barack obama

James O'Keefe, the undercover video hero of the right, is at it again. Today he has released a new video showing people giving out "Obama" phones to people who say they will sell them for drugs and other items:

Undercover video shot in May by a conservative activist shows two corporate distributors of free cell phones handing out the mobile devices to people who have promised to sell them for drug money, to buy shoes and handbags, to pay off their bills, or just for extra spending cash.

The 'Obama phone,' which made its ignominious YouTube debut outside a Cleveland, Ohio presidential campaign event last September, is a project of the Federal Communications Commission's 'Lifeline' program, which makes land line and mobile phones available to Americans who meet low-income requirements.

Did you catch that? These are "corporate" employees handing these phones out. So is O'Keefe calling for the government to expand and handle this program? That certainly has to be the case, since the bill that created these phones was so widely popular when it passed.

And let's talk about that bill, and how the right will lie about anything. The entire "Obama" phone thing is a myth. Obama had nothing to do with the creation of this program and wasn't even in politics when it passed.

It's like the early 2000's all over again:

The U.S. Secret Service has intercepted a letter addressed to President Barack Obama that contained a "suspicious substance."

A law enforcement official said the letter is very similar to one recently mailed to Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker. That letter tested positive Tuesday for poisonous ricin.

The official requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

There are reports that they have a suspect in the mailings to Sen. Wicker this week. If the two are connected then it appears we don't have some partisan hack engaging in this terrorism, but rather somebody out to just get our elected officials.

The only other thing I can think of is that Wicker was one of the 16 Republicans that voted to end the filibuster on extended background checks last week, so there could be that connection.

Here is a link Matt Drudge is pushing right now:

So now the President makes the laws? Well apparently so if you read the article it links to:

Despite launching a gun control agenda that threatens to disarm the American people, President Obama has signed a bill that would afford him armed Secret Service protection for life.

“The legislation, crafted by Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, rolls back a mid-1990s law that imposed a 10-year limit on Secret Service protection for former presidents. Bush would have been the first former commander in chief affected,” reports Yahoo News.

The new bill, which will cost American taxpayers millions of dollars, is a re-instatement of a 1965 law which will see presidents protected for life as well as their children up to age 16.

The irony of Obama seeking to surround himself with armed men for the rest of his life while simultaneously working to disarm the American people via a gun control agenda that is likely to be enforced via executive decree represents the height of hypocrisy.

This article is from the asinine conspiracy crazy Alex Jones site, so needless to say there is serious flaws in it, like the last paragraph I quoted.

Obama did not "seek" for this legislation. It was H.R. 6620, the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012. The bill was introduced in the Republican lead House by a Republican representative. It passed both the House and Senate on voice votes, meaning it most likely carried a veto-proof majority.

This has to be one of the most idiotic things I have read in ages. Shouldn't be shocking, coming from a former Bush writer:

Barring a last-minute breakthrough, taxes will go up for every U.S. taxpayer on Jan. 1 — and that’s a development conservatives should welcome.

Don’t get me wrong: It would be better not to raise taxes on anyone, pursue pro-growth tax reform and cut the size of government instead. But that’s not what the American people voted to do last month. Americans cast their ballots for big government.

Now it’s time to pay for it.

Until now, the growth of government under President Obama has not hit the pocketbooks of most Americans. During Obama’s first term, federal spending grew to more than 24 percent of GDP — the highest it has been since 1946. Yet almost no one in the country (except smokers and those who frequent indoor tanning salons) saw their taxes rise. Quite the opposite: 160 million Americans saw their payroll taxes reduced from 6.2 to 4.2 percent.

This is another example of Republicans thinking that the people are a bunch of idiots. If anyone could pick one thing they knew that Obama stood for it was raising taxes on the rich. It was one of the clearest points he made during the election.

But how about the growth of government under George Bush, Marc Thiesen's former boss? Let's look at it in graph form:

The New York Times has a very interesting article today about Chris Christie and how the GOP has treated him since Hurricane Sandy:

A few days after Hurricane Sandy shattered the shores of New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie picked up the phone to take on a different kind of recovery work: taming the Republican Party fury over his effusive embrace of President Obama.

On Nov. 3, Mr. Christie called Rupert Murdoch, the influential News Corporation chief and would-be kingmaker, who had warned in a biting post on Twitter that the governor might be responsible for Mr. Obama’s re-election.

Mr. Christie told Mr. Murdoch that amid the devastation, New Jersey needed friends, no matter their political party, according to people briefed on the discussion. But Mr. Murdoch was blunt: Mr. Christie risked looking like a spoiler unless he publicly affirmed his support for Mitt Romney, something the governor did the next day.

Mr. Christie has been explaining himself to Republicans ever since. His lavish praise for Mr. Obama’s response to the storm, delivered in the last days of the presidential race, represented the most dramatic development in the campaign’s final stretch. Right or wrong, conventional wisdom in the party holds that it influenced the outcome.

Apparently in the view of Republicans, Christie should have let his own state suffer and die in the name of party. Perhaps they should have told Republicans there might be some pregnant women out there who could die, then maybe the GOP would have gone people first. No, I doubt it. After all, beating the black guy was more important than even that.

It's one thing to be upset over Obama winning last week and immediately go into the "this country sucks" mode, but this lady took the whole thing to a new level:

Upset over the result of last week's presidential election, an Arizona woman ran over her husband with her car, believing him to be directly responsible for Obama's reelection because he didn't vote.

According to police in Gilbert, 28-year-old Holly Solomon of Mesa and her husband Daniel argued loudly in a local parking lot before Holly got in her Jeep SUV and began chasing Daniel around. She eventually managed to pin him underneath the vehicle as he was trying to run away.

Daniel sustained life-threatening injuries and was rushed to Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center where he remains in critical condition.

"According to Daniel, Holly believed her family was going to face hardship as a result of President Obama's re-election," Gilbert police Sergeant Jesse Sanger said in a statement.

The rage by some on the right over Obama's decisive victory last week has been scary. Friends are threatening friends, families are in full fight mode and not spouses are trying to kill one another.

Here's the thing people - it's a democracy! If you don't like how an election goes, then work harder next time. If it keeps going the way you don't like, then either adapt or get the hell out of the country! I'm sorry, but this whiny bullshit from the right is getting ridiculous.

True we shouldn't be shocked from such a response to Obama's victory. The right constantly pushed for democracy in the Middle East, but when the people there vote in a leader they don't like, they do the same thing.

They push to let people pick their own leader, but it better be the leader that the democracy pimps want!

Ohio is a key state to the White House. The Democrats know this and so does the Republicans. That's why it is no shock that Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, John Husted, has stopped at nothing to try and give Romney an advantage in the Buckeye State. Well that latest attempt has now been turned down by the right leaning Supreme Court of the United States:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned aside a request from Ohio to hear a case in which a lower court ruled the state couldn't stop early voting during the three-day period before the election. The decision is a victory for the Obama campaign, which had successfully argued that Ohio could not allow military and overseas voters to vote during the three day period unless that opportunity was available to all voters.

Secretary of State Jon Husted announced he was appealing the case to the Supreme Court last week, arguing the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision didn't make legal or practical sense.

By SCOTUS turning down the request, that means the ruling of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals stands. The opinion (PDF) written by the 6th Circuit concludes that all persons should have the same amount of time and availability to ballots.

This has opinion was the very merits that the Obama campaign argued all along. You may remember when this first surfaced a few months ago and Mitt Romney and the right wing talking heads said it was Obama trying to not let our military vote. That was one of the biggest lies told this year. It had nothing to do with "not" letting our military vote, but rather letting every citizen of Ohio have the same access to ballots.

Today Mitt Romney released his 2011 tax returns. As soon as he did the right started going on about how much he gives to charity. Here's The Washington Times:

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is releasing a brief summary of 20 years of tax returns on Friday, and his accountant says it will show he gave 13.45 percent of his adjusted gross income to charities.

That's nearly twice the rate of President Obama, who according to his tax returns from 2000 through 2011 donated just less than 7 percent of his adjusted gross income to charities.

Mr. Romney's campaign did not release his returns, but instead had his trustee, Brad Malt, write a blog post giving some details of returns from 1990 through 2009.

But what are those donations? That's what we don't know.

Well there is one that we do, somewhat know about; his church. The Mormon church requires its members to donate a certain percentage of their income back to the church. Tithing, as it is called, is a somewhat secret part of Mormonism. No one really knows exactly what the requirement is, but it appears to be at least 10% of your income. When you consider that the Mormon church earns an estimated $7 billion a year from this, it leads you to believe many must give more.

So let's go with that 10% that Romney MUST give per his religion and deduct that from his 13.45% that he gave total. That leaves us with Romney giving 3.45%, or a little more than half of what the Obama's gave.