WHEN THE LEFT BECOMES UNHINGED

I never even heard of Phil Robertson until two days ago.  Apparently he made some comments regarding gays, to which A&E responded by suspending him from his show, "Duck Dynasty".  The only reason I have ever even HEARD of "Duck Dynasty" is because I follow Rich Froning JR on Twitter, and noticed that he mentions it often.  Apparently the "fittest man on the planet" enjoys this show immensely.

Now, while I may disagree with Phil R's viewpoint re; gays, I'm not sure he said anything which would warrant his being fired/suspended. In fact, his beliefs are pretty much in line with every Pope that has ever existed, and they seem to be able to hold onto their jobs without a problem. Why can't the marketplace simply dictate what should happen?  If you're offended, don't watch Duck Dynasty.  Simple.  I don't.

He didn't commit a crime. He stated his beliefs is response to a question. Period. One look at his picture and I'd be surprised if he DIDN'T say what he said. Now THAT would be a news story!!!

In the meantime, Martin Bashir said on air that he'd like to see somebody defecate on Sarah Palin's face.
Ed Shultz calls Laura Ingrahm a "slut". Bill Maher regularly is far more offensive than Phil Robertson could ever be, and ya wanna know what I have to say about it? Who fucking cares?  Seriously.

We are all in control of our remote control and are free to choose what we want to listen to, and what we choose to ignore. The tolerant left is generally tolerant up until the point you say something that doesn't align with their "progressive" sensibilities.  Their faux outrage is always astounding/laughable to me. Everybody is so easily OFFENDED!!!!   Give me a fucking break.

Get back to your lives. Go read a book to your child, make dinner for your spouse, have a glass of wine and stop worrying that some dude from Louisiana sees the world differently than you do.

If you really want to be offended, why not be offended by the tenant of Islam which condemns gays to death?  Here is an except from an article I read this AM.

"

UCKNOW: A Bareilly-based cleric has issued a fatwa against homosexuality and live-in relationships calling them anti-Islam and said Shariyat has provisions to punish those indulging in such acts.

The fatwa was issued by Mohammad Afzaal Rizwi, the mufti of Darululoom Ifta at Dargah Aala Hazrat, Bareilly in response to a query byAkhlaq Ahmed Siddiqui Noori on the issue.

The mufti has cited two hadis (teachings of the Prophet Mohammed) from the Quran as a premise for his fatwa. As per Hadis Dur-re-mukhtar, such acts could attract severe punishment, he said. "A person may be burntalive, pushed from a high wall or be beaten publically with stones if he indulges into either of the two behaviours," the fatwa states.

The other hadis is a story that explains why Islam is against homosexuality. The story relates to a tribe, kaum-e-looth, which existed in the pre-Islamic era. The tribe is said to have perished because it indulged in homosexuality.

Regarding live-in relationships, the fatwa says a couple staying together or having sexual relationship without solemnising marriage is banned under Islam. The woman in a live-in relationship cannot ask for the rights of a wife."

Seriously——Phil Robertson ain't the problem.  

                                    THE TITANIC

 

Now that the fable of ObamaCare is meeting reality, one of the biggest political problems for the president is that 1.5 million families have already lost the insurance Obama repeatedly promised them they could keep. And millions more are going to. To push back against this outrage, a new fable developing among the left and media is that those losing their insurance are going to be better off because they will receive "better coverage" under ObamaCare.

That is complete and utter nonsense. Let me explain it this way…
What if you are perfectly happy with your minivan and the government comes along and forces you to be buy a big, fancy recreational vehicle? And what if you don't camp and never intend to go camping? Is that the government seeing to it that you get a "better vehicle," or is that the government forcing you to subsidize the recreational vehicle industry?
That is a rhetorical question, and it perfectly sums up ObamaCare's mandated coverage.
Americans are just now waking up to two terrible consequences of ObamaCare. The first, as I mentioned above, is that millions are having their current plans cancelled. Second is the rate shock. In California alone, the middle class can expect a 30% hike in premiums.
Both are a direct consequence of ObamaCare outlawing health insurance plans that do not cover what the federal government demands.
To mitigate the political fallout of this fact, the spin coming from Democrats and much of the media is that this is a good thing because those losing their coverage and paying more will now get "better coverage."
But you are not getting better coverage. Instead, you are being forced by your government to buy a recreational vehicle -- to buy a lot more than you want, need, or will ever use. Here are the ten insurance essentials ObamaCare mandates be part of everyone's health insurance coverage:

1. Ambulatory patient services
2. Emergency services
3. Hospitalization
4. Maternity and newborn care
5. Mental health, substance use disorder services and behavioral health treatment
6. Prescription drugs
7. Rehabilitation and habilitative services and devices
8. Laboratory services
9. Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
10. Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

I am a 49-year-old man, and I do not need numbers 4, 5, or 10 (OK---5 is a tough call). And under ObamaCare, I will also be paying for birth control coverage, and who knows what else is hidden in that gajillion page piece of legislation? The residents of Scottsdale, Arizona are not coerced to buy flood insurance in order to subsidize those who live near the Ocean....because they don't need it. It would make sense that there would be some delineation between subgroups of the population, and let each pool their risk together. That would make sense....but NOTHING about Obamacare, as presently constructed,  makes sense.

Rather than inform people that ObamaCare's one-size-fits-all plan forces tens of millions to pay for services they do not need, the media is spinning this bulky, expensive, unwanted, unneeded, but mandated recreational vehicle as "better coverage."  It's truly incredible to me how many people have been duped.....nevermind the $6-8 trillion this will tack onto the national debt. Maybe I'll cover the impending disaster tomorrow.  I almost feel bad for all the Libturds....they so desperately want to be right.

This is a beauty.

THE WAR THAT WON'T GO AWAY

After the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Obama asked, “Why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence?”

In Obama’s speech, the willingness of the Tsarnaev brothers to kill the people of the country they had grown up in is a paradox. But it isn’t a paradox; it’s the point.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev carried out the marathon massacre not because they were on the outside, but because they were on the inside. Islamic terrorism was their way of expressing their American identity. When they detonated bombs at the Boston Marathon, they weren’t doing it as Chechen Muslims, but as American Muslims.

There is a reason why second and third generation Muslims are more likely to turn terrorist than their immigrant parents. It is because they have become American, British, Canadian and Australian part of the way. They have gone deep enough to begin making a claim on the country. The Western Islamist seeks to align his internal Islamic identity and his external national identity by unifying them through Islamization.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were not fighting for Chechnya at the Boston Marathon. They were fighting against the American infidels who were barring the way to an Islamic America. They were fighting to make America like Chechnya. Islam is not just a religion. It is a political system. You cannot expect a devout Muslim to live as an American, the same way that you could not expect a Communist, Nazi or any other consuming political identity to just keep it private or local. To think that way is to truly misunderstand Islam.

The liberals who refuse to see what the Tsarnaev brothers stood for passionately believe in the things that they think it will take to make the world a better place. The Tsarnaevs believed that only one thing was necessary; Islam.

Until we truly understand these issues, we have no chance to win this battle for civilization. In Boston the infidels resisted the messengers of Mohammed and Allah. They patched up the wounded and saved as many as they could. They hunted down the messengers and shot them. But more will come. You can count on it. They will speak the language of our popular culture and their classmates will remember them as nice young men. No one will understand what caused such nice young men to do it except other nice young men like them who feel the tension between Islam and America inside them waiting to break.

Religion Of Peace? My Ass

Here are some interesting passages from the Koran:

"Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them." Koran 2:191

"Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood." Koran 9:123

"When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them." Koran 9:5

"Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable." Koran 3:85

"The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them."... Koran 9:30

"Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam" Koran 5:33

"Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies." Koran 22:19

"The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them." Koran 8:65

"Muslims must not take the infidels as friends." Koran 3:28

"Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur'an." Koran 8:12

"Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels." Koran 8:60

Get back to me when the Messiah, or ANYBODY in the liberal media reports about what seems so obvious. Our political correctness is a big problem. We are so frightened to offend these people, we dance around the issues until somebody's legs get blown off...and even then we don't call this what it is.  Jihad. 

LIBTARD ALERT!!!!!

This is AJ McCarron's girlfriend, Katherine Webb..aka Miss Alabama. During the National Championship Game on Monday night, while ESPN cameras were zooming in on Miss Webb, Brent Musberger had to AUDACITY to say that this woman is "beautiful", while suggesting that young men should start throwing a football around at a young age in order to date women like her. The HORROR!!!  He had to apologize on behalf of ESPN for his observation. Ugly, retarded Liberal women are at it again...ya know..the kind of women who have never BEEN called "beautiful", and thus have deep seeded insecurities based on their looks. These are the women who try to tell us "it's what's on the inside that's important". If they truly believed that, they wouldn't hate themselves so much...although it's easy to make the case that they are ALSO ugly on the "inside", so who knows where this insanity begins? In the meantime , Katherine Webb seems NOT to be offended by this as we see here.





Notice how the Libtard Matt Lauer (i consider him a Liberal woman—yes) tries to get her to claim some kind of injustice has been done around the 1:25 mark. What a fucking moron.  Is there anything more annoying than phony Liberal outrage?

Ed Schultz can call Laura Ingram a "slut, Bill Maher can call Sarah Palin a "bimbo", and can call her Daughter a "dumb whore", but Brent has to apologize for calling this woman "beautiful"?

Time to get back to looking for real estate in New Zealand .

Great Piece by Cliff Asness

We Are the 98 Percent

The only way to finance a big European-style state is to have it paid for by massive taxation of everyone, mostly the middle class. Right now, we are avoiding honest debate on this fact.

The central issue of our time is the debate over the size and scope of government. Two unpleasant but undeniable mathematical truths limit the feasible policy choices. The recent sound and fury of the fiscal cliff follies in the end signified nothing because the resolution was in fact just a denial of both truths.

The first truth is that the current tax rates cannot support the promises made to middle-class Americans. The most unaffordable items in fiscal projections are Social Security for everyone and government-sponsored health care for the middle class. You cannot preserve these even with Draconian slashing of military, infrastructure, welfare, education, and other expenditures.

The second truth is that you cannot pay for the Life of Julia, or any vision of a cradle-to-grave welfare state, without massive and increasingly regressive middle-class taxes. The poor don't have the money to pay for a European-style welfare state, and the rich, rich as they are, don't have anywhere near enough.

Not only that, it's easy to tax middle-class assets and transactions — things like payrolls, sales, and real estate — butsoaking the rich means taxing investments. Investments are complicated and can be restructured to minimize taxes. Also, investments are the lifeblood of economic growth. Raising significantly more taxes from the rich also requires higher marginal tax rates — and their rates are already quite high. High marginal rates distort the economy and yield less revenue than anticipated because they increase the rewards for legal and illegal tax avoidance.

That's not to say it's impossible to get more money from the rich, but it's tricky and past attempts have typically been less effective than forecast and often counterproductive. Moreover, even under the most optimistic assumptions, taxes on the rich — or taxes on businesses, financial transactions, or anything else aimed at the rich (and often hitting others) — will still not cover a large fraction of the costs of a European-style welfare state. Ask the Europeans — they’ve tried it all and failed.

To be in our political center today, you have to deny both these truths and pretend that if we sharpen our pencils and make a bunch of wildly optimistic assumptions, we can close a few tax loopholes, cut some waste from spending, and maybe nudge upper-income tax rates up a little, and continue merrily on the same big-and-growing-bigger government path without unfortunate consequences. This is a “balanced approach,” as it ignores both mathematical truths equally, but the denial of clear reality means this approach is doomed to fail.

Surprisingly, many progressive pundits are moving away from their traditional complaint that America’s tax code is too regressive, favoring the rich. They are starting to tell us, albeit only after an election mainly contested on these issues, the truth: to fund the European-style social welfare state which they advocate, we must tax everyone more.

For example, Ezra Klein, blogging for the Washington Post on December 7th, writes, “The need for tax receipts to grow underscores the necessity of finding an efficient way to collect them. Experts say that should include tax reform and new tax sources that take the pressure off the income tax, such as a value added tax or a carbon tax.”

Klein is mild compared to Eduardo Porter, who writes in the New York Times on November 27th, “Many Americans may find this hard to believe, but the United States already has one of the most progressive tax systems in the developed world” and “Taxes on American households do more to redistribute resources and reduce inequality than the tax codes of most other rich nations.” Mr. Porter, it is shocking to see you argue in the New York Times that the United States is a progressive paragon!  Those in the Occupy Wall Street movement must be surprised to learn that you, one of their standard-bearers, think the United States already does considerably more redistribution than Western Europe!

These pundits know the math. To achieve anything like the European-style entitlement state they advocate, we need to tax everyone a lot more, not just the 1 percent. Despite all the drum circles protesting the inequitable distribution of resources, the wealthy just don’t have enough. The middle class and even the poor must step up to carry more of the burden if this is our desired endgame.

In his November 27th op-ed, Porter also writes “The experience of many other developed countries suggests that paying for a government that could help the poor and the middle class cope in our brave new globalized world will require more money from the middle class itself,” and “Big-government social democracies, by contrast, rely on flatter taxes to finance their public spending.”

In a similar vein, Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former economist for Vice President Biden, writes, "It's perfectly reasonable for the White House to begin collecting more revenue from folks who have done by far the best in pretax terms." But wait a moment for it — he then adds, "But ultimately we can't raise the revenue we need only on the top 2 percent."

Note the use of “2 percent,” a number the president himself has begun using more often. It is a small but telling evolution from decrying the “1 percent.” One wonders if the Occupy Wall Street protestors have corrected their signs to read “We are the 98 percent”? Are those in the 98th percentile already saying “They came for the 1 percent and I said nothing…”? According to the more honest progressive pundits above, it will not be long until the 50th percentile is saying it too.

If we take the logic of a Porter or Klein or Bernstein seriously — and we should — their prescription for taxes is nearly the opposite of the president’s public stance. Let’s say what Porter and others are saying but in plain English (or, failing that, let’s just underline a lot).

If we are to redistribute like Europe, we must tax like Europe. The middle class must pay more taxes and they must pay a larger share of the tax burden. The president, in contrast, is vowing to raise taxes on only the rich. One wonders if President Obama would have won the election if he had warned voters that “to pay for Obamacare, stimulus spending, increased regulatory oversight, and the rest of the big government wish list I believe important, we need to raise the level and share of taxes paid by the middle class”? One also wonders why more progressive pundits were not as clear about their goals and the necessities pre-election as they are starting to be now.

The choice the country faces is simple. We can have big government and the Life of Julia (at least for a while, but that is another essay), with everyone paying through the nose and the middle-class share of taxes rising not falling, or we can return to the American tradition of limited government, with everyone paying a smaller burden to the state, with relatively limited services for, and relatively light taxes on, the middle class. What we cannot have is the Life of Julia at no additional burden to 99 out of 100 of us. Nobody, Left or Right, really thinks that math works, no matter what they may say in public.

So what happens if we continue down the current path, with perhaps some small amount of revenue raised from some additional taxes on the rich? Remember, the only way to finance a big European-style state is to have it paid for by massive taxation of everyone, mostly the middle class. Right now we are avoiding honest debate on this fact, perhaps because those desirous of this change know the middle class would rebel if it saw the future bill it will have to pay. Instead, large government benefits are being continued and increased, and still new ones introduced, with little accurate discussion of who will ultimately pay.

What happens historically when benefits are bestowed without a bill also coming due is that we get hooked on them. Then, even when they become disasters not worth their cost, people are terrified to change them, as giving something up is indeed quite frightening.

Of course, as a byproduct of this growth in the state, many of us believe we also suffer a terrific erosion of liberty, free-enterprise, and individual responsibility and initiative.

Finally, after we become fully addicted to the latest increase in big government, the bill will ultimately be presented to everyone including, and in all likelihood over-emphasizing, the middle class and the poor. The people who were promised they would be untouched will see the largest proportional hikes. That’s exactly what has happened in Europe. We have seen this movie before, but this time we don’t need subtitles.

In other words, if we told everyone the ultimate destination right now, the country would likely reject it. But if built up in this piecemeal manner with benefits up front and the bill presented later, it can become reality.

The way to boil the frog of freedom is slowly.

We may, with open eyes, choose the reassuring security of big government with a far larger safety and subsidy net and far higher taxes for all — by no means just the “rich” but in fact more so on the middle class — and likely the sclerotic growth and dependency of Europe. Or we may choose the opposite. But we deserve an honest debate about this critical issue.A debate missing from the last election.

Peggy Noonan absolutely NAILS it...once again.

"We're all talking about Republicans on the Hill and their manifold failures. So here are some things President Obama didn't do during the fiscal cliff impasse and some conjecture as to why.

He won but he did not triumph. His victory didn't resolve or ease anything and heralds nothing but more congressional war to come.

He did not unveil, argue for or put on the table the outlines of a grand bargain. That is, he put no force behind solutions to the actual crisis facing our country, which is the hemorrhagic spending that threatens our future. Progress there—even just a little—would have heartened almost everyone. The president won on tax hikes, but that was an emotional, symbolic and ideological victory, not a substantive one. The higher rates will do almost nothing to ease the debt or deficits.

He didn't try to exercise dominance over his party. This is a largely forgotten part of past presidential negotiations: You not only have to bring in the idiots on the other side, you have to corral and control your own idiots.

He didn't deepen any relationships or begin any potential alliances with Republicans, who still, actually, hold the House. The old animosity was aggravated. Some Republicans were mildly hopeful a second term might moderate those presidential attitudes that didn't quite work the first time, such as holding himself aloof from the position and predicaments of those who oppose him, while betraying an air of disdain for their arguments. He is not quick to assume good faith. Some thought his election victory might liberate him, make his approach more expansive. That didn't happen.

The president didn't allow his victory to go unsullied. Right up to the end he taunted the Republicans in Congress: They have a problem saying yes to him, normal folks try to sit down and work it out, not everyone gets everything they want. But he got what he wanted, as surely he knew he would, and Republicans got almost nothing they wanted, which was also in the cards. At Mr. Obama's campfire, he gets to sing "Kumbaya" solo while others nod to the beat.

Serious men don't taunt. And they don't farm the job of negotiating out to the vice president because no one can get anything done with the president. Some Republican said, "He couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag." But—isn't this clear by now?—not negotiating is his way of negotiating. And it kind of worked. So expect more.

Mr. Obama's supporters always give him an out by saying, "But the president can't work with them, they made it clear from the beginning their agenda was to do him in." That's true enough. But it's true with every American president now—the other side is always trying to do him in, or at least the other side's big mouths are always braying they'll take him down. They tried to capsize Bill Clinton, they tried to do in Reagan, they called him an amiable dunce and vowed to defeat his wicked ideology.

We live in a polarized age. We have for a while. One of the odd things about the Obama White House is that they are traumatized by the normal.

A lot of the president's staffers were new to national politics when they came in, and they seem to have concluded that the partisan bitterness they faced was unique to him, and uniquely sinister. It's just politics, or the ugly way we do politics now.

After the past week it seems clear Mr Obama doesn't really want to work well with the other side. He doesn't want big bipartisan victories that let everyone crow a little and move forward and make progress. He wants his opponents in disarray, fighting without and within. He wants them incapable. He wants them confused.

I worried the other day that amid all the rancor the president would poison his future relations with Congress, which in turn would poison the chances of progress in, say, immigration reform. But I doubt now he has any intention of working with them on big reforms, of battling out a compromise at a conference table, of having long walks and long talks and making offers that are serious, that won't be changed overnight to something else. The president intends to consistently beat his opponents and leave them looking bad, or, failing that, to lose to them sometimes and then make them look bad. That's how he does politics.

Why?

Here's my conjecture: In part it's because he seems to like the tension. He likes cliffs, which is why it's always a cliff with him and never a deal. He likes the high-stakes, tottering air of crisis. Maybe it makes him feel his mastery and reminds him how cool he is, unrattled while he rattles others. He can take it. Can they?

He is a uniquely polarizing figure. A moderate U.S. senator said the other day: "One thing not said enough is he is the most divisive president in modern history. He doesn't just divide the Congress, he divides the country." The senator thinks Mr. Obama has "two whisperers in his head." "The political whisperer says 'Don't compromise a bit, make Republicans look weak and bad.' Another whisperer is not political, it's, 'Let's do the right thing, work together and begin to right the ship.'" The president doesn't listen much to the second whisperer.

Maybe he thinks bipartisan progress raises the Republicans almost to his level, and he doesn't want to do that. They're partisan hacks, they're not big like him. Let them flail.

This, however, is true: The great presidents are always in the end uniters, not dividers. They keep it together and keep it going. And people remember them fondly for that.

In the short term, Mr. Obama has won. The Republicans look bad. John Boehner looks bad, though to many in Washington he's a sympathetic figure because they know how much he wanted a historic agreement on the great issue of his time. Some say he would have been happy to crown his career with it, and if that meant losing a job, well, a short-term loss is worth a long-term crown. Mr. Obama couldn't even make a deal with a man like that, even when it would have made the president look good.

***

We take political pleasure where we can these days, so we'll end with the fact that 20 women were sworn into the U.S. Senate Thursday, up from the previous record of 17. In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, they spoke of the difference they feel they make. Susan Collins (R., Maine) said that "with all due deference to our male colleagues . . . women's styles tend to be more collaborative." Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) said women in politics are "less confrontational." Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) said they are more supportive of each other. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) suggested women have less "ego." Diane Feinstein (D., Calif.) said they're effective because "we're less on testosterone."

It was refreshing to see so much agreement. It was clear they saw their presence as to some degree an antidote to the roughness and pointless ego of the Senate. To me they seemed an antidote to the current White House."