President Obama Issuing Directives Aimed at Increasing Domestic U.S. Oil Production

By Nicholas Johnston
Bloomberg

Click photo for larger view)

President Barack Obama said he is directing his administration to take steps to encourage domestic oil production because of the high price of gasoline’s effect on consumers.

“Without a doubt, one of the biggest burdens over the last few months has been the price of gasoline,” Obama said in his weekly address on the radio and Internet. “And while there are no quick fixes to the problem, there are a few steps we should take that make good sense.”

Obama said the government will begin conducting annual lease sales for oil drilling in Alaska, make faster evaluations of oil and gas resources in the Atlantic Ocean, and create new incentives to encourage oil companies to develop unused leases.

The Obama administration is also delaying the implementation of new safety procedures to give oil companies more time to comply with stricter standards implemented after last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We should increase safe and responsible oil production here at home,” Obama said. (more)

Should America Raise Its Debt Ceiling?

Posted on May 12, 2011 in: Destroying Debt|

THE DEBT CEILING

Many Americans don’t want it to be raised.
Could our economy hold up if it isn’t?

Congress must think (and act) fast
In the middle of May, the national debt limit of $14.3 trillion will be reached. This means the federal government must increase the debt ceiling sufficiently to cover U.S. obligations through the end of 2012. It will undoubtedly happen, but not before a loud round of partisan politics is finished.

What does the public think?
In April, a CBS News poll showed that 63% of Americans opposed raising the debt ceiling. Polls often ask simple yes-or-no questions, and the respondents may not have understood the consequences here. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, America will end up defaulting.

What would default mean?
Picture something like the Wall Street downturn of 2008-2009 happening again … but in a broader context.
As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explained succinctly in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), a default would mean that “the Treasury would be prevented by law from borrowing in order to pay obligations the Nation is legally required to pay, an event that has no precedent in American history.” A default would limit, halt or impact Social Security and unemployment benefits, veterans’ benefits, federal worker salaries and payments to members of the armed forces.


These aren’t the only calamities that would happen. America sells Treasuries to finance its federal government operations, and other nations and investors have bought them with absolute confidence – we haven’t defaulted since 1933. A default would elevate borrowing costs across the board. It would act like a tax. You would see higher interest rates, with implicit damage to equity prices and home values. The ripple from this could hurt retirement savings, consumer spending and investment.

Moreover, a default would shatter the conviction other nations have in our political framework. It might be decades before we could count on cheap debt again.

GOP’s memo to Obama: no higher debt limit unless we cut trillions.
The President is adamant about raising the debt ceiling. On May 9, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said it could only happen if “significant” cuts to the federal budget could be made: “We’re not talking about billions here. We should be talking about cuts in trillions if we’re serious about addressing America’s fiscal problems.”


The GOP leadership does not want to see emergency tax increases. Addressing the Economic Club of New York, Boehner said that “raising taxes is off the table” because “it will have a devastating impact on our economy.” On May 7, Senate Minority Leader John Kyl (R-AZ) requested that revisions to the tax code to address the deficit be kept “totally off the table” as such moves would only amount to backhanded tax hikes.
“We do not have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem,” Boehner noted. “Let’s address the spending problem.”


How would privatizing Medicare help?
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) claims that his controversial plan to privatize Medicare by 2022 would save the federal government $5.8 trillion over the next ten years. Ryan’s proposed voucher system would assign $8,000 annually to a typical 65-year-old for purposes of buying a private health plan. (The voucher amount would vary per person, with richer and/or healthier seniors getting less.)
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office disagrees and says out-of-pocket medical costs would double for seniors through Ryan’s plan. The CBO estimates that with this voucher system, the typical 65-year-old would pay about $12,510 out-of-pocket each year for medical care above the $8,000 of “premium support” provided. In contrast, it says that under the current Medicare structure, the same 65-year-old would pay $6,150 out-of-pocket in 2022 (providing Medicare payments to doctors are not greatly reduced).


How long before this impasse gives way to agreement?
It could take days, it could take weeks. “I am guarded in my optimism,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) remarked on Bloomberg Television this week. Secretary Geithner claims that the federal government could use “extraordinary measures” to keep borrowing money into the beginning of August. Noting that there was “no hard date” to hike the debt limit, Boehner said that “allowing America to default would be irresponsible. But it would be more irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling without simultaneously taking dramatic steps to reduce spending and reform the budget process.”

What are your thoughts?  We’d love to hear from you…
This material was prepared by MarketingLibrary.Net Inc., and does not necessarily represent the views of the presenting party, nor their affiliates. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If assistance is needed, the reader is advised to engage the services of a competent professional. This information should not be construed as investment, tax or legal advice and may not be relied on for the purpose of avoiding any Federal tax penalty.

By Jay Peroni

Imam of Miami mosque, 3 sons indicted on charges of providing financing and other material support to the Pakistani Taliban

CAIR to compare them to Rosa Parks in 3... 2... 1...

(FOX News) Six individuals located in South Florida and Pakistan have been indicted on charges of providing financing and other material support to the Pakistani Taliban, the Department of Justice announced Saturday.

"Today terrorists have lost another funding source to use against innocent people and U.S. interests. We will not allow this country to be used as a base for funding and recruiting terrorists," said John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Miami Office.

Three of the charged are U.S. citizens. The four-count indictment charges 76-year-old Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan and his two sons Irfan Khan, 37, and Izhar Khan, 24, all U.S. citizens and Florida residents. Three other individuals residing in Pakistan, Ali Rehman, aka "Faisal Ali Rehman;" Alam Zeb; and Amina Khan, aka "Amina Bibi," are also charged in the indictment. Amina Khan is the daughter of Khan and her son, Alam Zeb, is Khan's grandson.

The defendants are originally from Pakistan. Hafiz Khan is the Imam at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque. His son, Izhar Khan, is an Imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Fla. The indictment does not charge the mosques themselves with any wrongdoing, and the individual defendants are charged based on their provision of material support to terrorism, not on their religious beliefs or teachings.

All six defendants are charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap persons overseas, as well as conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically, the Pakistani Taliban.

Defendants Khan, Rehman and Zeb are also charged with providing material support to the Pakistani Taliban.

FBI agents arrested Hafiz and Izhar in South Florida Saturday, while Ifran was arrested in Los Angeles.

If convicted, each faces a potential 15 years in prison for each count of the indictment.

Mississippi River Flooding Near Vicksburg, Mississippi

May 13, 2011 | NASA Earth Observatory
The Mississippi River was rising quickly in Vicksburg, Mississippi, when NASA captured this image on May 10, 2011. The river was at 52.68 feet at 11:00 a.m., close to the time the image was taken. The image was obtained using a combination of infrared and visible light which makes the water appear blue instead of its actual sediment-laden brown. Visit Earth Observatory to see this image at higher resolution and another in natural color.

<>

British Woman Decapitated In Spanish Island Supermarket

 

Tenerife, Spain – I don’t normally post stories from other countries, mainly because I barely have enough time to cover the messed up stuff going on in my own. But this one is just too crazy not to talk about.

While the shopping district of Arona was hosting tourists and shoppers, a 28-year-old Bulgarian man walked into a supermarket with a machete and launched an attack on a 62-year-old British woman inside the store. Without saying a word, he stabbed her and then he decapitated her.

He then walked outside with her bloody, severed head in his hands and threw it on the pavement before being subdued by security guards. Police say the man may be homeless and has a history of mental illness, having recently been released from the hospital in February after received treatment for violent behavior. He did not know the woman he attacked, she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

People who witnessed the attack had to treated for shock, and from some of the stories they are telling, it’s perfectly understandable. One minute you are shopping for trinkets while on vacation on a Spanish island, the next a severed head is rolling towards you down the sidewalk.

One witness described a chilling scene: “I thought someone had fainted or something and walked on, then I heard screaming and looked behind and saw a scruffy, unkempt man of about mid 20s holding a head by the hair,” Colin Kirby said. “It had blood on it and I thought at first it was a sick joke stunt, the man was muttering and shouting…It looked like he was carrying a prop from the CLASH OF THE TITANS but then I realized it wasn’t a joke.”

Kirby is a man after my own heart. No matter the circumstance, always ready with a movie reference.
Arona is a popular town on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. It is located 10 miles from the popular beach resort of Los Christianos. Of course none of that means anything, really. I just thought it would be a nice to end this horrific article with some geography in case you aren’t able to watch the following video.

Regarding Obama's Immigration Speech in El Paso

I was disappointed with Obama's speech on immigration in El Paso this week.

Obama devoted about seventy-five percent of his speech presenting the economic imperatives for immigration reform. Less than a quarter of his speech addressed what could be considered the moral imperatives for creating a humane and just system for immigration. While those percentages may well reflect the priorities of the American public, I think sincere Christians should find this scandalous.

The real bottom lines is that a nation founded by immigrants has devised an immigration system that penalizes those who try to follow the rules, separates families, and punishes children for the actions of their parents. We will never be able to set politics aside and find common ground until a majority of us can agree that a system for immigration ought to give more weight to the golden rule than to the almighty dollar.

Blogger was down, so I could not post this earlier. Ethics Daily quotes me in an article published this morning.

Bill Clinton Calling for of Govt Internet Monitoring Agency ... and Rumor Control

This a rather laughable ... read Clinton's words closely ... they seem like a bit of a criticism of various media outlets who claim to be non-biased ... ironically from evil FoxNews (emphasis added):

Bill Clinton Muses About Creating Internet Agency to Combat Falsehoods

If Bill Clinton had his way, there would be an Internet agency created by the U.S. government or United Nations to debunk malicious rumors that originate and spread online.

"I think it would be a legitimate thing to do," Clinton told CNBC in an interview that aired Friday. He was interviewed alongside Mati Kochavi, a cybersecurity entrepreneur.

But Clinton added that if such an agency were ever created, it would have to be "totally transparent" about where its funding came from and would have to be independent.

"Let's just say the U.S. did it. It would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn't think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out," he said. 

"That is, it would be like, I don't know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors," he said.

Clinton said the agency would have to have citations so it could be checked in case it made a mistake.

"Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it's a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money," he said. "But if it's a government agency in a traditional sense, it would have no credibility whatever, particularly with a lot of the people who are most active on the Internet."  [Yeah, no shit, Sherlock!]


Click here to read the entire transcript.

Does this not just absolutely reek of Orwellian bullcrap?  He suggests that The UNITED NATIONS, too, be involved in debunking rumors?!?  Now, that's a reputable organization, isn't it?  And, can a federal agency be truly "independent?"

Don't you just love what he says about NPR and the BBC?: "That is, it would be like, I don't know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions."  Why, what is Bill implying about those fine and unbiased meda outlets, hmmm?

 

Gee, I can't imagine why Bill would be interested in controlling rumors, can you?

Commentary: Free and Equal Elections

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania states in Article 1, Section 5 that “Elections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

In the current election cycle Victor P. Stabile, Chairman of the Cumberland County Republican Committee is running for the office of Superior Court Judge. In 2008 he led the charge to preclude Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr and vice presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root from appearing on the Pennsylvania ballot even after the Libertarian Party collected over 60,000 signatures from registered voters in Pennsylvania. In the most recent election cycle Mr. Stabile praised the efforts of the Republican Party to remove all third party candidates from the statewide ballot in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Stabile wrote, “I am very pleased to report to you that challenges to the Green, Tea Party, and Libertarian candidates for state-wide office have been successful and these third party candidates will not be appearing on the November ballot.” He went on to say the following; “Voters do not get disenfranchised when fraud is uncovered. Unfortunately, this seems to be the process we are left with to deal with these situations until this type of impropriety is prosecuted.”

So let’s examine some of the alleged fraud, to which Mr. Stabile alluded. The Republican lawyers challenged the legitimacy of more than 2,000 signatures submitted by Betsy Summers. Her purported fraud and egregious error was in signing her petition ‘Betsy Summers,’ as she was to appear on the ballot, rather than ’Elisabeth Summers’ as she is listed on the voter registration rolls. I would hope this impropriety does not rise to the level of prosecution that Mr. Stabile speaks of in his comments.

The attorneys challenged nomination papers in which a notary entered the county where the petitioner lived, rather than the county in which the signatures were gathered. Signatures of voters who signed their names where they should have printed it, and printed it where they were supposed to sign it were challenged. Dates that did not have the full year filled out were challenged. They flagged entries that matched voter registration cards but whose address disagreed with the State’s outdated SURE data base, and the list goes on and on. Anything to subvert free and fair elections.

But the abuse did not stop there, as lawyers for the Republican Party then gave the Libertarian candidates a choice: drop out now or face fines personally of over $100,000 if the challenges proved successful. Yes, economic intimidation is now the preferred tactic used to keep third parties off the ballot and circumvent the Constitution of Pennsylvania, a tactic instituted and effectively utilized by the Democrat Party against Carl Romanelli.

I applaud Mr. Stabile’s fervor to promote the Republican Party as a party partisan; but being a party partisan should not be the qualification for a Superior Court Judge. We need judges who believe in the Commonwealth’s Constitution, and the rule of law and that above all else, our elections are to be fair and equal as prescribed by that Constitution. We need individuals who understand that we have men and women dying in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world to insure free elections n those far-off lands, and yet right here in Pennsylvania politicians like Mr. Stabile look to quash that right by means of economic intimidation.

Mr. Stabile, you cloak yourself in the American flag and speak of protecting the electorate from fraud and impropriety while you choose to trample the very cornerstone of our democracy, that being free and equal elections. You, sir, in my opinion are not fit to be any judge no less a Superior Court Judge. I urge all groups and individuals who believe in the constitution and good government to send a clear message that despite one’s party affiliation, this behavior cannot and should not be tolerated any longer, and should certainly not be rewarded by a judgeship on Pennsylvania’s Superior Court.

Louis R. Jasikoff
Chair, Pennsylvania Libertarian Party
Contact: ljasikoff@gmail.com

Gingrich--biggest election since 1860

I drew this quote from msnbc.com: "Republican Newt Gingrich told a Georgia audience on Friday evening that the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 race that elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House and was soon followed by the Civil War.

"Addressing the Georgia Republican Party's convention, Gingrich said the nation is at a crossroads and that the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama would lead to four more years of 'radical left-wing values' that would drive the nation to ruin."

What struck me as ironic about this comment is that Gingrich is comparing this race with the Lincoln race, and he's doing so in Georgia.  I don't think he intended the overtones this comment brings with it in context.  The context might lead one to conclude that Gingrich thinks that the 1860 race went the wrong way.  After all, Lincoln advocated the authority of the federal government over the rights of individual states like Georgia, and Georgia opposed Lincoln. Furthermore, Gingrich stands for a substantial reversal of the trajectory the Lincoln administration solidified with regard to federalism.

The current Republican party has ironically done a 180 flip since Lincoln and become the party of states' rights over the authority of the federal government.  It is no wonder it is strongest in the south.  Well intentioned conservative Christians have innocently thought they were voting for an anti-abortion agenda when what they were really voting for was a states' rights agenda.  After all, overturning Roe vs. Wade only throws the issue of abortion back to the states--it doesn't stop a single abortion.

So let's be very clear.  Christian voters need to recognize that their votes for Republican presidential candidates these last forty years in the name of abortion has never come close to being anything of the sort.  It is a bait and switch on the innocent and well intentioned.  Vote for more of Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Antonin Scalia if you favor states' rights like the pre-Civil War south.  A vote for them because you're against abortion is like bombing an entire city because you think enemy #1 might be hiding there.  There might just turn out to be a lot of collateral damage with no promise you'll actually hit your target.

P.S. Indiana just passed the toughest anti-abortion law since Roe vs. Wade--no abortions after the 20th week.  And it had nothing to do with the Supreme Court.

The tryanny of RomneyCare

My reply on Facebook to an old schoolmate, who thinks RomneyCare doesn't have a mandate:

Stop with the sophistry already. It's a mandate to have insurance, whether your own or through the state. Tell me how a Massachusetts resident can NOT have insurance and not be penalized? You claim there's no "mandate" yet ignore those who don't want insurance at all.

Look what Romneycare has done, making Boston doctor wait times the longest in the nation. Good job!

How strange, I thought all these years that your church believed in free will. Or don't you remember the history of 160 years ago when you were driven across the continent for not following the laws of men?

There is a special place in hell for Romney. Take care you don't let him drag you down with him.

His reply:

Is it your right, Perry, to demand that I pay for your emergency health care because you don't want insurance?

Please do not insert church into this, by the way. That's sloppy and distasteful, my friend.

PS - You speak of being penalized by choosing not to have health insurance. Do you know who is really penalized? ME. Or the people in your state. Because guess who pays for it when you go to the emergency room without insurance? Yep. Your neighbors. What is freedom-loving and personal responsibility about that?

To which I wrote:

That's a strawman. You're labeling everyone without insurance as the same who go to emergency rooms without paying. I don't demand that you pay for ANYTHING in my life. I will pay for my own health care, thank you very much. By the same token, I don't demand that you pay for anything in my life. THAT, my friend, is the essence of freedom.

You support this MANDATE because of free riders. Perhaps if you stopped paying for them entirely, you wouldn't have to worry about making things "efficient." But the truth is that if you're of low income and could have never afforded health insurance anyway, the Commonwealth will still subsidize your care. So this law did absolutely nothing for the problem of those who'd go to an emergency room and not pay, except to say that it's now ok. What this law DOES do is force healthy people to get insurance, no matter that they would have never gone to emergency rooms without paying.

I'm reminding you of your church's history because so many of your members seem to have forgotten it. (I'm likewise critical of my own denomination.) Or do you not believe in a person's freedom to not buy something he doesn't want?

Every person who claims to believe in Jesus Christ needs to remember one scripture in particular: "Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. or he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God."

In Massachusetts, thou shalt buy health insurance no matter that thou needest it not. Pharaoh has spoken. So it has been written, so it shall be done.

I don't suppose with all his wealth, Romney ever once thought of offering to pay for these destitute people who went to emergency rooms, knowing they couldn't pay.

George Bush: Osama bin Laden is Dead, Good!

George Bush said that Osama bin Laden is dead, good! But that is not all he said.

There are some reports that what George W. Bush has said in the aftermath of the killing of the number one terrorist in the world has been skewed a bit. In fact, a spokesman for the former President says his quote has been misrepresented to some extent. He DID say that is was good that the leader of al-Qaeda and 9/11 mastermind has been killed. As is now being reported, he was ‘glad, but not overjoyed’.

Why would he not be overjoyed? Osama bin Laden was after-all the arch-enemy of George W. Bush throughout his Presidency. He was the leader of al-Qaeda, the terrorists organization that had succeeded in perpetrating the most deadly, heinous and destructive act on American soil in the history of the United States.
He said he was not overjoyed because the act of killing Osama bin Laden was not carried out ‘out of hatred but to exact judgment.’.

The former president said he was “not overjoyed” to hear that elite US commandos had taken out bin Laden in Pakistan, explaining that the covert strike had been carried out not “out of hatred but to exact judgment.”

“The guy is dead. That is good,” Bush said, according to an ABC news contributor who attended the event. “Osama’s death is a great victory in the war on terror. He was held up as a leader.”

Asked about the accuracy of the report, a spokesman for the former president, David Sherzer, told AFP: “Most of the quotes are not accurate. But the general tenor of the piece accurately reflects President Bush’s views.”

Bush said he was eating in a restaurant with wife Laura Bush and two friends when he received Obama’s telephone call to inform him of the raid, and hastened home to take the call.
“Obama simply said ‘Osama Bin Laden is dead,’” ABC’s source quoted Bush as saying.
After Obama detailed his decision to order the raid on bin Laden’s fortified compound in Pakistan, Bush replied: “Good call.”

The former president praised US intelligence services and recalled a meeting with secretive and deadly US Navy Seal “Team Six” in Afghanistan.

“I said, ‘I hope you have everything you need. One guy said, ‘We need your permission to go into Pakistan and kick ass,’” ABC quoted Bush as saying.

In other words. This isn’t a time for celebration but for reflection. We do not exact justice because we are a cruel people, but because we understand what has to be done and are willing to do it, regardless of how difficult it is for us to do it. We do value human life as is the nature of our Judeo-Christian values.

The message to the rest of the world is that Americans are not as short-sighted as many think. In fact, we remember and we remember well. In addition to that, the long arm of American retribution will eventually find you and will retaliate, even if it takes a decade or more. But we do not relish the thought of taking human life, however repugnant that life ay be to us and to the values that we hold dear in our society.

I believe that is the message that former President George W. Bush was conveying in his statement about the killing of Osama bin Laden. We don’t relish the killing, but we will extract retribution if you attract us as is necessary for our survival and because we are a just, humane and civilized society.

In addition, we know that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are decentralized organizations. Taking out the leader, the figure-head, does not end the threat. Another leader will emerge who will try to prove himself. Our troops are deployed in several countries at this point, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lybia (just to name a few). Osama bin Laden is dead, but the Global War on Terrorism continues.

Posted by Beth Shaw