No, it was Bush's fault!
God Bless The United States of America and our Armed Forces!
by Michael T. Wayne-A Little Crazy
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Urkelbama
No, it was Bush's fault!
God Bless The United States of America and our Armed Forces!
by Michael T. Wayne-A Little Crazy
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Rich Get Richer, and Obama Has Not Tightened His Belt
5 Tax Deductions That Help the Rich Get Richer
By Jay MacDonald | Bankrate.com – 1-30-2012
When it comes to tax deductions, it is good to be rich -- the richer, the better.
Middle-class America enjoys some of the same tax breaks as the wealthy on things like the mortgage interest on home loans, capital gains on retirement investments and donations made to charity.
However, the rich enjoy these deductions and others to a wildly disproportionate degree when compared to the rest of taxpayers. According to the National Priorities Project, America's top earners will get an average tax cut of $66,384 in 2011 while the bottom 20 percent will realize an average tax savings of about $107.
Seth Hanlon, director of fiscal reform for the Center for American Progress, says that while all tax breaks are well-intended, the "upside-down" nature of some miss their target.
"Most people don't see these as being government expenditures, but from an economic and budget point of view, they're really the same thing as programs that spend money directly," says Hanlon. "There are ways to reform them to make them work better."
Many agree, including President Barack Obama, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
Here are five tax deductions that help the rich get richer.
1-Mortgage interest: a homeownership incentive?
The mortgage interest deduction on your federal tax return is intended to encourage homeownership by giving you a tax break on the interest you pay on your house note.
There is little question it benefits millions of middle-class homeowners as well as the wealthy. But does it provide a compelling financial incentive to own rather than rent? Not so much.
According to a study by The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, mortgage interest deductions for households with incomes between $40,000 and $75,000 average just $523, while households with incomes above $250,000 enjoy an average write-off of $5,459, or more than 10 times as much.
You must itemize on IRS Form 1040 Schedule A to claim the deduction. If you do, you can also deduct the interest paid on a second home. The rich do both, but most of the middle class does neither.
"For millions of taxpayers, therefore, the mortgage interest deduction provides no added incentive to buy a home," says Hanlon. "It makes no sense in terms of targeting the incentive at the people who need or could use it."
2-Capital gains: how the rich get richer
Why does billionaire Warren Buffett pay less income tax than his secretary?
Two words: capital gains.
Long-term capital gains, which derive from the sale of investments such as stocks and bonds held for more than a year, are taxed at 15 percent. That's well below the 35 percent maximum tax rate on ordinary income such as wages.
The preferential tax treatment of capital gains is widely viewed as regressive because the rich, who derive a disproportionate share of their income from capital gains, pay less than half of the tax rate on that income compared to middle-class wage earners.
"Capital gains are highly concentrated," says Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel for Citizens for Tax Justice. "Most of the capital gains are earned by folks in the top 10 percent, and it's even concentrated more than that. So the capital gains tax break, which is a 20 percentage-point difference in the amount of tax that is paid on those, is going almost all to the top 5 percent."
In fact, Americans with an annual income of $1 million or more, or 0.3 percent of all taxpayers, enjoy 70 percent of the capital gains benefit, says Hanlon.
The favorable capital gains rate is expected to save the wealthy (and cost Uncle Sam) $38.5 billion for fiscal 2012, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
3-Step-up in basis: how the rich remain rich
If the wealthy enjoy roughly $40 billion in tax breaks each year thanks to the favorable 15 percent capital gains rate, their heirs save even more, courtesy of the step-up in basis rule in the U.S. tax code.
What's the step-up all about? Essentially, it allows the wealthy to pass along assets that have grown in value to their heirs without ever paying a dime of taxes on it.
Under special Internal Revenue Service inheritance rules, when you inherit assets such as stock, real estate or a closely held business, you are allowed to step up their basis -- what the deceased originally paid for them -- to their current fair market value. Therefore, when you sell the assets, you would only be taxed on their gain in value from the time you inherited them.
Step-up in basis is expected to save the wealthy (and cost Uncle Sam) $61.5 billion for fiscal 2012, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
"Not surprisingly, this tax expenditure overwhelmingly benefits those who inherit from large estates because it allows gains to escape capital gains taxes if held until death," says Hanlon.
4-Retirement savings: tax shelter for the rich
Tax-deferred retirement plans are designed to help all Americans save for retirement. In 2011, Americans will save (and Uncle Sam will lose) $142 billion in taxes by sheltering their personal income in 401(k) plans, pension plans and individual retirement accounts, according to the U.S. budget.
Since the wealthy have more to save, they tend to reap more of the tax benefits of saving for retirement.
According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 20 percent of income earners enjoy 80 percent of the tax write-offs for retirement saving while the bottom 60 percent take advantage of a whopping 7 percent of the tax savings.
Which is understandable considering that the higher your income, the more likely you are to own a 401(k) plan with generous employer contributions. Nearly half of all Americans do not have access to a retirement plan at work, and those who do can't afford to take full advantage of the tax incentive.
"It's, again, a question of targeting incentives," Hanlon says. "The tax benefits probably aren't as well-targeted as they should be. The wealthy probably would save regardless of the tax benefit."
5-Charitable deduction: good cause, policy flaws
The charitable-giving deduction effectively operates as a federal matching program: make a charitable donation and receive a tax break. In fiscal 2011, the charitable deduction saved Americans (and cost Uncle Sam) $53.7 billion, according to the U.S. budget.
The problem with the charitable deduction is similar to the mortgage income tax break: The value of the deduction increases with income.
"If I give $1,000 to charity and I'm in a 10 percent tax bracket, I get $100 back on my taxes," says Wilkins. "But if I'm in a 35 percent tax bracket, I get $350 back from the federal government."
Plus, you have to itemize on IRS Form 1040 Schedule A to claim the charitable deduction.
"If we're trying to encourage charitable giving, we should be encouraging people with less money than people with more money to make those gifts," Wilkins says.
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Michael T. Wayne-
First of all, I must apologize to the Republicans I am about to piss off, but I agree with this one single article, for the most part. However, since Obama has had three years to do something about this, it is very timely for his campaign. I cannot say why this information has been thrown out at us now, save for BO’s people are on it, for he is a complete failure and a moron of a president, wishing to be re-elected to continue the pilfering of our money.
Secondly, is Ms. Wilkins a moron as well? While I agree the rich should not be getting richer, as we are crammed deeper into the poor house, it thus divides us into two classes, as we have two political parties. Ms. Wilkins, do you really believe that people with LESS money making charitable donations is at all logical? You are with Citizens for Tax Justice? Seriously? We can barely afford to feed and clothe ourselves, idiot. Mr. Seth Hanlon has some great insight for us. Do I seem a bit angry to you? To put such an ignorant statement at the end of a great article, with such important information to the “us” that is now the “other” class, makes you a worse person than this disgrace of a President, Obama, if possible. The real citizens, the middle class, do not seem to have a voice in this entire administration, nor a choice but to remove this mistake from office, and we must have faith that the Republican Party gets the chance to help us, or we simply keep deteriorating until we ourselves are relegated to a life of hand to mouth living. We are already on the verge. Some are already at that point. There is no hope in re-electing Obama. We must really have a CHANGE. I am in full support of Mitt Romney. He is a good man, and he does not just pretend to have our best interest at heart, like our current leader does. Please read the following information, as it shows how much Obama by himself has cost us. Sorry for the tenor of my statements, for I do not like to write angrily. It is VERY difficult when you are doing political research.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It's hard to believe that CBS actually said something that wasn't
flattering to this so-called President!
This is from Mark Knoller of CBS.
The pilots and crew of Air Force One are flying more hours than a
rookie on a beer run. They are tired of it too, and are adding more crew
to Air Force-1, I know this for a fact because I'm one of the instructors
that trains the crews. Our company (Atlas Air) has had the Air Force-1 and
E-4 contract for over two years and I've been doing it for about 8 months now.
Last year (2010) Obama flew in Air Force One 172 times, almost every other day.
White House officials have been telling reporters in recent days that the
Democrat doesn't intend to hang around the White House quite so much in 2011.
They explain he wants to get out more around the country because, as
everyone knows, that midterm election shellacking on Nov. 2 had nothing to do with
his health care bill, overspending or other policies, and everything to do with
Obama's not adequately explaining himself to his countrymen and women.
And with less than a year remaining in Obama's never ending presidential
campaign, the incumbent's travel pace will not likely slacken. At an Air
Force-estimated cost of $181,757 per flight HOUR (not to mention the additional
travel costs of Marine One, Secret Service, logistics and local police overtime),
that's a lot of frequent flier dollars going into Obama's carbon footprint.
$80 Million every time it lands & takes off.
We are privy to some of these numbers thanks to CBS' Mark Knoller, a
bearded national treasure trove of presidential stats. According to Knoller's
copious notes, during the last year, Obama made 65 domestic trips over 104 days,
and six trips to eight countries over 22 days. Not counting six vacation trips over
32 days. He took 196 helicopter trips, signed 203 pieces of legislation and squeezed
in 29 rounds of left-handed golf.
Obama last year gave 491 speeches, remarks or statements. That's more
talking than goes on in some entire families, at least from fatherly mouths.
In fact, even including the 24 days of 2010 that we never saw Obama in public, his
speaking works out to about one official utterance every 11 waking hours.
Aides indicate the "Real Good Talker" believes we need more.
Related: Obama spends nearly half his presidency outside Washington,
plans to travel more.
Related: Vacationer-in-Chief Spends $175 Million to Visit Hawaiian Chums.
Obama has spent over $100 million taxpayer dollars flying around in Air
Force One, and probably another $100 million on his entourage.
Obama is just another tin-pot dictator living lavishly at the expense of his subjects.
And we seniors have to "tighten our belts".
THANKS TO ALL WHO HELPED PUT THIS GREEDY WINDBAG IN OFFICE!!
PLEASE BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Very green of you Mr. President, you know “global warming”?
How tight is this guy’s belt?
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
Post and comments by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
By Jay MacDonald | Bankrate.com – 1-30-2012
When it comes to tax deductions, it is good to be rich -- the richer, the better.
Middle-class America enjoys some of the same tax breaks as the wealthy on things like the mortgage interest on home loans, capital gains on retirement investments and donations made to charity.
However, the rich enjoy these deductions and others to a wildly disproportionate degree when compared to the rest of taxpayers. According to the National Priorities Project, America's top earners will get an average tax cut of $66,384 in 2011 while the bottom 20 percent will realize an average tax savings of about $107.
Seth Hanlon, director of fiscal reform for the Center for American Progress, says that while all tax breaks are well-intended, the "upside-down" nature of some miss their target.
"Most people don't see these as being government expenditures, but from an economic and budget point of view, they're really the same thing as programs that spend money directly," says Hanlon. "There are ways to reform them to make them work better."
Many agree, including President Barack Obama, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
Here are five tax deductions that help the rich get richer.
1-Mortgage interest: a homeownership incentive?
The mortgage interest deduction on your federal tax return is intended to encourage homeownership by giving you a tax break on the interest you pay on your house note.
There is little question it benefits millions of middle-class homeowners as well as the wealthy. But does it provide a compelling financial incentive to own rather than rent? Not so much.
According to a study by The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, mortgage interest deductions for households with incomes between $40,000 and $75,000 average just $523, while households with incomes above $250,000 enjoy an average write-off of $5,459, or more than 10 times as much.
You must itemize on IRS Form 1040 Schedule A to claim the deduction. If you do, you can also deduct the interest paid on a second home. The rich do both, but most of the middle class does neither.
"For millions of taxpayers, therefore, the mortgage interest deduction provides no added incentive to buy a home," says Hanlon. "It makes no sense in terms of targeting the incentive at the people who need or could use it."
2-Capital gains: how the rich get richer
Why does billionaire Warren Buffett pay less income tax than his secretary?
Two words: capital gains.
Long-term capital gains, which derive from the sale of investments such as stocks and bonds held for more than a year, are taxed at 15 percent. That's well below the 35 percent maximum tax rate on ordinary income such as wages.
The preferential tax treatment of capital gains is widely viewed as regressive because the rich, who derive a disproportionate share of their income from capital gains, pay less than half of the tax rate on that income compared to middle-class wage earners.
"Capital gains are highly concentrated," says Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel for Citizens for Tax Justice. "Most of the capital gains are earned by folks in the top 10 percent, and it's even concentrated more than that. So the capital gains tax break, which is a 20 percentage-point difference in the amount of tax that is paid on those, is going almost all to the top 5 percent."
In fact, Americans with an annual income of $1 million or more, or 0.3 percent of all taxpayers, enjoy 70 percent of the capital gains benefit, says Hanlon.
The favorable capital gains rate is expected to save the wealthy (and cost Uncle Sam) $38.5 billion for fiscal 2012, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
3-Step-up in basis: how the rich remain rich
If the wealthy enjoy roughly $40 billion in tax breaks each year thanks to the favorable 15 percent capital gains rate, their heirs save even more, courtesy of the step-up in basis rule in the U.S. tax code.
What's the step-up all about? Essentially, it allows the wealthy to pass along assets that have grown in value to their heirs without ever paying a dime of taxes on it.
Under special Internal Revenue Service inheritance rules, when you inherit assets such as stock, real estate or a closely held business, you are allowed to step up their basis -- what the deceased originally paid for them -- to their current fair market value. Therefore, when you sell the assets, you would only be taxed on their gain in value from the time you inherited them.
Step-up in basis is expected to save the wealthy (and cost Uncle Sam) $61.5 billion for fiscal 2012, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
"Not surprisingly, this tax expenditure overwhelmingly benefits those who inherit from large estates because it allows gains to escape capital gains taxes if held until death," says Hanlon.
4-Retirement savings: tax shelter for the rich
Tax-deferred retirement plans are designed to help all Americans save for retirement. In 2011, Americans will save (and Uncle Sam will lose) $142 billion in taxes by sheltering their personal income in 401(k) plans, pension plans and individual retirement accounts, according to the U.S. budget.
Since the wealthy have more to save, they tend to reap more of the tax benefits of saving for retirement.
According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 20 percent of income earners enjoy 80 percent of the tax write-offs for retirement saving while the bottom 60 percent take advantage of a whopping 7 percent of the tax savings.
Which is understandable considering that the higher your income, the more likely you are to own a 401(k) plan with generous employer contributions. Nearly half of all Americans do not have access to a retirement plan at work, and those who do can't afford to take full advantage of the tax incentive.
"It's, again, a question of targeting incentives," Hanlon says. "The tax benefits probably aren't as well-targeted as they should be. The wealthy probably would save regardless of the tax benefit."
5-Charitable deduction: good cause, policy flaws
The charitable-giving deduction effectively operates as a federal matching program: make a charitable donation and receive a tax break. In fiscal 2011, the charitable deduction saved Americans (and cost Uncle Sam) $53.7 billion, according to the U.S. budget.
The problem with the charitable deduction is similar to the mortgage income tax break: The value of the deduction increases with income.
"If I give $1,000 to charity and I'm in a 10 percent tax bracket, I get $100 back on my taxes," says Wilkins. "But if I'm in a 35 percent tax bracket, I get $350 back from the federal government."
Plus, you have to itemize on IRS Form 1040 Schedule A to claim the charitable deduction.
"If we're trying to encourage charitable giving, we should be encouraging people with less money than people with more money to make those gifts," Wilkins says.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael T. Wayne-
First of all, I must apologize to the Republicans I am about to piss off, but I agree with this one single article, for the most part. However, since Obama has had three years to do something about this, it is very timely for his campaign. I cannot say why this information has been thrown out at us now, save for BO’s people are on it, for he is a complete failure and a moron of a president, wishing to be re-elected to continue the pilfering of our money.
Secondly, is Ms. Wilkins a moron as well? While I agree the rich should not be getting richer, as we are crammed deeper into the poor house, it thus divides us into two classes, as we have two political parties. Ms. Wilkins, do you really believe that people with LESS money making charitable donations is at all logical? You are with Citizens for Tax Justice? Seriously? We can barely afford to feed and clothe ourselves, idiot. Mr. Seth Hanlon has some great insight for us. Do I seem a bit angry to you? To put such an ignorant statement at the end of a great article, with such important information to the “us” that is now the “other” class, makes you a worse person than this disgrace of a President, Obama, if possible. The real citizens, the middle class, do not seem to have a voice in this entire administration, nor a choice but to remove this mistake from office, and we must have faith that the Republican Party gets the chance to help us, or we simply keep deteriorating until we ourselves are relegated to a life of hand to mouth living. We are already on the verge. Some are already at that point. There is no hope in re-electing Obama. We must really have a CHANGE. I am in full support of Mitt Romney. He is a good man, and he does not just pretend to have our best interest at heart, like our current leader does. Please read the following information, as it shows how much Obama by himself has cost us. Sorry for the tenor of my statements, for I do not like to write angrily. It is VERY difficult when you are doing political research.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It's hard to believe that CBS actually said something that wasn't
flattering to this so-called President!
This is from Mark Knoller of CBS.
The pilots and crew of Air Force One are flying more hours than a
rookie on a beer run. They are tired of it too, and are adding more crew
to Air Force-1, I know this for a fact because I'm one of the instructors
that trains the crews. Our company (Atlas Air) has had the Air Force-1 and
E-4 contract for over two years and I've been doing it for about 8 months now.
Last year (2010) Obama flew in Air Force One 172 times, almost every other day.
White House officials have been telling reporters in recent days that the
Democrat doesn't intend to hang around the White House quite so much in 2011.
They explain he wants to get out more around the country because, as
everyone knows, that midterm election shellacking on Nov. 2 had nothing to do with
his health care bill, overspending or other policies, and everything to do with
Obama's not adequately explaining himself to his countrymen and women.
And with less than a year remaining in Obama's never ending presidential
campaign, the incumbent's travel pace will not likely slacken. At an Air
Force-estimated cost of $181,757 per flight HOUR (not to mention the additional
travel costs of Marine One, Secret Service, logistics and local police overtime),
that's a lot of frequent flier dollars going into Obama's carbon footprint.
$80 Million every time it lands & takes off.
We are privy to some of these numbers thanks to CBS' Mark Knoller, a
bearded national treasure trove of presidential stats. According to Knoller's
copious notes, during the last year, Obama made 65 domestic trips over 104 days,
and six trips to eight countries over 22 days. Not counting six vacation trips over
32 days. He took 196 helicopter trips, signed 203 pieces of legislation and squeezed
in 29 rounds of left-handed golf.
Obama last year gave 491 speeches, remarks or statements. That's more
talking than goes on in some entire families, at least from fatherly mouths.
In fact, even including the 24 days of 2010 that we never saw Obama in public, his
speaking works out to about one official utterance every 11 waking hours.
Aides indicate the "Real Good Talker" believes we need more.
Related: Obama spends nearly half his presidency outside Washington,
plans to travel more.
Related: Vacationer-in-Chief Spends $175 Million to Visit Hawaiian Chums.
Obama has spent over $100 million taxpayer dollars flying around in Air
Force One, and probably another $100 million on his entourage.
Obama is just another tin-pot dictator living lavishly at the expense of his subjects.
And we seniors have to "tighten our belts".
THANKS TO ALL WHO HELPED PUT THIS GREEDY WINDBAG IN OFFICE!!
PLEASE BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Very green of you Mr. President, you know “global warming”?
How tight is this guy’s belt?
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
Post and comments by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Pipeline Off, Pipeline On?
Thwarted on US oil pipeline, Canada looks to China
By ROB GILLIES | Associated Press – 1-29-2012 @ 11:30am
KITAMAAT VILLAGE, British Columbia (AP) — The latest chapter in Canada's quest to become a full-blown oil superpower unfolded this month in a village gym on the British Columbia coast.
Here, several hundred people gathered for hearings on whether a pipeline should be laid from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific in order to deliver oil to Asia, chiefly energy-hungry China. The stakes are particularly high for the village of Kitamaat and its neighbors, because the pipeline would terminate here and a port would be built to handle 220 tankers a year and 525,000 barrels of oil a day.
But the planned Northern Gateway Pipeline is just one aspect of an epic battle over Canada's oil ambitions — a battle that already has a supporting role in the U.S. presidential election, and which will help to shape North America's future energy relationship with China.
It actually is a tale of two pipelines — the one that is supposed to end at Kitamaat Village, and another that would have gone from Alberta to the Texas coast but was blocked by the Obama administration citing environmental grounds.
Those same environmental issues are certain to haunt Northern Gateway as the Joint Review Panel of energy and environmental officials canvasses opinion along the 1,177 kilometer (731 mile) route of the Northern Gateway pipeline to be built by Enbridge, a Canadian company.
The fear of oil spills is especially acute in this pristine corner of northwest British Columbia, with its snowcapped mountains and deep ocean inlets. People here still remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, and oil is still leaking from the Queen of the North, a ferry that sank off nearby Hartley Bay six years ago.
The seas nearby, in the Douglas Channel, "are very treacherous waters," says David Suzuki, a leading environmentalist. "You take a supertanker that takes miles in order to stop, (and) an accident is absolutely inevitable."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada's national interest makes the $5.5 billion pipeline essential. He was "profoundly disappointed" that U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the Texas Keystone XL option but also spoke of the need to diversify Canada's oil industry. Ninety-seven percent of Canadian oil exports now go to the U.S.
"I think what's happened around the Keystone is a wake-up call, the degree to which we are dependent or possibly held hostage to decisions in the United States, and especially decisions that may be made for very bad political reasons," he told Canadian TV.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich quickly picked up the theme, saying that Harper, "who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American ... has said he's going cut a deal with the Chinese ... We'll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity."
He charged that "An American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country."
But the environmental objections that pushed Obama to block the pipeline to Texas apply equally to the Pacific pipeline, and the review panel says more than 4,000 people have signed up to testify.
The atmosphere has turned acrimonious, with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver claiming in an open letter that "environmental and other radical groups" are out to thwart Canada's economic ascent.
He said they were bent on bogging down the panel's work. And in an unusually caustic mention of Canada's southern neighbor, he added: "If all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: Sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further."
Environmentalists and First Nations (a Canadian synonym for native tribes) could delay approval all the way to the Supreme Court, and First Nations still hold title to some of the land the pipeline would cross, meaning the government will have to move with extreme sensitivity.
Alberta has the world's third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela: more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025, which the oil industry sees as a pressing reason to build the pipelines.
Critics, however, dislike the whole concept of tapping the oil sands, saying it requires huge amounts of energy and water, increases greenhouse gas emissions and threatens rivers and forests. Some projects are massive open-pit mines, and the process of separating oil from sand can generate lake-sized pools of toxic sludge.
Meanwhile, China's growing economy is hungry for Canadian oil. Chinese state-owned companies have invested more than $16 billion in Canadian energy in the past two years, state-controlled Sinopec has a stake in the pipeline, and if it is built, Chinese investment in Alberta oil sands is sure to boom.
"They (the Chinese) wonder why it's not being built already," said Wenran Jiang, an energy expert and professor at the University of Alberta.
In a report on China's stake in Canadian energy, Jiang notes that if every Chinese burned oil at the rate Americans do, China's daily consumption would equal the entire world's.
Harper is set to visit China next month. After Obama first delayed the Keystone pipeline in November, Harper told Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Pacific Rim summit in Hawaii that Canada would like to sell more oil to China, and the Canadian prime minister filled in Obama on what he said.
Jiang reads that to mean "China has become leverage."
But oil analysts say Alberta has enough oil to meet both countries' needs, and the pipeline's capacity of 525,000 barrels a day would amount to less than 6 percent of China's current needs.
"I don't think U.S. policymakers view China's investment in the Canadian oil sands as a threat," says David Goldwyn, a former energy official in the Obama administration.
"In the short term it provides additional investment to increase Canadian supply; that's a good thing. Longer-term, if Canadian oil goes to China, that means China's demand is being met by a non-OPEC country, and that's a good thing for global oil supply. Right now we are spending an awful lot of time finding ways for China to meet its demand from some place other than Iran. Canada would be a great candidate."
Pipelines are rarely rejected in Canada, but Murray Minchin, an environmentalist who lives near Kitamaat Village, says this time he and other opponents are determined to block construction. "They are ready to put themselves in front of something to stop the equipment," Minchin said. "Even if it gets the green light it doesn't mean it's getting done."
Enbridge is confident the pipeline will be built and claims about 40 percent of First Nation communities living along the route have entered into a long-term equity partnership with Enbridge. The communities together are being offered 10 percent ownership of the pipeline, meaning those which sign on will share an expected $400 million over 30 years.
But of the 43 eligible communities, only one went public with its acceptance and it has since reneged after fierce protests from its members.
Janet Holder, the Enbridge executive overseeing the project, says pipeline leaks are not inevitable, new technologies make monitoring more reliable, and tugboats will guide tankers through the Douglas Channel.
At the Kitamaat hearings, speakers ranged from Ellis Ross, chief of the Haisla First Nation in British Columbia, to Dieter Wagner, a German-born Canadian, retired scientist and veteran sailor who called the Douglas Channel "an insane route to take."
Ross used to work on whale-watching boats, and refers to himself as a First Nation, a term applicable to individuals as well as groups. He testified that the tanker port would go up just as marine life decimated by industrial pollution was making a comeback in his territory.
He held the audience spellbound as he described an extraordinary nighttime encounter last summer with a whale that was "logging" — the half-doze that passes for sleep in the cetacean world.
"...Midnight I hear this whale and it's right outside the soccer field. ... It's waterfront, but I can hear this whale, and I can't understand why it's so close, something's got to be wrong.
"So I walk down there with my daughter, my youngest daughter, and I try to flash a light down there, and quickly figured out it's not in trouble, it's sleeping. It's resting right outside our soccer field.
"You can't imagine what that means to a First Nation that's watched his territory get destroyed over 60 years. You can't imagine the feeling."
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Michael T. Wayne-
So, is it loyalty to the OPEC community (middle east) or is the President beholding to the tree huggers for his position? Canada is having the same problem with Native Peoples, yet there are existing pipelines North of the Border anyway, so, to do anything that would keep so many jobs, and oil from the United States merely seems like the same old BO. (or BS) He must really like dealing with those Muslims.
Can we get an American who cares about America in the White House? Mitt Romney seems to know how to make jobs, and more importantly money, not just printing more or borrowing. (From China)
Obama seems to want the price of gas to go up. Check the next article. This is hours after the first.
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Keystone to be linked to U.S. highway bill: Boehner
Reuters – @ 12:45 pm, 1-29-2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers will try to force the Obama administration to approve the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by attaching it to a highway bill that Congress will consider next month, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday.
President Barack Obama earlier this month denied TransCanada's application for the oil sands pipeline, citing lack of time to review an alternative route within a 60-day window for action set by Congress.
Republicans have since been looking for a vehicle to resurrect the $7 billion project, and Boehner said that would be a House Republican energy and highway bill.
"If (Keystone) is not enacted before we take up the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, it will be part of it," Boehner said on ABC's "This Week" news program.
Environmentalists and some Democrats oppose Keystone, citing higher greenhouse gas emissions, while most Republicans say it would create needed jobs.
Republicans in the Senate also plan to introduce a Keystone bill. Some Senate Democrats back the pipeline, but its passage is not guaranteed in the body.
Parts of the House Republican plan, such as opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, stand little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate.
Attaching Keystone to a pending deal to extend payroll tax cuts for workers, which has greater bipartisan backing than the highway bills, is another vehicle Republicans are considering.
(Reporting By Kim Dixon; Editing by Paul Simao)
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The struggle continues in the Capitol. The Confederates versus the Union- I mean the Democrat versus the Republicans. Sorry, got my history and event parallels mixed up. Would not want to repeat history. –Michael T. Wayne
God Bless the United States of American and our Armed Forces, and God Bless Canada, too! North America, is the general idea here, ok, Hawaii too, they cannot help the spawning of Obama just because he was supposed to be born there. I do not know, for I was not there. Mitt Romney was born here for sure. He is pretty smart, too. I suppose I am saying that I support Romney. Old Newt is Nancy Pelosi’s former cohort, and he says terrible things, yet when he is criticized, he says it was taken out of “context”, but when he puts it in proper context, it sounds even worse. (of course I may be speaking a ghetto language Newt, si?)
Post and comment by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
By ROB GILLIES | Associated Press – 1-29-2012 @ 11:30am
KITAMAAT VILLAGE, British Columbia (AP) — The latest chapter in Canada's quest to become a full-blown oil superpower unfolded this month in a village gym on the British Columbia coast.
Here, several hundred people gathered for hearings on whether a pipeline should be laid from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific in order to deliver oil to Asia, chiefly energy-hungry China. The stakes are particularly high for the village of Kitamaat and its neighbors, because the pipeline would terminate here and a port would be built to handle 220 tankers a year and 525,000 barrels of oil a day.
But the planned Northern Gateway Pipeline is just one aspect of an epic battle over Canada's oil ambitions — a battle that already has a supporting role in the U.S. presidential election, and which will help to shape North America's future energy relationship with China.
It actually is a tale of two pipelines — the one that is supposed to end at Kitamaat Village, and another that would have gone from Alberta to the Texas coast but was blocked by the Obama administration citing environmental grounds.
Those same environmental issues are certain to haunt Northern Gateway as the Joint Review Panel of energy and environmental officials canvasses opinion along the 1,177 kilometer (731 mile) route of the Northern Gateway pipeline to be built by Enbridge, a Canadian company.
The fear of oil spills is especially acute in this pristine corner of northwest British Columbia, with its snowcapped mountains and deep ocean inlets. People here still remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, and oil is still leaking from the Queen of the North, a ferry that sank off nearby Hartley Bay six years ago.
The seas nearby, in the Douglas Channel, "are very treacherous waters," says David Suzuki, a leading environmentalist. "You take a supertanker that takes miles in order to stop, (and) an accident is absolutely inevitable."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada's national interest makes the $5.5 billion pipeline essential. He was "profoundly disappointed" that U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the Texas Keystone XL option but also spoke of the need to diversify Canada's oil industry. Ninety-seven percent of Canadian oil exports now go to the U.S.
"I think what's happened around the Keystone is a wake-up call, the degree to which we are dependent or possibly held hostage to decisions in the United States, and especially decisions that may be made for very bad political reasons," he told Canadian TV.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich quickly picked up the theme, saying that Harper, "who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American ... has said he's going cut a deal with the Chinese ... We'll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity."
He charged that "An American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country."
But the environmental objections that pushed Obama to block the pipeline to Texas apply equally to the Pacific pipeline, and the review panel says more than 4,000 people have signed up to testify.
The atmosphere has turned acrimonious, with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver claiming in an open letter that "environmental and other radical groups" are out to thwart Canada's economic ascent.
He said they were bent on bogging down the panel's work. And in an unusually caustic mention of Canada's southern neighbor, he added: "If all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: Sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further."
Environmentalists and First Nations (a Canadian synonym for native tribes) could delay approval all the way to the Supreme Court, and First Nations still hold title to some of the land the pipeline would cross, meaning the government will have to move with extreme sensitivity.
Alberta has the world's third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela: more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025, which the oil industry sees as a pressing reason to build the pipelines.
Critics, however, dislike the whole concept of tapping the oil sands, saying it requires huge amounts of energy and water, increases greenhouse gas emissions and threatens rivers and forests. Some projects are massive open-pit mines, and the process of separating oil from sand can generate lake-sized pools of toxic sludge.
Meanwhile, China's growing economy is hungry for Canadian oil. Chinese state-owned companies have invested more than $16 billion in Canadian energy in the past two years, state-controlled Sinopec has a stake in the pipeline, and if it is built, Chinese investment in Alberta oil sands is sure to boom.
"They (the Chinese) wonder why it's not being built already," said Wenran Jiang, an energy expert and professor at the University of Alberta.
In a report on China's stake in Canadian energy, Jiang notes that if every Chinese burned oil at the rate Americans do, China's daily consumption would equal the entire world's.
Harper is set to visit China next month. After Obama first delayed the Keystone pipeline in November, Harper told Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Pacific Rim summit in Hawaii that Canada would like to sell more oil to China, and the Canadian prime minister filled in Obama on what he said.
Jiang reads that to mean "China has become leverage."
But oil analysts say Alberta has enough oil to meet both countries' needs, and the pipeline's capacity of 525,000 barrels a day would amount to less than 6 percent of China's current needs.
"I don't think U.S. policymakers view China's investment in the Canadian oil sands as a threat," says David Goldwyn, a former energy official in the Obama administration.
"In the short term it provides additional investment to increase Canadian supply; that's a good thing. Longer-term, if Canadian oil goes to China, that means China's demand is being met by a non-OPEC country, and that's a good thing for global oil supply. Right now we are spending an awful lot of time finding ways for China to meet its demand from some place other than Iran. Canada would be a great candidate."
Pipelines are rarely rejected in Canada, but Murray Minchin, an environmentalist who lives near Kitamaat Village, says this time he and other opponents are determined to block construction. "They are ready to put themselves in front of something to stop the equipment," Minchin said. "Even if it gets the green light it doesn't mean it's getting done."
Enbridge is confident the pipeline will be built and claims about 40 percent of First Nation communities living along the route have entered into a long-term equity partnership with Enbridge. The communities together are being offered 10 percent ownership of the pipeline, meaning those which sign on will share an expected $400 million over 30 years.
But of the 43 eligible communities, only one went public with its acceptance and it has since reneged after fierce protests from its members.
Janet Holder, the Enbridge executive overseeing the project, says pipeline leaks are not inevitable, new technologies make monitoring more reliable, and tugboats will guide tankers through the Douglas Channel.
At the Kitamaat hearings, speakers ranged from Ellis Ross, chief of the Haisla First Nation in British Columbia, to Dieter Wagner, a German-born Canadian, retired scientist and veteran sailor who called the Douglas Channel "an insane route to take."
Ross used to work on whale-watching boats, and refers to himself as a First Nation, a term applicable to individuals as well as groups. He testified that the tanker port would go up just as marine life decimated by industrial pollution was making a comeback in his territory.
He held the audience spellbound as he described an extraordinary nighttime encounter last summer with a whale that was "logging" — the half-doze that passes for sleep in the cetacean world.
"...Midnight I hear this whale and it's right outside the soccer field. ... It's waterfront, but I can hear this whale, and I can't understand why it's so close, something's got to be wrong.
"So I walk down there with my daughter, my youngest daughter, and I try to flash a light down there, and quickly figured out it's not in trouble, it's sleeping. It's resting right outside our soccer field.
"You can't imagine what that means to a First Nation that's watched his territory get destroyed over 60 years. You can't imagine the feeling."
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Michael T. Wayne-
So, is it loyalty to the OPEC community (middle east) or is the President beholding to the tree huggers for his position? Canada is having the same problem with Native Peoples, yet there are existing pipelines North of the Border anyway, so, to do anything that would keep so many jobs, and oil from the United States merely seems like the same old BO. (or BS) He must really like dealing with those Muslims.
Can we get an American who cares about America in the White House? Mitt Romney seems to know how to make jobs, and more importantly money, not just printing more or borrowing. (From China)
Obama seems to want the price of gas to go up. Check the next article. This is hours after the first.
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Keystone to be linked to U.S. highway bill: Boehner
Reuters – @ 12:45 pm, 1-29-2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers will try to force the Obama administration to approve the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by attaching it to a highway bill that Congress will consider next month, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday.
President Barack Obama earlier this month denied TransCanada's application for the oil sands pipeline, citing lack of time to review an alternative route within a 60-day window for action set by Congress.
Republicans have since been looking for a vehicle to resurrect the $7 billion project, and Boehner said that would be a House Republican energy and highway bill.
"If (Keystone) is not enacted before we take up the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, it will be part of it," Boehner said on ABC's "This Week" news program.
Environmentalists and some Democrats oppose Keystone, citing higher greenhouse gas emissions, while most Republicans say it would create needed jobs.
Republicans in the Senate also plan to introduce a Keystone bill. Some Senate Democrats back the pipeline, but its passage is not guaranteed in the body.
Parts of the House Republican plan, such as opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, stand little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate.
Attaching Keystone to a pending deal to extend payroll tax cuts for workers, which has greater bipartisan backing than the highway bills, is another vehicle Republicans are considering.
(Reporting By Kim Dixon; Editing by Paul Simao)
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The struggle continues in the Capitol. The Confederates versus the Union- I mean the Democrat versus the Republicans. Sorry, got my history and event parallels mixed up. Would not want to repeat history. –Michael T. Wayne
God Bless the United States of American and our Armed Forces, and God Bless Canada, too! North America, is the general idea here, ok, Hawaii too, they cannot help the spawning of Obama just because he was supposed to be born there. I do not know, for I was not there. Mitt Romney was born here for sure. He is pretty smart, too. I suppose I am saying that I support Romney. Old Newt is Nancy Pelosi’s former cohort, and he says terrible things, yet when he is criticized, he says it was taken out of “context”, but when he puts it in proper context, it sounds even worse. (of course I may be speaking a ghetto language Newt, si?)
Post and comment by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Saturday, January 28, 2012
From Oil to Orange Juice
U.S. detains Brazil, Canada orange juice for fungicide
By Anna Yukhananov | Reuters – 1-27-2012
Article: NY juice jumps as fungicide found in Brazil juice
Article: Brazil OJ industry wants US to ease fungicide limit
(Reuters) - U.S. health regulators detained three shipments of Brazilian orange juice and six from Canada that tested positive for the fungicide carbendazim, which is illegal in the United States.
Two other Brazilian juice shipments tested positive for the fungicide, but the companies decided not to import the juice into the country, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday.
Orange juice futures climbed almost 3 percent in reaction to the FDA testing results, which had been widely expected.
But the futures remained below a record high hit on Monday, after traders fretted that regulators may ban all orange juice from top grower Brazil, which supplies half of U.S. imports.
The FDA said 29 of the 80 orange juice samples it had taken since testing began on January 4 were safe, including two from Brazil and seven from Canada.
Canada does not grow its own oranges, but may process juice from other countries. The nation makes up less than 1 percent of U.S. imports.
The fungicide scare flared two weeks ago after the FDA announced that a company - later identified as Coca-Cola Co - had reported finding carbendazim in juice samples from Brazil.
Growers in Brazil widely use carbendazim to combat blossom blights and black spot, a mold that grows on orange trees.
The fungicide is illegal on citrus in the United States, although it does not pose a safety risk, the FDA said.
The FDA said it would begin testing imports for the fungicide and reject shipments that were above the legal limit.
Shipments that have more than 10 parts per billion (ppb) of the fungicide will be detained, and the importers will have 90 days to export or destroy the product, the agency said.
The FDA said it would test all shipments twice, and detain any that tested positive for carbendazim at least once.
Of the six shipments detained from Canada, none had levels of fungicide higher than 31 ppb, and most were below 20 ppb. The Brazilian shipments that tested positive had carbendazim levels between 20 ppb and 52 ppb.
All the levels of carbendazim found so far have been below the legal limit in the European Union, which allows juice imports with up to 200 ppb.
In the United States, trace amounts of the fungicide are still allowed in 31 food types including grains, nuts and some non-citrus fruits. It has been banned from U.S. citrus juice since 2009.
(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov in Washington; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Marguerita Choy and Dale Hudson)
Michael T. Wayne-
I wanted to show anyone who did not know, that while my home State of Florida, as well as California, both of whom are citrus producers, with CA using many illegal workers to harvest the fruit, are not the leading suppliers of this Nation’s orange juice. 50% of our OJ is imported from Brazil. 1% is imported from Canada, although they do not produce the citrus, they simply make juice (very helpful Canada). Why? There seems to be a government standing behind a juice company (Tropicana) allowing them to use foreign citrus, while they say they want to create American jobs. Is global warming not helping us grow oranges year-round yet? Incidentally, why is this fungicide legal here on other crops, and not citrus? So, the hypocrisy rolls along. You go Mr. Obama. Keep on lying to us. Is this the reason he had half of Walt Disney World closed for him to give his speech on tourism? Good way to keep the money coming in, close half of the busiest park. And it is also very curious that in said speech he wants to give tourist visas to Brazilians (he gave them millions to drill for oil, but they do not pay us back, and sell the oil to China). A good portion of the illegal immigrants in America came here on student, or tourist visas simply to just stay when the visa expires. We must know their names, correct? If we issued them a visa, there is a paper trail, and we need to find them and deport them. As a law abiding citizen, one thing I cannot abide is the Obama administration’s do nothing policy towards these people. It is either a re-election tactic, or he is just angry that the US forced his Muslim father to leave the country, for reasons ranging from his unknown past to the inability to tell who he was indeed married to. It was more than one woman, BO’s mother not being first, and in such a case, Obama’s father might have been an American citizen if Obama’s mother had been his only spouse, as she was an American citizen. Is he an American? That is the problem. We just do not know, and if we had any idea he was a Muslim, he would never have been elected. Of course, as he said, “This is no longer a Christian country”. I find myself wishing that I had never heard the name Barrack Hussein Obama. Sounds like a Muslim to me. I know many of you have not read my poetry, but I do have some nice ones about Islam. I cannot say the title here, what with the obscenities - it’s alright, I’m just a little crazy.
Brazil orange growers: 'We can adapt'
By Shasta Darlington @CNNMoneyMarkets January 17, 2012: 4:23 PM ET
TAQUARITINGA, Brazil (CNN) -- Brazil's orange harvest is nearing its end as workers in the state of Sao Paulo pluck late-blooming fruit from the trees.
The yellow-green oranges will be shipped off to nearby juice factories and then shipped around the globe. Those exports rake in $2 billion for Brazil, the biggest orange juice exporter in the world, accounting for 85% of global exports.
But now, it is not clear if Brazilian orange juice will be allowed into one of its key markets: the United States.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration temporarily halted all orange juice imports after low levels of the unapproved fungicide carbendazim were found in some juice shipments from Brazil.
More recently, the FDA said the juice is safe for consumption.
Why your orange juice is still safe-
Growers in Sao Paulo say they have been using carbendazim for some 20 years and point out that it is allowed -- in low levels -- across Europe and Latin America. It is also allowed in trace amounts in other food products, like nuts, in the United States. "We didn't even know that it had been banned in orange juice in the United States in 2009," Marco Antonio dos Santos, a third generation orange grower, told CNN.
Dos Santos, also the president of the Citrus Department at the Agriculture Ministry, says there are alternatives, however.
In fact, he and other growers already rotate the use of carbendazim with other fungicides and techniques for preventing diseases like black spot, which make the oranges fall from the trees before they are ripe.
He says Brazilian growers don't want to lose the American market, which is their second biggest after Europe. The United States currently buys 15 percent of Brazil's orange juice exports.
"If we have to, we'll eliminate this product completely," he said as he walked, showing off his 60-acre grove. "We want to supply the American market, we don't in any way want to lose it. We can adapt to the American system with other products."
Growers here would take a hit if this latest crop were barred from America. Global orange juice prices would rise, too.
But Dos Santos says producers can adapt quickly and could produce the next crop carbendazim-free if it were necessary.
While Brazilian farmers and industry leaders don't see a threat to consumers' health, they say the most important thing is that people aren't afraid to drink orange juice.
First Published: January 17, 2012: 10:59 AM ET
OK, so they want that money, too.-Michael T. Wayne
Tropicana goes back to using only Florida oranges
Chicago Tribune-January 16, 2012
PepsiCo Inc. is returning to using only oranges from Florida in its Tropicana Pure Premium orange juices, a decision made several months ago, before low levels of fungicide were found in oranges from Brazil, the company confirmed on Monday.
Tropicana Pure Premium had used 100 percent Florida oranges until 2007, when problems with the Florida crop caused the company to look at alternative sources, Beverage Digest, the industry publication which first reported the switch, said.
Oh, the day before the Brazilians say they will leave it out of the next crop, Tropicana said the former. Why, then, do they not just use Florida oranges then, if they say they can? Why were they even bothering with Brazil? Do they not advertise their juice as to being made from 100% Florida oranges? I guess it is all about the money, right? Give the money to American growers! -Michael T. Wayne
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
Entire post, and comments by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
We need a Mitt Romney to fix our economy.
By Anna Yukhananov | Reuters – 1-27-2012
Article: NY juice jumps as fungicide found in Brazil juice
Article: Brazil OJ industry wants US to ease fungicide limit
(Reuters) - U.S. health regulators detained three shipments of Brazilian orange juice and six from Canada that tested positive for the fungicide carbendazim, which is illegal in the United States.
Two other Brazilian juice shipments tested positive for the fungicide, but the companies decided not to import the juice into the country, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday.
Orange juice futures climbed almost 3 percent in reaction to the FDA testing results, which had been widely expected.
But the futures remained below a record high hit on Monday, after traders fretted that regulators may ban all orange juice from top grower Brazil, which supplies half of U.S. imports.
The FDA said 29 of the 80 orange juice samples it had taken since testing began on January 4 were safe, including two from Brazil and seven from Canada.
Canada does not grow its own oranges, but may process juice from other countries. The nation makes up less than 1 percent of U.S. imports.
The fungicide scare flared two weeks ago after the FDA announced that a company - later identified as Coca-Cola Co - had reported finding carbendazim in juice samples from Brazil.
Growers in Brazil widely use carbendazim to combat blossom blights and black spot, a mold that grows on orange trees.
The fungicide is illegal on citrus in the United States, although it does not pose a safety risk, the FDA said.
The FDA said it would begin testing imports for the fungicide and reject shipments that were above the legal limit.
Shipments that have more than 10 parts per billion (ppb) of the fungicide will be detained, and the importers will have 90 days to export or destroy the product, the agency said.
The FDA said it would test all shipments twice, and detain any that tested positive for carbendazim at least once.
Of the six shipments detained from Canada, none had levels of fungicide higher than 31 ppb, and most were below 20 ppb. The Brazilian shipments that tested positive had carbendazim levels between 20 ppb and 52 ppb.
All the levels of carbendazim found so far have been below the legal limit in the European Union, which allows juice imports with up to 200 ppb.
In the United States, trace amounts of the fungicide are still allowed in 31 food types including grains, nuts and some non-citrus fruits. It has been banned from U.S. citrus juice since 2009.
(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov in Washington; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Marguerita Choy and Dale Hudson)
Michael T. Wayne-
I wanted to show anyone who did not know, that while my home State of Florida, as well as California, both of whom are citrus producers, with CA using many illegal workers to harvest the fruit, are not the leading suppliers of this Nation’s orange juice. 50% of our OJ is imported from Brazil. 1% is imported from Canada, although they do not produce the citrus, they simply make juice (very helpful Canada). Why? There seems to be a government standing behind a juice company (Tropicana) allowing them to use foreign citrus, while they say they want to create American jobs. Is global warming not helping us grow oranges year-round yet? Incidentally, why is this fungicide legal here on other crops, and not citrus? So, the hypocrisy rolls along. You go Mr. Obama. Keep on lying to us. Is this the reason he had half of Walt Disney World closed for him to give his speech on tourism? Good way to keep the money coming in, close half of the busiest park. And it is also very curious that in said speech he wants to give tourist visas to Brazilians (he gave them millions to drill for oil, but they do not pay us back, and sell the oil to China). A good portion of the illegal immigrants in America came here on student, or tourist visas simply to just stay when the visa expires. We must know their names, correct? If we issued them a visa, there is a paper trail, and we need to find them and deport them. As a law abiding citizen, one thing I cannot abide is the Obama administration’s do nothing policy towards these people. It is either a re-election tactic, or he is just angry that the US forced his Muslim father to leave the country, for reasons ranging from his unknown past to the inability to tell who he was indeed married to. It was more than one woman, BO’s mother not being first, and in such a case, Obama’s father might have been an American citizen if Obama’s mother had been his only spouse, as she was an American citizen. Is he an American? That is the problem. We just do not know, and if we had any idea he was a Muslim, he would never have been elected. Of course, as he said, “This is no longer a Christian country”. I find myself wishing that I had never heard the name Barrack Hussein Obama. Sounds like a Muslim to me. I know many of you have not read my poetry, but I do have some nice ones about Islam. I cannot say the title here, what with the obscenities - it’s alright, I’m just a little crazy.
Brazil orange growers: 'We can adapt'
By Shasta Darlington @CNNMoneyMarkets January 17, 2012: 4:23 PM ET
TAQUARITINGA, Brazil (CNN) -- Brazil's orange harvest is nearing its end as workers in the state of Sao Paulo pluck late-blooming fruit from the trees.
The yellow-green oranges will be shipped off to nearby juice factories and then shipped around the globe. Those exports rake in $2 billion for Brazil, the biggest orange juice exporter in the world, accounting for 85% of global exports.
But now, it is not clear if Brazilian orange juice will be allowed into one of its key markets: the United States.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration temporarily halted all orange juice imports after low levels of the unapproved fungicide carbendazim were found in some juice shipments from Brazil.
More recently, the FDA said the juice is safe for consumption.
Why your orange juice is still safe-
Growers in Sao Paulo say they have been using carbendazim for some 20 years and point out that it is allowed -- in low levels -- across Europe and Latin America. It is also allowed in trace amounts in other food products, like nuts, in the United States. "We didn't even know that it had been banned in orange juice in the United States in 2009," Marco Antonio dos Santos, a third generation orange grower, told CNN.
Dos Santos, also the president of the Citrus Department at the Agriculture Ministry, says there are alternatives, however.
In fact, he and other growers already rotate the use of carbendazim with other fungicides and techniques for preventing diseases like black spot, which make the oranges fall from the trees before they are ripe.
He says Brazilian growers don't want to lose the American market, which is their second biggest after Europe. The United States currently buys 15 percent of Brazil's orange juice exports.
"If we have to, we'll eliminate this product completely," he said as he walked, showing off his 60-acre grove. "We want to supply the American market, we don't in any way want to lose it. We can adapt to the American system with other products."
Growers here would take a hit if this latest crop were barred from America. Global orange juice prices would rise, too.
But Dos Santos says producers can adapt quickly and could produce the next crop carbendazim-free if it were necessary.
While Brazilian farmers and industry leaders don't see a threat to consumers' health, they say the most important thing is that people aren't afraid to drink orange juice.
First Published: January 17, 2012: 10:59 AM ET
OK, so they want that money, too.-Michael T. Wayne
Tropicana goes back to using only Florida oranges
Chicago Tribune-January 16, 2012
PepsiCo Inc. is returning to using only oranges from Florida in its Tropicana Pure Premium orange juices, a decision made several months ago, before low levels of fungicide were found in oranges from Brazil, the company confirmed on Monday.
Tropicana Pure Premium had used 100 percent Florida oranges until 2007, when problems with the Florida crop caused the company to look at alternative sources, Beverage Digest, the industry publication which first reported the switch, said.
Oh, the day before the Brazilians say they will leave it out of the next crop, Tropicana said the former. Why, then, do they not just use Florida oranges then, if they say they can? Why were they even bothering with Brazil? Do they not advertise their juice as to being made from 100% Florida oranges? I guess it is all about the money, right? Give the money to American growers! -Michael T. Wayne
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
Entire post, and comments by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
We need a Mitt Romney to fix our economy.
Thousands of Federal Workers Owe Back Taxes
By KEN THOMAS | Associated Press – Fri, Jan 27, 2012 3:42 PM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has preached that all Americans should pay their fair share in taxes, but a government report finds that tens of thousands of federal employees — from staffers in Congress to federal agencies and even Obama's executive office — collectively owe the government billions in back taxes.
Data from the Internal Revenue Service found that more than 279,000 federal employees and retirees owed $3.4 billion in back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2010.
The data showed that 467 employees of the House of Representatives, or about 4.2 percent of the workforce, owed more than $8.5 million. In the Senate, 217 employees, or about 3 percent of the workforce, owed $2.13 million.
Obama's staff was not immune, either, with 36 people in Obama's executive office of nearly 1,800 workers — about 2 percent — owing the government $833,970 in back taxes.
Obama used part of his State of the Union address Tuesday night to promote economic fairness, arguing for changes in the tax code that would create a minimum tax rate of at least 30 percent on anyone making more than $1 million. The finances of one of his chief Republican rivals, Mitt Romney, has been scrutinized because he, like many millionaires, pays a lower rate because most of his income came from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.
The IRS report attracted the attention of Republicans, who said it undercut the president's argument on taxes. "If Obama wants people to pay their 'fair share,' perhaps he should start with his own staff," tweeted Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.
White House officials noted that the delinquency rate among executive office staff had fallen from nearly 3 percent in 2008. In 2009, 41 employees in the president's executive office owed about $830,000, representing about 2.3 percent of its workforce.
White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said the annual report was released by the IRS because there is a "high standard for government employees."
"Though the report shows that fewer executive office employees owe taxes than in the last year of the previous administration and we expect all employees to pay their taxes in full, more needs to be done to ensure compliance and the president has asked his team to work on this issue," Brundage said.
Overall, the total amount owed is down slightly from September 2009, when more than 282,000 federal workers owed $3.3 billion in taxes.
The report does not offer specific explanations for the delinquencies. Many people who owe back taxes file returns but cannot pay the full amount when their taxes are due, said IRS spokesman Anthony Burke. Others may be disputing the bill, may have filed jointly with a spouse who owes taxes or may have had their tax bills increased by an audit and cannot pay the higher amount.
The statistics on federal employees do not include those who are on payment plans. The IRS doesn't provide a comparable delinquency rate for income taxes paid by the public.
Among Cabinet agencies, the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rates, at nearly 4 percent. The Treasury Department had the lowest delinquency rate, at nearly 1 percent.
Do I really need to say ANYTHING?
Post by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has preached that all Americans should pay their fair share in taxes, but a government report finds that tens of thousands of federal employees — from staffers in Congress to federal agencies and even Obama's executive office — collectively owe the government billions in back taxes.
Data from the Internal Revenue Service found that more than 279,000 federal employees and retirees owed $3.4 billion in back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2010.
The data showed that 467 employees of the House of Representatives, or about 4.2 percent of the workforce, owed more than $8.5 million. In the Senate, 217 employees, or about 3 percent of the workforce, owed $2.13 million.
Obama's staff was not immune, either, with 36 people in Obama's executive office of nearly 1,800 workers — about 2 percent — owing the government $833,970 in back taxes.
Obama used part of his State of the Union address Tuesday night to promote economic fairness, arguing for changes in the tax code that would create a minimum tax rate of at least 30 percent on anyone making more than $1 million. The finances of one of his chief Republican rivals, Mitt Romney, has been scrutinized because he, like many millionaires, pays a lower rate because most of his income came from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.
The IRS report attracted the attention of Republicans, who said it undercut the president's argument on taxes. "If Obama wants people to pay their 'fair share,' perhaps he should start with his own staff," tweeted Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.
White House officials noted that the delinquency rate among executive office staff had fallen from nearly 3 percent in 2008. In 2009, 41 employees in the president's executive office owed about $830,000, representing about 2.3 percent of its workforce.
White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said the annual report was released by the IRS because there is a "high standard for government employees."
"Though the report shows that fewer executive office employees owe taxes than in the last year of the previous administration and we expect all employees to pay their taxes in full, more needs to be done to ensure compliance and the president has asked his team to work on this issue," Brundage said.
Overall, the total amount owed is down slightly from September 2009, when more than 282,000 federal workers owed $3.3 billion in taxes.
The report does not offer specific explanations for the delinquencies. Many people who owe back taxes file returns but cannot pay the full amount when their taxes are due, said IRS spokesman Anthony Burke. Others may be disputing the bill, may have filed jointly with a spouse who owes taxes or may have had their tax bills increased by an audit and cannot pay the higher amount.
The statistics on federal employees do not include those who are on payment plans. The IRS doesn't provide a comparable delinquency rate for income taxes paid by the public.
Among Cabinet agencies, the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rates, at nearly 4 percent. The Treasury Department had the lowest delinquency rate, at nearly 1 percent.
Do I really need to say ANYTHING?
Post by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Blame Game
Michael T. Wayne- 1-27-2012
So, if I understand things as Obama has laid them out, the war over the last decade, its cost, and our economic woes are GW Bush’s fault? Let us take a closer look, as I happen to have a great memory, as well as the necessity to do research as well as it can be done.
In the spring of 1999, the Nation of Sudan had captured Osama bin-Laden, and we were given the opportunity to take him off of their hands, for he had already attempted to bomb the World Trade Center on Feb 26, 1993. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, in Al-Queda since 1998, was working with the blind sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahma, a man financially backed by Osama bin-Laden. Our President-Bill Clinton, turned them down. We had already named the 9-11 mastermind as an un-indicted co-conspirator. Why not take him? I do not know. Incidentally, Newt Gingrich was his speaker from 1995-1999. We all know Al-Queda’s record since that date.
September 11, 2001, bin-Laden was successful at his second attempt, costing us more than 3000 lives, not only there, but at the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Could this atrocity have been avoided if the Democrat President Clinton was interested in protecting us in the future, rather than being distracted by the intern under his desk? Who can say?
Then, President Bush, in his first year was forced to take us to war. The war(s) themselves did not cost as many dollars, not even a fraction of Obama’s wasteful spending. And as far as lives lost? With over a million of our men and women serving, only a few thousand deaths occurred. Unfortunately, too many others were not, but horribly mamed or burned by I. E. D.’s. These brave men and women gladly served their grateful nation. We love them for it. (I do anyway, sent your contributions to the wounded warriors ) But, would they even have had to if Clinton had taken care of bin-Laden when he was handed the opportunity? Would 9-11 have ever happened? Why did it take 30 days for him (BO) to approve the raid to kill the most wanted man in the world? How did you find him? Did they trace his location from a call on your caller I.D.?
This, Mr. Obama, is why you are the worst president ever. (I only capitalize the word if I respect the man) if you insist on blaming your predecessor for the nearly insurmountable problems facing us, try looking back a little farther, and see that it was Bill Clinton to blame for the whole 9-11 and war on terror which you blame President Bush for. GW could have said it was the last guy’s fault, but he did not. He did what a capable President does. He acted to protect us. The whole blame game is the petty act of people working for a corporation, who have just changed their CEO. Blame your predecessor.
This is a country, the most powerful one in the World. Not accepting blame has been one of the problems with some of the latest Democrat Presidents(2). At least Bill Clinton could get us out of a recession. Still, your party is the real culprit in the very murky dealings we have had since, oh, I do not know, 1993. Would you please grow a set, stop with the lying, and get out of our White House? You want to dis-respect the Governor of Arizona for telling the truth about you, and accuse her of dis-respecting you, and that gives you the right to talk to her the way you did? You are not infallible sir.
Quite the opposite. You have made more mistakes than any President before you, yet you will not own up to them, but blame GW, or Congress.
Dude, you had a Democratic Congress in your first 2 years, and that is when you screwed the pooch. Get over yourself, you lying !@#$! If you actually did care about this country, you would give the L.B.J. speech from 1968, and bow out of the disaster you and your party has perpetrated on us, the American People. You want dis-respect? Was that good enough?
I can get much worse. Go ahead and come be a condescending jerk to me, and I will put you in your place.
GO AWAY LEECH!
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
By Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a reminder of that period of Clinton time.
From the NewsMax.com Staff
Sunday, Sept. 10, 2006 6:13 p.m. EDT
Clinton Admits Passing Up bin Laden Capture; Lewinsky Played Role.
Bill Clinton denies it now, but he once admitted he passed up an opportunity to extradite Osama bin Laden.
Clinton's comments and his actions relating to American efforts to capture bin Laden have taken on renewed interest because of claims made in a new ABC movie, the "Path to 9/11," that suggests Clinton dropped the ball during his presidency. Clinton has also angrily denied claims the Monica Lewinsky scandal drew his attention away from dealing with national security matters like capturing bin Laden.
Story Continues Below
During a February 2002 speech, Clinton explained that he turned down an offer from Sudan for bin Laden's extradition to the U.S., saying, "At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him."
But that wasn't exactly true. By 1996, the 9/11 mastermind had already been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by prosecutors in New York.
9/11 Commissioner former Sen. Bob Kerrey said that Clinton told the Commission during his private interview that reports of his comments to the LIA were based on "a misquote."
During his interview with the 9/11 Commission, Clinton was accompanied by longtime aide and former White House counsel Bruce Lindsey, along with former national security advisor Sandy Berger, who insisted in sworn testimony before Congress in Sept. 2002 that there was never any offer from Sudanese officials to turn over bin Laden to the U.S.
But other evidence suggests the Clinton administration did not take advantage of offers to get bin Laden -- and that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was exploding during this time period.
At least two offers from the government of Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. were rebuffed by the Clinton administration in February and March of 1996, a period of time when the former president's attention was distracted by his intensifying relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
One of the offers took place during a secret meeting in Washington, the same day Clinton was meeting with Lewinsky in the White House just miles away.
On Feb. 6, 1996, then-U.S. Ambassador to the Sudan Tim Carney met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Osman Mohammed Taha at Taha's home in the capital city of Khartoum. The meeting took place just a half mile from bin Laden's residence at the time, according to Richard Miniter's book "Losing bin Laden."
During the meeting, Carney reminded the Sudanese official that Washington was increasingly nervous about the presence of bin Laden in Sudan, reports Miniter.
Foreign Minister Taha countered by saying that Sudan was very concerned about its poor relationship with the U.S.
Then came the bombshell offer:
"If you want bin Laden, we will give you bin Laden," Foreign Minister Taha told Ambassador Carney.
Still, with the extraordinarily fortuitous offer on the table, back in Washington President Clinton had other things on his mind.
A timeline of events chronicled in the Starr Report shows that during the period of late January through March 1996, Mr. Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was then at its most intense.
On Feb. 4, 1996, for instance - two days before Ambassador Carney's key meeting with the Sudanese Foreign Minister, the president was focused not on Osama bin Laden, but instead on the 23-year-old White House intern.
Their rendezvous that day included a sexual encounter followed by a leisurely chat between Clinton and Lewinsky, as the two "sat and talked [afterward] for about 45 minutes," according to the Starr Report.
Later in the afternoon that same day, as Sudanese officials weighed their decision to offer bin Laden to the U.S., Clinton found time to call Lewinsky "[to say] he had enjoyed their time together." If there were
any calls from Clinton to the State Department or Khartoum that day, the records have yet to surface in published reports.
The Feb. 4 encounter with Lewinsky followed a period of intense contact detailed in the Starr report in interviews with the former White House intern, including a sexual encounter on Jan. 6, 1996, several sessions of phone sex during the week of Jan. 14 - 21, and another sexual encounter on Jan. 21.
Sudan's offer to the U.S. for bin Laden's extradition remained on the table for at least a month, and was reiterated by Sudanese officials who traveled to Washington as late as March 10, 1996.
On March 3, Sudan's Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa met secretly with Ambassador Carney, another State Department official and the CIA's Africa bureau Director of Operations at an Arlington, Va., hotel, according to Miniter's book.
Erwa was handed a list of issues the U.S. wanted taken care of if relations were to improve. The list included a demand for information on bin Laden's terrorist network inside Sudan.
Erwa replied that he would have to consult with Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir about the list. When he returned for a March 10, 1996 meeting with the CIA's Africa bureau chief, "Erwa would be empowered to make an extraordinary offer," writes Miniter.
On instructions from its president, the government of Sudan agreed to arrest bin Laden and hand him over to U.S law enforcement at a time and place of the Clinton administration's choosing. "Where should we send him?" Erwa asked the CIA representative.
In his 2002 speech President Clinton has acknowledged being fully briefed on the Sudanese efforts to turn over the 9/11 mastermind, admitting that he made the final decision to turn the offer down.
As chronicled in the Starr report, however, Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky proved to be a growing distraction around this time.
Two weeks before the secret meeting between Erwa, Carney and the CIA bureau chief, the president summoned Lewinsky to the White House to inform her that he "no longer felt right" about their relationship and it would have to be suspended until after the election.
Lewinsky explained, however, that Clinton's decision to put their relationship on hold did little to change its basic character, telling Starr's investigators, "There'd continue to be this flirtation when we'd see each other."
The Starr report noted, "In late February or March [1996], the president telephoned her at home and said he was disappointed that, because she had already left the White House for the evening, they could not get together."
The call, Lewinsky said, "sort of implied to me that he was interested in starting up again."
On March 10, 1996, as Sudanese Defense Minister Erwa was making his extraordinary offer for bin Laden's arrest to the CIA's Africa bureau chief, Clinton met with Lewinsky in the White House.
The Starr report:
"On March 10, 1996, Ms. Lewinsky took a visiting friend, Natalie Ungvari, to the White House. They bumped into the president, who said when Ms. Lewinsky introduced them, 'You must be her friend from California.' Ms. Ungvari was 'shocked' that the president knew where she was from."
Though there was no physical contact that day, three weeks later, on March 31, 1996, Clinton resumed his sexual relationship with Lewinsky.
It was around this time, the president later admitted, that he was involved in delicate negotiations to try to persuade Riyadh to take bin Laden, after refusing to accept his extradition to the U.S.
"I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have," Clinton admitted in the 2002 speech. "But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."
On April 7, 1996, Monica Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. Around the same time, the administration's hunt for bin Laden finally seemed to begin in earnest. Just weeks after Clinton spurned Sudan's bin Laden offer, for instance, the CIA created a separate operational unit dedicated to tracking down bin Laden in Sudan.
But it happened too late to capture the 9/11 mastermind. On May 18, 1996, bin Laden boarded a chartered plane in Khartoum with his wives, children, some 150 al-Qaida jihadists and a cache of arms - and flew off to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
God Bless the United Staes of America and our Armed Forces!
This history reminder was posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
So, if I understand things as Obama has laid them out, the war over the last decade, its cost, and our economic woes are GW Bush’s fault? Let us take a closer look, as I happen to have a great memory, as well as the necessity to do research as well as it can be done.
In the spring of 1999, the Nation of Sudan had captured Osama bin-Laden, and we were given the opportunity to take him off of their hands, for he had already attempted to bomb the World Trade Center on Feb 26, 1993. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, in Al-Queda since 1998, was working with the blind sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahma, a man financially backed by Osama bin-Laden. Our President-Bill Clinton, turned them down. We had already named the 9-11 mastermind as an un-indicted co-conspirator. Why not take him? I do not know. Incidentally, Newt Gingrich was his speaker from 1995-1999. We all know Al-Queda’s record since that date.
September 11, 2001, bin-Laden was successful at his second attempt, costing us more than 3000 lives, not only there, but at the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Could this atrocity have been avoided if the Democrat President Clinton was interested in protecting us in the future, rather than being distracted by the intern under his desk? Who can say?
Then, President Bush, in his first year was forced to take us to war. The war(s) themselves did not cost as many dollars, not even a fraction of Obama’s wasteful spending. And as far as lives lost? With over a million of our men and women serving, only a few thousand deaths occurred. Unfortunately, too many others were not, but horribly mamed or burned by I. E. D.’s. These brave men and women gladly served their grateful nation. We love them for it. (I do anyway, sent your contributions to the wounded warriors ) But, would they even have had to if Clinton had taken care of bin-Laden when he was handed the opportunity? Would 9-11 have ever happened? Why did it take 30 days for him (BO) to approve the raid to kill the most wanted man in the world? How did you find him? Did they trace his location from a call on your caller I.D.?
This, Mr. Obama, is why you are the worst president ever. (I only capitalize the word if I respect the man) if you insist on blaming your predecessor for the nearly insurmountable problems facing us, try looking back a little farther, and see that it was Bill Clinton to blame for the whole 9-11 and war on terror which you blame President Bush for. GW could have said it was the last guy’s fault, but he did not. He did what a capable President does. He acted to protect us. The whole blame game is the petty act of people working for a corporation, who have just changed their CEO. Blame your predecessor.
This is a country, the most powerful one in the World. Not accepting blame has been one of the problems with some of the latest Democrat Presidents(2). At least Bill Clinton could get us out of a recession. Still, your party is the real culprit in the very murky dealings we have had since, oh, I do not know, 1993. Would you please grow a set, stop with the lying, and get out of our White House? You want to dis-respect the Governor of Arizona for telling the truth about you, and accuse her of dis-respecting you, and that gives you the right to talk to her the way you did? You are not infallible sir.
Quite the opposite. You have made more mistakes than any President before you, yet you will not own up to them, but blame GW, or Congress.
Dude, you had a Democratic Congress in your first 2 years, and that is when you screwed the pooch. Get over yourself, you lying !@#$! If you actually did care about this country, you would give the L.B.J. speech from 1968, and bow out of the disaster you and your party has perpetrated on us, the American People. You want dis-respect? Was that good enough?
I can get much worse. Go ahead and come be a condescending jerk to me, and I will put you in your place.
GO AWAY LEECH!
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
By Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a reminder of that period of Clinton time.
From the NewsMax.com Staff
Sunday, Sept. 10, 2006 6:13 p.m. EDT
Clinton Admits Passing Up bin Laden Capture; Lewinsky Played Role.
Bill Clinton denies it now, but he once admitted he passed up an opportunity to extradite Osama bin Laden.
Clinton's comments and his actions relating to American efforts to capture bin Laden have taken on renewed interest because of claims made in a new ABC movie, the "Path to 9/11," that suggests Clinton dropped the ball during his presidency. Clinton has also angrily denied claims the Monica Lewinsky scandal drew his attention away from dealing with national security matters like capturing bin Laden.
Story Continues Below
During a February 2002 speech, Clinton explained that he turned down an offer from Sudan for bin Laden's extradition to the U.S., saying, "At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him."
But that wasn't exactly true. By 1996, the 9/11 mastermind had already been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by prosecutors in New York.
9/11 Commissioner former Sen. Bob Kerrey said that Clinton told the Commission during his private interview that reports of his comments to the LIA were based on "a misquote."
During his interview with the 9/11 Commission, Clinton was accompanied by longtime aide and former White House counsel Bruce Lindsey, along with former national security advisor Sandy Berger, who insisted in sworn testimony before Congress in Sept. 2002 that there was never any offer from Sudanese officials to turn over bin Laden to the U.S.
But other evidence suggests the Clinton administration did not take advantage of offers to get bin Laden -- and that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was exploding during this time period.
At least two offers from the government of Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. were rebuffed by the Clinton administration in February and March of 1996, a period of time when the former president's attention was distracted by his intensifying relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
One of the offers took place during a secret meeting in Washington, the same day Clinton was meeting with Lewinsky in the White House just miles away.
On Feb. 6, 1996, then-U.S. Ambassador to the Sudan Tim Carney met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Osman Mohammed Taha at Taha's home in the capital city of Khartoum. The meeting took place just a half mile from bin Laden's residence at the time, according to Richard Miniter's book "Losing bin Laden."
During the meeting, Carney reminded the Sudanese official that Washington was increasingly nervous about the presence of bin Laden in Sudan, reports Miniter.
Foreign Minister Taha countered by saying that Sudan was very concerned about its poor relationship with the U.S.
Then came the bombshell offer:
"If you want bin Laden, we will give you bin Laden," Foreign Minister Taha told Ambassador Carney.
Still, with the extraordinarily fortuitous offer on the table, back in Washington President Clinton had other things on his mind.
A timeline of events chronicled in the Starr Report shows that during the period of late January through March 1996, Mr. Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was then at its most intense.
On Feb. 4, 1996, for instance - two days before Ambassador Carney's key meeting with the Sudanese Foreign Minister, the president was focused not on Osama bin Laden, but instead on the 23-year-old White House intern.
Their rendezvous that day included a sexual encounter followed by a leisurely chat between Clinton and Lewinsky, as the two "sat and talked [afterward] for about 45 minutes," according to the Starr Report.
Later in the afternoon that same day, as Sudanese officials weighed their decision to offer bin Laden to the U.S., Clinton found time to call Lewinsky "[to say] he had enjoyed their time together." If there were
any calls from Clinton to the State Department or Khartoum that day, the records have yet to surface in published reports.
The Feb. 4 encounter with Lewinsky followed a period of intense contact detailed in the Starr report in interviews with the former White House intern, including a sexual encounter on Jan. 6, 1996, several sessions of phone sex during the week of Jan. 14 - 21, and another sexual encounter on Jan. 21.
Sudan's offer to the U.S. for bin Laden's extradition remained on the table for at least a month, and was reiterated by Sudanese officials who traveled to Washington as late as March 10, 1996.
On March 3, Sudan's Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa met secretly with Ambassador Carney, another State Department official and the CIA's Africa bureau Director of Operations at an Arlington, Va., hotel, according to Miniter's book.
Erwa was handed a list of issues the U.S. wanted taken care of if relations were to improve. The list included a demand for information on bin Laden's terrorist network inside Sudan.
Erwa replied that he would have to consult with Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir about the list. When he returned for a March 10, 1996 meeting with the CIA's Africa bureau chief, "Erwa would be empowered to make an extraordinary offer," writes Miniter.
On instructions from its president, the government of Sudan agreed to arrest bin Laden and hand him over to U.S law enforcement at a time and place of the Clinton administration's choosing. "Where should we send him?" Erwa asked the CIA representative.
In his 2002 speech President Clinton has acknowledged being fully briefed on the Sudanese efforts to turn over the 9/11 mastermind, admitting that he made the final decision to turn the offer down.
As chronicled in the Starr report, however, Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky proved to be a growing distraction around this time.
Two weeks before the secret meeting between Erwa, Carney and the CIA bureau chief, the president summoned Lewinsky to the White House to inform her that he "no longer felt right" about their relationship and it would have to be suspended until after the election.
Lewinsky explained, however, that Clinton's decision to put their relationship on hold did little to change its basic character, telling Starr's investigators, "There'd continue to be this flirtation when we'd see each other."
The Starr report noted, "In late February or March [1996], the president telephoned her at home and said he was disappointed that, because she had already left the White House for the evening, they could not get together."
The call, Lewinsky said, "sort of implied to me that he was interested in starting up again."
On March 10, 1996, as Sudanese Defense Minister Erwa was making his extraordinary offer for bin Laden's arrest to the CIA's Africa bureau chief, Clinton met with Lewinsky in the White House.
The Starr report:
"On March 10, 1996, Ms. Lewinsky took a visiting friend, Natalie Ungvari, to the White House. They bumped into the president, who said when Ms. Lewinsky introduced them, 'You must be her friend from California.' Ms. Ungvari was 'shocked' that the president knew where she was from."
Though there was no physical contact that day, three weeks later, on March 31, 1996, Clinton resumed his sexual relationship with Lewinsky.
It was around this time, the president later admitted, that he was involved in delicate negotiations to try to persuade Riyadh to take bin Laden, after refusing to accept his extradition to the U.S.
"I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have," Clinton admitted in the 2002 speech. "But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."
On April 7, 1996, Monica Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. Around the same time, the administration's hunt for bin Laden finally seemed to begin in earnest. Just weeks after Clinton spurned Sudan's bin Laden offer, for instance, the CIA created a separate operational unit dedicated to tracking down bin Laden in Sudan.
But it happened too late to capture the 9/11 mastermind. On May 18, 1996, bin Laden boarded a chartered plane in Khartoum with his wives, children, some 150 al-Qaida jihadists and a cache of arms - and flew off to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
God Bless the United Staes of America and our Armed Forces!
This history reminder was posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
In Allah We Trust? What Obama Did To The National Day Of Prayer
In 1952 President Truman established one day a year as
a "National Day of Prayer".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1988 President Reagan designated the First Thursday
in May of each year as the "National Day of Prayer".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In June 2007, (then) Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
declared that the USA "Was no longer a Christian nation."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This year President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer
ceremony at the White House under the ruse of "not wanting to offend anyone"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUT...
on September 25, 2009 from 4 AM until 7 PM, a National Day of Prayer
FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION was Held on Capitol Hill,
Beside the White House.
There were over 50,000 Muslims in D.C. that day.
HE PRAYS WITH THE MUSLIMS!
I guess it Doesn't matter if "Christians" are offended by this event -
We obviously Don't count as "anyone" Anymore.
The direction this country is headed should strike fear in the
heart of every Christian, especially knowing that the Muslim
religion believes that if Christians cannot be converted,
they should be annihilated.
This is not a Rumor - Go to the website to confirm this info:
http://www.islamoncapitolhill.com
MTW- For the record, we should all have the chance to worship God. I personally believe we are all worshipping the same God anyhow as Christians-most denominations do. (I do not know about the muslims). Not a Christian Nation? You, Mr. Obama, are pandering to atheists. I will pray for YOUR soul even though I do not want to, for I AM A CHRISTIAN!
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
a "National Day of Prayer".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1988 President Reagan designated the First Thursday
in May of each year as the "National Day of Prayer".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In June 2007, (then) Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
declared that the USA "Was no longer a Christian nation."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This year President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer
ceremony at the White House under the ruse of "not wanting to offend anyone"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUT...
on September 25, 2009 from 4 AM until 7 PM, a National Day of Prayer
FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION was Held on Capitol Hill,
Beside the White House.
There were over 50,000 Muslims in D.C. that day.
HE PRAYS WITH THE MUSLIMS!
I guess it Doesn't matter if "Christians" are offended by this event -
We obviously Don't count as "anyone" Anymore.
The direction this country is headed should strike fear in the
heart of every Christian, especially knowing that the Muslim
religion believes that if Christians cannot be converted,
they should be annihilated.
This is not a Rumor - Go to the website to confirm this info:
http://www.islamoncapitolhill.com
MTW- For the record, we should all have the chance to worship God. I personally believe we are all worshipping the same God anyhow as Christians-most denominations do. (I do not know about the muslims). Not a Christian Nation? You, Mr. Obama, are pandering to atheists. I will pray for YOUR soul even though I do not want to, for I AM A CHRISTIAN!
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Cannot Help My Opinion
Cannot Help My Opinion-1-26-2012
By Michael T. Wayne
How in the Hell is Warren Buffet’s “secretary” the poster woman for the average secretary, when she makes the vague amount of 200-500K per year? I am sure she receives stock options and bonuses as well. The average secretary makes 43k. Is Obama a moron? Sitting next to Buffet, she looks as if she could be his wife. Maybe she does “wife stuff” as well. He does not mind his tax rate, anyhow, he does not receive a normal paycheck. This will all become a nice investigation for this woman, as the president has found another “prop” to try and fool the American people with. I am no fool, and she can damn well afford her taxes. Had to say something, as I am so sick of our manipulative leader.
On a different note, I want to tell you a story I heard from a fellow member down at the shooting range I belong to. He told of a young illegal immigrant, who had no license, and was forced to ride with him. Him, being a white guy in his fifties. Each day, he would learn more from this young man from the Caribbean. Turns out, he and his family of 8 others, had come to America, with two of his sisters already pregnant with “anchor” babies. The family of 9 lives in a $1300 per month new 3 bedroom house,
and the young man was the only one employed. The two sisters are receiving government aid, as well as the mother, and his two brothers. There were three young kids as well,
as they qualified for food stamps. Basically, of the six adults, one works and the others are ALL on some sort of government aid. After a couple of weeks of prodding,
the young man told his co-worker he had lost his driver’s license, and would be able to get a job other than a helper after his license was returned. He however, would not disclose the reason for the loss of it. So, the old man finally asks one day, “How is it that all of you receive government aid? And what will you do if you do not get a license?” he replied “Well, if I cannot get a better job, he said, I will go to the Embassy and complain, and they will give me a government check”. This old man was angry now, pulled his pay stub out, and said to him, “Do you know where the money your family gets comes from?” “Obama”, he said without hesitation. “Hell no!”, the old guy replies. Covering his pay amount (smart man), he had to school this kid about where that money really comes from. Sad, but true. Why do you think Obama lets illegals stay? They all believe, and rightly so, that he is the one supporting them financially. Not the tax payers. And the ones who vote for him illegally? That is why he lets them stay. We must stop him. His mission seems to be to destroy our unity as people and a powerful nation, as our freedoms slowly decrease, while the rights of illegals and Muslims must not be infringed upon. Constitution? We don’t need no stinking Constitution.
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
By Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
By Michael T. Wayne
How in the Hell is Warren Buffet’s “secretary” the poster woman for the average secretary, when she makes the vague amount of 200-500K per year? I am sure she receives stock options and bonuses as well. The average secretary makes 43k. Is Obama a moron? Sitting next to Buffet, she looks as if she could be his wife. Maybe she does “wife stuff” as well. He does not mind his tax rate, anyhow, he does not receive a normal paycheck. This will all become a nice investigation for this woman, as the president has found another “prop” to try and fool the American people with. I am no fool, and she can damn well afford her taxes. Had to say something, as I am so sick of our manipulative leader.
On a different note, I want to tell you a story I heard from a fellow member down at the shooting range I belong to. He told of a young illegal immigrant, who had no license, and was forced to ride with him. Him, being a white guy in his fifties. Each day, he would learn more from this young man from the Caribbean. Turns out, he and his family of 8 others, had come to America, with two of his sisters already pregnant with “anchor” babies. The family of 9 lives in a $1300 per month new 3 bedroom house,
and the young man was the only one employed. The two sisters are receiving government aid, as well as the mother, and his two brothers. There were three young kids as well,
as they qualified for food stamps. Basically, of the six adults, one works and the others are ALL on some sort of government aid. After a couple of weeks of prodding,
the young man told his co-worker he had lost his driver’s license, and would be able to get a job other than a helper after his license was returned. He however, would not disclose the reason for the loss of it. So, the old man finally asks one day, “How is it that all of you receive government aid? And what will you do if you do not get a license?” he replied “Well, if I cannot get a better job, he said, I will go to the Embassy and complain, and they will give me a government check”. This old man was angry now, pulled his pay stub out, and said to him, “Do you know where the money your family gets comes from?” “Obama”, he said without hesitation. “Hell no!”, the old guy replies. Covering his pay amount (smart man), he had to school this kid about where that money really comes from. Sad, but true. Why do you think Obama lets illegals stay? They all believe, and rightly so, that he is the one supporting them financially. Not the tax payers. And the ones who vote for him illegally? That is why he lets them stay. We must stop him. His mission seems to be to destroy our unity as people and a powerful nation, as our freedoms slowly decrease, while the rights of illegals and Muslims must not be infringed upon. Constitution? We don’t need no stinking Constitution.
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
By Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
I Think It Is Funny!
I just had to share this with you:
Received: Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Subject: FW: FOUR OLD ITALIAN LADIES
I actually received this one from a gentleman who is older than I and who is a registered Democrat. He also attends church with me.
These four older ladies who lived in Italy always sat outside together near the church and chatted about when they were younger. One month ago they pooled their money together and bought a laptop.
Never having been, but heard all about Florida , they just happened to click on St. Augustine, FL. They read about the "Fountain of Youth" claimed by the Spaniards when they arrived there. They collected up all they had left and sent for four bottles of the water. As soon as it arrived, they drank as directed.
The rest of this story will make you a believer, because here they are today..
You Think Not?
This is TRUE! Really!
Would I lie to you?
We have a limited supply of this water available
at an incredibly low price of just $1,499.95 a bottle.
Seriously ..
HURRY BEFORE THE INVENTORY RUNS OUT !
Make checks payable to:
"Democratic National Committee"
(You can trust us, we would NEVER lie to you!)
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Received: Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Subject: FW: FOUR OLD ITALIAN LADIES
I actually received this one from a gentleman who is older than I and who is a registered Democrat. He also attends church with me.
These four older ladies who lived in Italy always sat outside together near the church and chatted about when they were younger. One month ago they pooled their money together and bought a laptop.
Never having been, but heard all about Florida , they just happened to click on St. Augustine, FL. They read about the "Fountain of Youth" claimed by the Spaniards when they arrived there. They collected up all they had left and sent for four bottles of the water. As soon as it arrived, they drank as directed.
The rest of this story will make you a believer, because here they are today..
You Think Not?
This is TRUE! Really!
Would I lie to you?
We have a limited supply of this water available
at an incredibly low price of just $1,499.95 a bottle.
Seriously ..
HURRY BEFORE THE INVENTORY RUNS OUT !
Make checks payable to:
"Democratic National Committee"
(You can trust us, we would NEVER lie to you!)
God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Spike Lee Sundance Rant
By Mike Krumboltz- Sundance 1-23-2012
Spike Lee doesn't hold back. The Oscar-nominated man behind "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" went off on Hollywood after Chris Rock asked a question following the Sundance screening for Lee's new film, "Red Hook Summer."
According to Entertainment Weekly, the film was screened for a large audience, some of whom left after the film took a controversial twist. That didn't seem to faze Lee. However, when Chris Rock asked Lee about financing the film, the director went off on a bit of a tirade.
Rock, who appeared to be joking around, said, "You spent your own money ... What would you have done differently if you'd actually gotten studio money? What else would have happened? Would you have blown up some (bleep)?"
Lee, apparently unamused, responded, "We never went to the studios with this film. I bought a camera and said we're gonna do this mother(bleeping) film ourselves. I didn't need a mother(bleeping) studio telling me something about Red Hook! They know nothing about black people! Nothing!" Lee then added, "And they're gonna give me notes about what a 13-year-old black boy and girl do in Red Hook? (Bleep) no!"
Lee later apologized for his outburst. "Sorry for that mother(bleeping) tirade," he said. "My wife is looking at me like I'm crazy."
"Red Hook," which stars Clarke Peters of "The Wire" and "Treme," is the story of a young boy from Atlanta who spends the summer in Brooklyn with his grandfather, whom he has never met. Lee makes an appearance as "Mookie," his character from "Do the Right Thing." However, Lee was quite clear when he told audiences that "Red Hook Summer" is not a "mother(bleeping) sequel" to "Do the Right Thing."
Got that, everybody? Not. A. Sequel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Lee, the appropriate response to this is the following: No my friend, we wanted to make sure the writing was authentic to our culture. (blank)head. And I thought you only hated white people, as if anyone has a choice as to whom their parents are or where they are from. (blank)(blank)
God Bless the United States of America!
Post and comment by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Spike Lee doesn't hold back. The Oscar-nominated man behind "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" went off on Hollywood after Chris Rock asked a question following the Sundance screening for Lee's new film, "Red Hook Summer."
According to Entertainment Weekly, the film was screened for a large audience, some of whom left after the film took a controversial twist. That didn't seem to faze Lee. However, when Chris Rock asked Lee about financing the film, the director went off on a bit of a tirade.
Rock, who appeared to be joking around, said, "You spent your own money ... What would you have done differently if you'd actually gotten studio money? What else would have happened? Would you have blown up some (bleep)?"
Lee, apparently unamused, responded, "We never went to the studios with this film. I bought a camera and said we're gonna do this mother(bleeping) film ourselves. I didn't need a mother(bleeping) studio telling me something about Red Hook! They know nothing about black people! Nothing!" Lee then added, "And they're gonna give me notes about what a 13-year-old black boy and girl do in Red Hook? (Bleep) no!"
Lee later apologized for his outburst. "Sorry for that mother(bleeping) tirade," he said. "My wife is looking at me like I'm crazy."
"Red Hook," which stars Clarke Peters of "The Wire" and "Treme," is the story of a young boy from Atlanta who spends the summer in Brooklyn with his grandfather, whom he has never met. Lee makes an appearance as "Mookie," his character from "Do the Right Thing." However, Lee was quite clear when he told audiences that "Red Hook Summer" is not a "mother(bleeping) sequel" to "Do the Right Thing."
Got that, everybody? Not. A. Sequel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Lee, the appropriate response to this is the following: No my friend, we wanted to make sure the writing was authentic to our culture. (blank)head. And I thought you only hated white people, as if anyone has a choice as to whom their parents are or where they are from. (blank)(blank)
God Bless the United States of America!
Post and comment by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
My comments on the State of the Union Address-Redux
By Michael T. Wayne-1-25-2012
Alright now, here is the problem I have with this, the State of the Union Address, 1-24-2012. I have slept on it, and I must add this update to my post. Late last year, I was having a discussion with my mother. Obama had recently threatened those of us who rely on Social Security; you know, to afford food? (Hard to live on that much money, but we did finally get a $40 raise-per month-for the first time since he took office). Naturally, I was a little (very) angry, for I am disabled. The first family could not even go on Christmas vacation together, costing us 4 million dollars. Not the first time Michelle has done this, forcing double the security measures, and twice the money. I said, and I will try to get it as close to verbatim as possible, the following- For one thing, we need to stop giving tax breaks to companies for outsourcing jobs overseas. They should, instead, be hit with penalties and sanctions. We also need to stop the tax cuts on the wealthy, for THEY can afford to pay their taxes. Why should a millionaire pay 15%, when I paid over 30% during my entire career? These men in office garner favor from the rich (and powerful). She responded that if such things were done, it would affect the jobs provided by companies owned by the very wealthy, and that they would simply pass on the expense to their employees, and it would reduce the number of jobs available. I said, What? Then we put legislature in effect that would prevent them from doing so. We would then, at the same time need to provide awards to businesses which remain in America. We should not have to, it would seem logical to me that they would want “Made in America” stamped on their product without an incentive, but I am a good person.
And as for China? Our leader should have the guts to stand up to any country in the world, whether it is China, Iran or very soon, Russia again. Why do we continue to placate the Chinese by purchasing their exports, most of which is JUNK, mainly the electronics. These things had a lot more quality when they came mainly from Japan, but, they are so preoccupied with killing whales, sharks and dolphins, it would seem they are no longer interested in providing the world with useful things. Obama says the world respects us. Well, I am pretty sure they do not. You see, they have eyes and ears just as I do, and they, too, watched his first 2 years with a Democratic controlled Congress. And how did he give us the “change” he touted when running for President? Right, he and they made things worse. But that was ALL G. W. Bush’s fault. In the second 2 years, he has been shackled to a very obdurate Republican Congress, and nothing gets approved, or simply passed, no matter how many times he tells them that they MUST pass this or that. The division between the parties is destroying us; I liken it to the conflict(s) in the middle-east, as the Arabs and Jews have been at odds over for 2 millennia.
So, if we re-elect Obama, do we give him Congress too? If you are ignorant of history, you are damned to repeat it. My party thinks this way, so I am with them. The other party is totally wrong. OK. Which party says that? Both? Correct? Where is the voice of reason, the party for me, a person whom takes the GOOD ideas from each side and would like to see those things come to fruition? There is no such party. We need a third, deciding party, made up of people who love this country, and more importantly their freedom, for it is ever diminishing, rather than lining their pockets, or doing the bidding of unions and lobbyists. Now, before I was half way finished sharing my thoughts, I was told by my mother that I sounded like a dictator. Well, I feel as if I am living in Communist Russia since the Obamas took over, so, it sounds fine to me. My voter’s registration card may say R or D, but that does not mean, thank God, that I am beholding to either side in this whining mass of Washington liars, and I will vote for whomever I believe will do the best job, not the man who says he will, and has been shown to be wrong.
The problem is, Obama can do nothing but tell us what he has done or wants to do. Most of what he says is not true. So, we put Romney in. He says that he can do a better job. I suppose I will give him the benefit of the doubt, for he has been intelligent enough to earn 150-200 or more million dollars. There is no telling how much good he could do for us, a lot I think. And as for Newt Gingrich? Not so sure. I do not believe he has the proper finesse to sway his D opponents in Congress, however, we should at least give the new R President a Republican Congress so that he may get something accomplished. I will not vote for a repeat of the last few years, as I did not vote for him to begin with. But hey, I think like a dictator, right? That is why I heard a few of my very own thoughts expressed by Obama last night. God help us. Of course, I have been told, and it’s alright, I’m just a little crazy. Not crazy enough to vote for Obama, though!
On a more positive note, a big Thank You once again to Seal Team 6, for its rescue of Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted from the Somalies. Is that not a mess Bill Clinton failed to clean up, just like bin-Laden? I forget, is Clinton a Republican or a Democrat? Keep up the good work, and God Bless You All!
God Bless the United States of America, and our Armed Forces!
By Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Alright now, here is the problem I have with this, the State of the Union Address, 1-24-2012. I have slept on it, and I must add this update to my post. Late last year, I was having a discussion with my mother. Obama had recently threatened those of us who rely on Social Security; you know, to afford food? (Hard to live on that much money, but we did finally get a $40 raise-per month-for the first time since he took office). Naturally, I was a little (very) angry, for I am disabled. The first family could not even go on Christmas vacation together, costing us 4 million dollars. Not the first time Michelle has done this, forcing double the security measures, and twice the money. I said, and I will try to get it as close to verbatim as possible, the following- For one thing, we need to stop giving tax breaks to companies for outsourcing jobs overseas. They should, instead, be hit with penalties and sanctions. We also need to stop the tax cuts on the wealthy, for THEY can afford to pay their taxes. Why should a millionaire pay 15%, when I paid over 30% during my entire career? These men in office garner favor from the rich (and powerful). She responded that if such things were done, it would affect the jobs provided by companies owned by the very wealthy, and that they would simply pass on the expense to their employees, and it would reduce the number of jobs available. I said, What? Then we put legislature in effect that would prevent them from doing so. We would then, at the same time need to provide awards to businesses which remain in America. We should not have to, it would seem logical to me that they would want “Made in America” stamped on their product without an incentive, but I am a good person.
And as for China? Our leader should have the guts to stand up to any country in the world, whether it is China, Iran or very soon, Russia again. Why do we continue to placate the Chinese by purchasing their exports, most of which is JUNK, mainly the electronics. These things had a lot more quality when they came mainly from Japan, but, they are so preoccupied with killing whales, sharks and dolphins, it would seem they are no longer interested in providing the world with useful things. Obama says the world respects us. Well, I am pretty sure they do not. You see, they have eyes and ears just as I do, and they, too, watched his first 2 years with a Democratic controlled Congress. And how did he give us the “change” he touted when running for President? Right, he and they made things worse. But that was ALL G. W. Bush’s fault. In the second 2 years, he has been shackled to a very obdurate Republican Congress, and nothing gets approved, or simply passed, no matter how many times he tells them that they MUST pass this or that. The division between the parties is destroying us; I liken it to the conflict(s) in the middle-east, as the Arabs and Jews have been at odds over for 2 millennia.
So, if we re-elect Obama, do we give him Congress too? If you are ignorant of history, you are damned to repeat it. My party thinks this way, so I am with them. The other party is totally wrong. OK. Which party says that? Both? Correct? Where is the voice of reason, the party for me, a person whom takes the GOOD ideas from each side and would like to see those things come to fruition? There is no such party. We need a third, deciding party, made up of people who love this country, and more importantly their freedom, for it is ever diminishing, rather than lining their pockets, or doing the bidding of unions and lobbyists. Now, before I was half way finished sharing my thoughts, I was told by my mother that I sounded like a dictator. Well, I feel as if I am living in Communist Russia since the Obamas took over, so, it sounds fine to me. My voter’s registration card may say R or D, but that does not mean, thank God, that I am beholding to either side in this whining mass of Washington liars, and I will vote for whomever I believe will do the best job, not the man who says he will, and has been shown to be wrong.
The problem is, Obama can do nothing but tell us what he has done or wants to do. Most of what he says is not true. So, we put Romney in. He says that he can do a better job. I suppose I will give him the benefit of the doubt, for he has been intelligent enough to earn 150-200 or more million dollars. There is no telling how much good he could do for us, a lot I think. And as for Newt Gingrich? Not so sure. I do not believe he has the proper finesse to sway his D opponents in Congress, however, we should at least give the new R President a Republican Congress so that he may get something accomplished. I will not vote for a repeat of the last few years, as I did not vote for him to begin with. But hey, I think like a dictator, right? That is why I heard a few of my very own thoughts expressed by Obama last night. God help us. Of course, I have been told, and it’s alright, I’m just a little crazy. Not crazy enough to vote for Obama, though!
On a more positive note, a big Thank You once again to Seal Team 6, for its rescue of Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted from the Somalies. Is that not a mess Bill Clinton failed to clean up, just like bin-Laden? I forget, is Clinton a Republican or a Democrat? Keep up the good work, and God Bless You All!
God Bless the United States of America, and our Armed Forces!
By Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
State of the Union: Fact Checking the President
By ABC News | ABC News – 1-25-2012 12:30 am
ABC News' Huma Khan, Elizabeth Hartfield, Matt Negrin, Chris Good, Amy Bingham, Jeunee Simon, Greg Krieg, Meg Fowler and Sarah Parnass report:
Fact or Fiction Number 1 - The Booming Economy: Obama's Jobs Story
Did the economy crater before President Obama's inauguration, then rebound once his policies took effect?
It seems unlikely that the president would utter inaccurate jobs numbers during his State of the Union address, but while we wait for official White House citation, the president made at least one claim that for now looks iffy. The transcript:
" In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect. Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005."
4 million jobs lost in 6 months before Obama took office: Looks like this total falls short of 4 million. Subtracting the total employment listed in the January 2009 Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report from the same total in August 2008, one arrives at 3.378 million jobs lost. **
Another 4 million jobs lost before Obama's policies took full effect. Using this Bureau of Labor Statistics table, starting at February 2009, the sum of monthly job losses surpass 4 million in October 2009. President Obama's stimulus was passed in February 2009-though it took notoriously long for that money to make its way out the door.
3 million jobs created over 22 months, more jobs created in 2011 than in any year since 2005. Using total employment, Obama's numbers don't hold up. According to the same BLS table, the economy added 2.056 million jobs over 21 months (counting backward, the next month saw job losses). And 2011 saw more job growth than any year since 2006, not 2005. But Politifact notes that Obama's statement was accurate-he was talking about private-sector jobs.
**UPDATE: President Obama was referencing private-sector jobs exclusively when talking about jobs lost before his time in office, according to the White House official. Based on this private-sector jobs chart, the economy lost 3.506 jobs in the six months before his inauguration, not four million.
Fact or Fiction Number 2 - Obama's Plan for Foreclosures
"That's why I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save
about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won't add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust."
The Obama administration has announced a number of programs to salvage the housing market, which continues to be a drag on the U.S. economy. Today, the president was referring to a plan he announced in October from the front porch of a home in Las Vegas, which has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. The president's plan would allow struggling homeowners who have mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to refinance without getting a new appraisal or a full credit check. The program would also eliminate some risk-based fees for borrowers.
The proposal would alter the $75 billion Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, which was launched in 2009 to help distressed homeowners.
If a homeowner has a mortgage of $250,000 at a 6 percent interest rate, they would be able to take advantage of record low interest rates and refinance their home. If they got a rate that's 4.5 percent or lower, the homeowner would save $250 a month, or $3,000 a year. Given that there are 4 million homeowners who are backed by government-sponsored entities, the administration says the program can help millions of Americans.
But the initial HARP program fell short of its initial goals, with only about 900,000 homeowners taking advantage of it, far less than what the administration had hoped. Additionally, many homeowners who took advantage of the program ended up defaulting again on their mortgage.
The president tonight touted this new proposal as having no red tape or runaround from banks, but there are a number of caveats in his program. Only those who signed a mortgage before May 31, 2009, and have not refinanced previously under the Home Affordable Refinance Program are eligible for the new scheme. The loan-to-value ratio has to be greater than 80 percent. Borrowers must also have good credit and must have kept up with their mortgage payments, with no late payment in the past six months and no more than one late payment in the past 12 months.
Some economists calculate that it would only benefit 1 million households, a relatively small number given that more than 6 million homeowners are facing foreclosure or have delinquent payments. Others say the restrictions are too stringent and automatically cut out those under-water homeowners who have bad credit.
Fact or Fiction Number 3 - The American Auto Industry is Back
The manufacturing sector is a key part of Obama's "Blueprint for An America Built to Last," which he outlined in his state of the union address, and a key part of that sector is the American automobile industry. "On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse … and tonight, the American auto industry is back," Obama said in his address.
When Obama took office in 2008 the American auto industry was indeed in crisis. General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford were all facing financial turmoil, and seeking government bailouts in order to stay afloat. In 2009, Obama hired Steve Rattner to serve as his car czar, and oversee the federal bailout of these three American institutions.
Today, General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford have turned around. General Motors recently reclaimed its place as the top-selling automaker in the world, ousting the previous top-seller, Toyota. Chrysler is currently America's fastest growing car company, and Ford recently announced plans to invest $446 million in manufacturing in Brazil.
As part of this claim, Obama gave a subtle jab to his one of the GOP presidential candidates, Mitt Romney. On the topic of the auto industry, Obama said "some even said we should let it die." That comment was likely a reference to the former Massachusetts governor's 2008 Op-Ed piece in the New York Times titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," in which Romney argued against a bailout for the industry.
Fact or Fiction Number 4 - Debt Serious: Obama's Plug for Students
In his State of the Union speech tonight, President Obama said Congress should slow interest rates on student loans because "Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt."
As of late 2010, that's true. In September, a student aid study reported that Americans owed $830 billion in student loan debt, and $825 billion in credit card debt.
The National Center for Education Statistics says : "38 percent [of all undergraduates in 2007-08] took out an average of $7,100 in student loans … and 4 percent of students had parents who took out an average of $10,800 in Parent PLUS loans. … 34 percent of all undergraduates took out federal Stafford loans averaging a total of $5,000. Subsidized Stafford loans were received by 30 percent of undergraduates and averaged $3,400, while 22 percent received an average of $3,200 in unsubsidized Stafford loans."
Fact or Fiction Number 5 - The Rich, Their Secretaries and Taxes
Treasury Secretary Geithner yesterday declined to answer a key question about the president's proposed "Buffett Rule": How many millionaires and billionaires pay lower tax rates than middle-income families?
The answer: not that many.
Read more from ABC News' Jon Karl here.
Fact or Fiction Number 6 - Soaring Energy Production and Advances in Offshore Drilling
Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right - eight years. Not only that - last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.
The president tonight touted the rise in domestic energy production and a decrease in U.S. oil imports during his term. While his claims on oil production are true, they don't quite live up to the facts when it comes to imports.
In 2010 - the most recent full year for which the U.S. Energy Information Administration has published data - crude oil production was the highest since 2003. Total energy production, which includes fossil fuels and renewable energy, was the highest it has been since the EIA started recording the data in 1949. Read more from the EIA here.
In the first seven months of 2011, total production was more than 5 percent higher than during the same time period in 2009, and the total numbers for the full year 2011 looked to surpass 2010. Read more from the EIA here.
Meanwhile, offshore oil production has grown under Obama despite the moratorium on deepwater drilling that he imposed in 2010, following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was at record levels that year. In 2009, total oil production from the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf was the highest since 2003, according to data from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Imports have dropped over the years, especially from oil-rich Middle Eastern countries. But the president's assertion that foreign oil imports are the lowest in the past 16 years may not completely be true. The United States imported more petroleum in 2010 than it did in 2009, according to the EIA. And total imports in 2010 - including that of oil and coal - were lowest in 13 years.
Fact or Fiction Number 7 - Overseas Tax Breaks
Obama called tonight for America to "stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America."
"Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas," Obama said at in his third State of the Union address Tuesday night. "Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it."
The president was correct in saying that business can lower their tax rates by fleeing U.S. soil. Of the 34 developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, America has the second-highest corporate tax rate.
U.S.-based companies are taxed at 35 percent by the federal government. Add state taxes to that and the average corporate tax rate is 39.2 percent. Only Japan's is higher at 39.5 percent, according to OECD data from 2011.
But when tax deductions and loopholes are factored into the equation, the U.S. corporate rate falls to roughly 27 percent, according to the Tax Foundation.
And according to a study by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy , 280 of the corporations on the Fortune 500 list paid an average rate of 18.5 percent.
Obama also called for a "basic minimum tax" on every multinational corporation to prevent companies from outsourcing to overseas tax havens.
Obama's approach on this issue is virtually the opposite of his GOP presidential rivals. Nearly every Republican presidential candidate has called for U.S. companies that earn profits overseas to be able to bring those profits back to America tax-free.
As the tax code stands now, those companies have to pay the U.S. government the difference between the lower, foreign tax rates and the often higher U.S. tax rate.
The president said he wants to increase tax cuts for American manufacturers and double the deduction for high-tech manufacturers.
Manufacturers already receive multiple tax credits and deductions that the lower their collective taxes by about $58 billion annually, the Fiscal Times reports .
As of 2010, tax credits for investing in new facilities focused primarily on energy efficiency. For example, $240 million of deductions were given to corporations who invested in clean coal facilities in 2011.About $39 billion worth of deductions went to support investments in machinery and equipment.
Fact or Fiction Number 8 - The Tax Man Is Hereth: Can Obama Tax the Rich to Save the Debt?
President Obama suggested in his speech tonight that taxing the rich will "reduce our deficit." Unfortunately, tax experts disagree.
Obama need look no further than the two men he chose to lead his deficit commission, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. They wrote in The Washington Post : "The president must be willing to support real savings in entitlements that deal with long-term costs. We can't simply cut or tax our way out of this problem. Bringing our debt under control will require tackling the growth of entitlements and reforming the tax code to promote economic growth and generate enough revenue to meet our commitments."
Here's what Obama said in his speech:
"We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. … If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. … Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense. … When I get a tax break I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. They know that this generation's success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to the future of their country, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That's how we'll reduce our deficit. That's an America built to last."
Fact or Fiction Number 9 - Manchurian Trade Rate: Who Took on China More?
President Obama said tonight that he's "brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration."
President Bush filed seven complaints with the World Trade Organization against China, over eight years. Obama has filed five in three years.
Obama's team must have done some math: If Obama keeps that rate the same, he'll have filed about 13 by the time his (presumptive) second term ends. That's just one short of 14, which would be, as Obama said, twice as much as Bush's seven.
The White House didn't support the anti-piracy bill known as SOPA , though the administration did voice support for a kind of legislation that addressed piracy. "Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing," a White House statement said.
Fact or Fiction Number 10 - A Milk Spill Was Equal To An Oil Spill In The Eyes of Federal Rules
As an example of his record on getting rid of unnecessary federal regulations, President Obama cited the elimination of a rule that classified a milk spill as a type of oil spill.
While the comparison seems odd, it is indeed based in an old federal law. An obscure quirk in an EPA rule called the Oil Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasures (SPCC) rule classified milk as a type of oil. The logic behind the rule, which went into effect in the 1970s, was that milk fat is a type of animal fat, and is therefore technically a type of oil. In August of 2011 finally altered the rule, resulting in the exemption of milk and milk product containers.
Obama's larger claim he sought to make through the utilization of this milk example, is that he has generally been against increasing regulations. He asserted that he has approved fewer regulations in the first three of his presidency than George W. Bush did in his first three years. This claim is true. In the first 33 months of his presidency Obama approved 613 federal rules, while President George W. Bush had approved 643 in the same time frame, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News .
However that same analysis notes that while the number of regulations approved by Obama alone is smaller, he has approved a larger number of federal rules which carry a price tag over $100 million than his Republican predecessor had at the same point in his presidency. Obama has approved 129 of these rules, while Bush had approved 90.
Fact or Fiction Number 11 - It's Getting Hot in Here: Obama Repeats a Demand to Tone It Down
Remember last January, when President Obama flew to Arizona after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and called on the country's political class to take it down a notch?
"But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds," Obama said a year ago. "What we can't do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."
Twelve months later, Obama's message is about the same. To be sure, it's been a heated year - with the debt ceiling debate, the Republican primary and more.
Obama said near the end of his State of the Union speech tonight: "None of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction, that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas."
Fact or Fiction Number 12 - Can President Obama Stimulate the Stimulus and Use the War Funds to Pay Down the Debt and Build New Roads?
President Obama has promised quite a lot tonight, but never so much as in this fevered paragraph below.
We'll take it line by line:
In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects.
The president wasn't the first to say it, but he did admit as much - " Shovel ready wasn't quite as, uh, shovel ready as we thought," he told his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness when they met in Durham, NC, last June. He was referring to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as "the stimulus," a plan to spend approximately $787 billion on infrastructure renewal, "creating and saving" millions of jobs in the process. But the building of the roads and rails has been slow. Bickering over contracts and other issues have plagued the program. It is not clear what, if anything, the president can do to stimulate his stimulus. A single executive order hardly seems like it'd be enough.
But you need to fund these projects.
True, but that was what the stimulus money had been meant for, right?
Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.
Sounds simple, right? Not so fast. When it comes to government, "a penny saved" is often confused with "a penny not spent." The dollars that the U.S. will not spend in Iraq and Afghanistan (as the latter conflict winds down) do not get thrown back into some imaginary pot (Republicans might say, "slush fund") for paying down the debt or building high-speed railways. In fact, the billions authorized by the Federal government for fighting abroad helped to create that debt. Less spending on the war front will surely help with the bottom line, but it is not a newly realized rainy-day fund.
Also Read
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Michael T. Wayne-
Not my article, but I had to post this, because he surely knows how to obfuscate the facts, and make it sound as if all of his ideas are the perfect solution. That was one hell of a campaign speech. It does not help the division of the American people to see half of the room stand and clap EVERY time. Up, down, up, down. It is no wonder we have so many citizens at each other’s’ throats whenever political parties collide. I remain a man with no party or allegiance to either side. Find this article on your computer, if only to click on the myriad of links. Best speech since he conned America into electing his incompetent self. We do need to get some Supreme Court Justices under the age of 80! Good for the ones who did not show!
God Bless the United States of America!
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Dirty Cop Middendorf Gets Away With Assault
Shocking moment a 66-year-old-dementia sufferer is kicked to the ground and beaten by police officer who tried to delete video from his police car camera By Charles Walford.
Last updated at 7:58 PM on 21st January 2012
This is the shocking moment a police officer launches a vicious assault on a 66-year-old-dementia sufferer.
Officer Derek Middendorf then tried to cover his tracks by deleting the recording from his dashcam.
But it has been recovered by technicians in Florida, in the US, and now the attorney for victim Albert Flowers told Florida Today that his client was prepared to sue the city of Melbourne.
Mr. Flowers walks towards Officer Middendorf, in front of the police car
Attack: Officer Middendorf then kicks Mr Flowers hard in the groin, causing him to fall backwards
'He should be fired,' attorney Paul Bross said of Officer Derek Middendorf. 'Anyone who’s being pulled over by this officer should be terrified.'
'It’s clear (Officer Middendorf) tried to destroy all the video in this case. He thought he had turned off the camera, and that’s why he acted the way he did.'
The video shows Flowers calmly walking towards the police cruiser before Officer Middendorf suddenly delivers a kick to his groin.
Before Flowers is able to get up, the policeman drops to his knees and pounds his fists into Mr Flowers’ face.
Mr. Flowers spent a month in the hospital after the beating.
Beating: Officer Middendorf strikes Mr. Flowers several times in the face
Officer Middendorf continues to hit Mr Flowers as he lays on the ground
Back-up: Eventually more officers come to the scene, with Officer Middendorf straddling Mr. Flowers to stop him getting up
Melbourne City Attorney Paul Gougelman promised to review the video to see if the city had any responsibility to pay for Mr Flowers’ health care.
'What I urge everybody to do is stand back and let the dust settle,' Mr Gougelman said. 'There is always more to the story. It’s always important to have a good working relationship in the community.'
Charges against Flowers were dropped by the Brevard County State Attorney’s Office after they learned about his dementia.
Middendorf was initially reprimanded for tampering with the recording device, but the city chose not pursue an administrative review at the time.
'Information regarding the arrest of Albert Flowers was sufficient to indicate that an internal investigation was not warranted,' Melbourne Police Chief Steve Mimbs said in a press advisory before the video was released. 'Officer Derek Middendorf is a valued officer whose record since joining the department in 2005 reflects the fact that he has done a very good job for the city.'
Middendorf indicated in his report that he used force against Flowers after the man did not obey orders to stop moving toward him. The officer said he suspected Mr Flowers may have had a knife.
'I had to react and protect myself in fear he was going to attack me,' the report said. 'Not knowing if he was still armed or not … I struck the defendant in the face to distract him.'
Mr Flowers’ dementia has worsened since returning home from the hospital, according to his granddaughter, Donna Jackson.
'The family’s just upset by the whole thing,'Ms Jackson explained. 'We are glad they dropped the charges. We just want to move forward.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089868/Dementia-sufferer-66-beaten-police-officer-Melbourne-Florida.html#ixzz1kEaKVRjy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael T. Wayne-
This is a disgrace, or should be to all law enforcement professionals, unless they agree with a "Shoot first and ask a question later" mentality perpetrated by an obvious coward, worried about a knife, while carrying a gun and taser. They tased him too, you know. In the face! I am incensed over this man's actions, and want, no, wish as many people as possible to look more into this, whether you live here or not. If it bothers you as much as me, please send the Mayor of Melbourne, Florida my regards. Middendorf, watch out now, there are a lot of armed citizens out there sir, with a lot better than knives, and WITHOUT dementia (or so I have read, 6 million in U.S.). Be well Officer. Or hopefully ex-officer M, inmate; a disgrace to anybody with an ounce of integrity.
Posted and comments by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Last updated at 7:58 PM on 21st January 2012
This is the shocking moment a police officer launches a vicious assault on a 66-year-old-dementia sufferer.
Officer Derek Middendorf then tried to cover his tracks by deleting the recording from his dashcam.
But it has been recovered by technicians in Florida, in the US, and now the attorney for victim Albert Flowers told Florida Today that his client was prepared to sue the city of Melbourne.
Mr. Flowers walks towards Officer Middendorf, in front of the police car
Attack: Officer Middendorf then kicks Mr Flowers hard in the groin, causing him to fall backwards
'He should be fired,' attorney Paul Bross said of Officer Derek Middendorf. 'Anyone who’s being pulled over by this officer should be terrified.'
'It’s clear (Officer Middendorf) tried to destroy all the video in this case. He thought he had turned off the camera, and that’s why he acted the way he did.'
The video shows Flowers calmly walking towards the police cruiser before Officer Middendorf suddenly delivers a kick to his groin.
Before Flowers is able to get up, the policeman drops to his knees and pounds his fists into Mr Flowers’ face.
Mr. Flowers spent a month in the hospital after the beating.
Beating: Officer Middendorf strikes Mr. Flowers several times in the face
Officer Middendorf continues to hit Mr Flowers as he lays on the ground
Back-up: Eventually more officers come to the scene, with Officer Middendorf straddling Mr. Flowers to stop him getting up
Melbourne City Attorney Paul Gougelman promised to review the video to see if the city had any responsibility to pay for Mr Flowers’ health care.
'What I urge everybody to do is stand back and let the dust settle,' Mr Gougelman said. 'There is always more to the story. It’s always important to have a good working relationship in the community.'
Charges against Flowers were dropped by the Brevard County State Attorney’s Office after they learned about his dementia.
Middendorf was initially reprimanded for tampering with the recording device, but the city chose not pursue an administrative review at the time.
'Information regarding the arrest of Albert Flowers was sufficient to indicate that an internal investigation was not warranted,' Melbourne Police Chief Steve Mimbs said in a press advisory before the video was released. 'Officer Derek Middendorf is a valued officer whose record since joining the department in 2005 reflects the fact that he has done a very good job for the city.'
Middendorf indicated in his report that he used force against Flowers after the man did not obey orders to stop moving toward him. The officer said he suspected Mr Flowers may have had a knife.
'I had to react and protect myself in fear he was going to attack me,' the report said. 'Not knowing if he was still armed or not … I struck the defendant in the face to distract him.'
Mr Flowers’ dementia has worsened since returning home from the hospital, according to his granddaughter, Donna Jackson.
'The family’s just upset by the whole thing,'Ms Jackson explained. 'We are glad they dropped the charges. We just want to move forward.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089868/Dementia-sufferer-66-beaten-police-officer-Melbourne-Florida.html#ixzz1kEaKVRjy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael T. Wayne-
This is a disgrace, or should be to all law enforcement professionals, unless they agree with a "Shoot first and ask a question later" mentality perpetrated by an obvious coward, worried about a knife, while carrying a gun and taser. They tased him too, you know. In the face! I am incensed over this man's actions, and want, no, wish as many people as possible to look more into this, whether you live here or not. If it bothers you as much as me, please send the Mayor of Melbourne, Florida my regards. Middendorf, watch out now, there are a lot of armed citizens out there sir, with a lot better than knives, and WITHOUT dementia (or so I have read, 6 million in U.S.). Be well Officer. Or hopefully ex-officer M, inmate; a disgrace to anybody with an ounce of integrity.
Posted and comments by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
Monday, January 23, 2012
One P#ssed Off Canadian Woman
Well said.
This is very good PLEASE read....
Thought you might like to read this letter
to the editor. Ever notice how some people
just seem to know how to write a letter?
This one surely does!
This was written by a Canadian woman, but oh how
it also applies to the U.S.A. , U.K. And Australia .
THIS ONE PACKS A FIRM PUNCH
Written by a housewife in New Brunswick , to
her local newspaper. This is one ticked off lady...
"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was
it or was it not, started by Islamic people who
brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001
and have continually threatened to do so since?
Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered
that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from
the capitol of the USA and in a field in Pennsylvania ?
Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?
And I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were
claiming to be tortured by a justice system of a
nation they are fighting against in a brutal Insurgency.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle
East, start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere belief
of which, is a crime punishable by beheading in Afghanistan .
I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are
sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head, while Berg
screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents'
in Afghanistan , come out and fight like men,
instead of disrespecting their own religion by
hiding in Mosques and behind women and children.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow
themselves up in search of Nirvana, care about the
innocent children within range of their suicide Bombs.
I'll care when the Canadian media stops pretending that
their freedom of Speech on stories, is more important than
the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting
at home, to hear about them when something happens.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a
CANADIAN soldier roughing up an Insurgent
terrorist to obtain information, know this:
I don't care.
When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the
head when he is told not to move because he
might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank:
I don't care. Shoot him again.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed 'special' food, that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe, in your heart of hearts:
I don't care.
And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes
it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.'
Well, Jimmy Crack Corn you guessed it.
I don't care!!
If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to
all your E-mail Friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to
the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior!
If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete
button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't
complain when more atrocities committed by radical
Muslims happen here in our great Country! And may I add:
Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering, if
during their life on earth, they made a difference in
the world. But, the Soldiers don't have that problem.
I have another quote that I would like to
share AND...I hope you forward All this.
One last thought for the day:
Only five defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
1. Jesus Christ
2. The British Soldier.
3. The Canadian Soldier.
4. The US Soldier, and
5. The Australian Soldier
One died for your soul,
the other four, for you and your children's Freedom.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON,
AS MANY SEEM TO FORGET!
AMEN! GOD BLESS CANADA AND AMERICA .
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
(Had to share this e-mail. Glad she is on our side!)
This is very good PLEASE read....
Thought you might like to read this letter
to the editor. Ever notice how some people
just seem to know how to write a letter?
This one surely does!
This was written by a Canadian woman, but oh how
it also applies to the U.S.A. , U.K. And Australia .
THIS ONE PACKS A FIRM PUNCH
Written by a housewife in New Brunswick , to
her local newspaper. This is one ticked off lady...
"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was
it or was it not, started by Islamic people who
brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001
and have continually threatened to do so since?
Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered
that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from
the capitol of the USA and in a field in Pennsylvania ?
Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?
And I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were
claiming to be tortured by a justice system of a
nation they are fighting against in a brutal Insurgency.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle
East, start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere belief
of which, is a crime punishable by beheading in Afghanistan .
I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are
sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head, while Berg
screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents'
in Afghanistan , come out and fight like men,
instead of disrespecting their own religion by
hiding in Mosques and behind women and children.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow
themselves up in search of Nirvana, care about the
innocent children within range of their suicide Bombs.
I'll care when the Canadian media stops pretending that
their freedom of Speech on stories, is more important than
the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting
at home, to hear about them when something happens.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a
CANADIAN soldier roughing up an Insurgent
terrorist to obtain information, know this:
I don't care.
When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the
head when he is told not to move because he
might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank:
I don't care. Shoot him again.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed 'special' food, that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe, in your heart of hearts:
I don't care.
And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes
it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.'
Well, Jimmy Crack Corn you guessed it.
I don't care!!
If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to
all your E-mail Friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to
the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior!
If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete
button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't
complain when more atrocities committed by radical
Muslims happen here in our great Country! And may I add:
Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering, if
during their life on earth, they made a difference in
the world. But, the Soldiers don't have that problem.
I have another quote that I would like to
share AND...I hope you forward All this.
One last thought for the day:
Only five defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
1. Jesus Christ
2. The British Soldier.
3. The Canadian Soldier.
4. The US Soldier, and
5. The Australian Soldier
One died for your soul,
the other four, for you and your children's Freedom.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON,
AS MANY SEEM TO FORGET!
AMEN! GOD BLESS CANADA AND AMERICA .
Posted by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy
(Had to share this e-mail. Glad she is on our side!)
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