards that go running away," Gohmert said.

Gohmert said the U.S. should have held it's ground and warned that Obama's actions might actually invite an attack, as he recalled former President Bill Clinton's failure to take action after U.S. embassy bombings during his term.

"We didn't learn it then, by golly, we better learn it now or we're going to get hit again and we're going to look weak," Gohmert said.

The United States Is Neither Respected... Nor Feared...

Obama Is Out Of Touch With What It Takes To Be A Leader

Obama 'Out of Touch With What It Takes to Be a Leader'
From NEWSMAX
By Todd Beamon and Kathleen Walter
"There's one thing the president has done pretty well, and that's having the American people judge him not by the things he does, but by the things he says," Priebus tells Newsmax. "He's good at talking and we know that.
He thinks governing is campaigning and community organizing."

"Once you get elected, then it's time to lead this country," he adds. "And it's not easy, but you do have to sit down with the Speaker and you have to sit down with the leader in the Senate — and sometimes you have to bang some heads together. This president is incapable of doing it."

Palin: Obama 'stalling and stirring chaos' with phony claim...

'Second Term Scandals - Phony?': 
Armed with 'redneck clipboard,' former governor Sarah Palin gives theory behind president and White House's claims that they have been distracted by 'phony scandals'
From Gretta...

The Lincoln Memorial Is Vandalized!

Lincoln Memorial is shut down after vandals splash paint on it!!!
From The Washington Post
By Maggie Fazeli Fard and Michael E. Ruane
The Lincoln Memorial was shut down Friday morning after vandals splashed light green paint on the statue of the nation’s 16th president and the marble floor around it, U.S. Park Police said.

No words or symbols were painted or written on the memorial, police said. No damage was reported at the Mall’s other memorials and monuments.

Police are reviewing surveillance footage from the popular tourist attraction on the west end of the Mall, but so far no information has been released about who may have been responsible for the vandalism or what may have motivated it.

Carol Bradley Johnson, a spokeswoman for the National Mall and Memorial Parks division of the National Park Service, called the incident “heartbreaking.”

Authorities believe the memorial was defaced about 1:30 a.m. Paint was splattered onto the left leg and base of the 19-foot-high statue of Lincoln, who is depicted sitting in a throne-like chair, gazing toward the Washington Monument and, further east, the Capitol.

A crew removed the paint from the memorial floor using a pressure-washer, the National Park Service said at a news conference, and there did not appear to be any permanent damage.

Workers used ladders to reach paint that was higher up on the statue and scrub it off. The park service reopened the portico steps at 10:13 a.m., and said the chamber would reopen once all the paint was removed. 

The neo-classical memorial to the president who emancipated the slaves was designed by Henry Bacon and modeled after an ancient Greek temple. Inscribed on the walls around the statue are Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address and second inaugural address.

The memorial is surrounded by 36 fluted Doric columns, representing the 36 states at the time of Lincoln’s assassination. 

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Must have been Conservative White Youths with nothing better to do...  That's been the history of monument defacing, right? 
Young Whites carrying buckets of paint around at night and splashing it on our most revered monuments...
Yeah, young Conservatives did this...
Yeah... Right...
 

The Justice Department Want's To Try George For Hate Crimes

Attorney General Eric Holder, in his first post-verdict comments, confirmed Monday during a speech in Washington, D.C., that his department continues to investigate while signaling concern for the position of the Martin family and those -- such as the NAACP -- pressuring the DOJ. He said the department is "mindful of the pain felt by our nation" over the "tragic, unnecessary shooting death" of Martin. LINK

Which Trayvon do you want living next to you?
The 12 year old the TV news has been showing you...?

Or the 17 year old that dealt drugs and was a known thief...?

You decide...                            

Red, Divided and Blue Fly This Independence Day

I think this guy has nailed it...!
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Red, Divided and Blue Fly... This Independence Day
By Ronald Brownstein - From The National Journal
It seems entirely revealing, if dispiriting, that the days before the July Fourth holiday showed Red America and Blue America pulling apart at an accelerating rate.

Of all of our national holidays, Independence Day is the one most intimately rooted in our common history and shared experience.
Yet this year it arrives against a background of polarization, separation, and confrontation in the states and Washington alike.  With municipal politics as the occasional exception, the pattern of solidifying agreement within the parties—and widening disagreement between them—is dominating our decisions at every level.

On almost all of our major policy choices, the common thread is that the election of 2012 did not "break the fever" of polarization, as President Obama once hoped it might.   Last November, Obama became only the third Democrat in the party's history to win a majority of the popular vote twice.  
But congressional Republicans, preponderantly representing the minority that voted against Obama, have conceded almost nothing to his majority—leaving the two sides at a stalemate.   Meanwhile, beyond the Beltway, states that lean Democratic and those that lean Republican are separating at a frenetic pace.

Consider a few recent headlines.
The Supreme Court decision upholding the lower-court invalidation of California's Proposition 8 restored gay marriage in the nation's largest state.   It also capped a remarkable 2013 march for gay marriage through blue states, including Delaware, Minnesota, and Rhode Island (with Illinois and New Jersey possibly joining before long).

The consensus is solidifying fast enough that 2014 could see several blue-state Republican gubernatorial candidates running on accepting gay-marriage statutes as settled law. Former California Lt. Gov Abel Maldonado, a likely 2014 GOP gubernatorial contender who this week reversed his earlier opposition to support gay marriage, may be an early straw in that breeze.

The story in red states, though, remains very different.
Almost all of them have banned gay marriage.   Some activists believe Justice Anthony Kennedy's embrace of equal-protection arguments in the decision striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act might enable litigation challenging those bans; but if not, it may take a very long time for the support for gay marriage among younger voters to dissolve the resistance to the idea in culturally conservative states.

Absent further Supreme Court action, the nation could remain a "house divided" on gay marriage for longer than many may expect: The high court's ruling striking down the remaining 16 state laws banning interracial marriage came in 1967—nearly two centuries after the first state had revoked its ban (Pennsylvania in 1780).

Meanwhile, as gay marriage advances in blue states, red states are competing to impose the tightest restrictions on abortion since the Supreme Court established the national right to it in Roe v. Wade.

In Ohio this week, Republican Gov. John Kasich signed legislation requiring ultrasound exams before abortions, effectively cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood and making it more difficult for abortion providers to transfer patients to public hospitals. In Texas, after the dramatic filibuster by Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis temporarily disrupted his plans, Republican Gov. Rick Perry this week opened another legislative special session that is likely to ban abortion at 20 weeks and impose stringent new safety requirements that would shutter most of the state's abortion providers.

All of this follows a cascade of legislation restricting abortion in Republican-run states from Arkansas and Louisiana to Kansas and North Dakota—most of which are already facing legal challenges.

In Washington, there's little sign of convergence.
Hopes for a budget "grand bargain" are flickering.   In the Senate, the two parties have worked together to pass a farm bill, and more dramatically a sweeping immigration overhaul that won support from all 54 Democrats and 14 Republicans.  

But House Republicans, who recently collapsed into chaos when they couldn't pass a farm bill, are pledging to block any reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants—an indispensable component of legislation as far as Democrats are concerned.   On big issues, the Supreme Court looks just as chronically divided, and the split often comes down to Republican- and Democratic-appointed justices.

All of this reveals a political system losing its capacity to create common ground between party coalitions divided along economic, racial, generational, and even religious lines. Some variation in state policy is healthy, but states are now diverging to an extent that threatens to undermine equal protection under the law.  
The stalemate in Congress reflects genuine differences, but the reluctance to compromise—most intractable among House Republicans—prevents us from confronting common challenges.

In all these ways, our contemporary politics is ignoring the simple truth that none of us are going away—not the cosmopolitan coasts, nor the evangelical South.   Our choices ultimately come down to bridging our differences or surrendering to endemic separation in the states and stalemate in Washington.

This week we celebrate the moment when the authors of the Declaration of Independence concluded they had no choice but "to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another." It's an excellent opportunity to consider how ominously our own "political bands" are fraying.