Newt HAS to be good! - the GOP hates him

By Guest Blogger Abraxas

Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post sneers that Newt Gingrich "inspires fear and loathing in top GOP circles".  As Bernstein puts it,  "...the blunt truth about Newt is that the people who know him best and have worked with him in Washington want him nowhere near the White House or the top of the GOP ticket."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/gingrich-presidential-run-inspires-fear-and-loathing-in-top-gop-circles/2011/12/02/gIQAGt4zKO_blog.html=

And if you think the WaPo is harsh on Newt, get a look at what the National Journal has to say about him.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/12/insiders-not-so.php

"Bigfoot dressed as a circus clown would have a better chance of beating President Obama than Newt Gingrich, a similarly farcical character," quipped a Republican.

Well, sorry guys, it's not working.

You Insiders obviously have a very lofty opinion of yourselves but I assure you the rest of the country doesn't share that adoration. To the contrary, we see you as the type of hypocrites who jail Martha Stewart for making a tiny fib about her stock but don't lay a finger on Eric Holder who's got blood on his hands from the murder of that American border guard.  In short, your veracity is shot to H*ll, guys.  I wouldn't believe you if you said water was wet.  

So trash Newt all you want.  The only thing that'll accomplish is to make me like him even more.  Which is ironic seeing as how I really didn't much care for him in the first place.  (Funny how political hypocrisy pans out, isn't it?)” 

LAPD Confirms Undercover Operatives Used Against OWS

LAPD Confirms Undercover Operatives Used Against OWS

Most Cities Did The Same


By Dell Hill

       
               
               
AP Photo
November 30, 2011: Police prepare to remove a structure at the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles .

LOS ANGELES –  Media reports say Los Angeles police used nearly a dozen undercover detectives to infiltrate the Occupy LA encampment in the weeks before Wednesday's raid to gather information on protesters' intentions.

A police source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing tells the Los Angeles Times that none of the officers slept at the camp, but tried to blend in to learn about plans to resist or use weapons against police.

Nearly 300 people were arrested during the pre-dawn raid at City Hall Park.

Police are downplaying the significance of the undercover work since Occupy meetings were public and easily tracked.

LAPD Officer Cleon Joseph declined an Associated Press request for comment on the reports.

The story was first reported by City News Service.

A Note From Dell:

This report confirms and substantiates the tip(s) I received from a source in Los Angeles just prior to the deployment of 1,400 police officers to shut down the occupy L.A. encampment.  My source was NOT officer Cleon Joseph.

Stunning WWII Fact You May Not Know

Stunning WWII Fact You May Not Know



By Dell Hill

My biological father - as well as all three of my adopted family brothers - served in World War II - the “war to end all wars”.  

I’ve studied and researched many thousands of hours and was shocked today to learn something I had never known before.

Watch this video - entitled “German” - from Big Geek Daddy and be prepared for a surprise ending.



The German from Nick Ryan on Vimeo.



My favorite fighter - The P-51 Mustang

“God Bless Bob Hope”

“God Bless Bob Hope”

“If He’s Not A Saint, He Should Be!”


By Dell Hill

The Bob Hope USO Tours lifted the spirits of millions in far-away places and right here at home during times of war.  

Please enjoy this video recap, provided by Big Geek Daddy.

The Right Scoop is live streaming the Herman Cain speech from Altanta.

The Right Scoop is live streaming the Herman Cain speech from Altanta.  Here's a direct link.

The Maryland Center-Right Coalition Meets in Sykesville

The Maryland Center-Right Coalition Meets in Sykesville




By Dell Hill

Bottom Line guest blogger, Richard Falknor, is chairman of the
Maryland Center-Right Coalition and they have an important meeting scheduled for this coming week.

This Thursday Morning

December 8, 2011!

The Maryland Center-Right Coalition Meets in Sykesville

Click on highlighted links below for more information on presenters.

* * *

Conservatives & The Vital Importance of Investigations:

This Thursday: Jim Simpson author of CASA de Maryland: The Illegals’ ACORN

And on Thursday, January 12, 2012 - - Christopher Farrell Investigations & Research chief at Judicial Watch.

* * *

Extending the Grass Roots:

Bill Peck Explores Starting A "Cottage" Meeting in Northeast Maryland.

And much more!

* * * * *

We also need everyone who intends to join us, including regulars, to RSVP  - CLICK HERE.

Seating is limited.  We will reply with Sykesville details.

Visit the Maryland Thursday Meeting web page for informed opinion, other useful sites, and foundational articles by conservative experts.

December 3, 2011

Dear Thursday Meeting Regulars, Newcomers, and Nearby Virginians:

This Thursday morning, December 8, 2011, the Maryland Center-Right Coalition here will convene its one hundred and eighteenth gathering, at its base in Sykesville.

Regulars understand that our meetings are not merely informational, but action-oriented.
We begin promptly at 8:00 AM; doors open at 7:45 AM. The Thursday Meeting makes hot coffee and bagels available.

• If you have not attended a Thursday Meeting before, and wish to come to this one,
• OR

• If you wish to give a presentation or make an announcement Thursday, December 8,

first CLICK HERE to email us.


As most of you know, the Maryland Thursday Meeting is an invitational and off-the-record gathering of individual center-right activists as well as organization representatives in Maryland. Ours is one of over 60 such state center-right coalitions meeting across the U.S.

The Maryland Thursday Meeting seeks common ground and actionable items on the center-right.

To give guests and newcomers a better view of what the Maryland Thursday Meeting does, here is a link to our Rules of the Road that sets out the details.
See you this Thursday morning --- December 8, 2011!

Richard Falknor, chair
Maryland Center-Right Coalition
                                        

The Thursday Meeting began its work on November 16, 2000.

The 118th Thursday Meeting will gather on December 8, 2011 in Sykesville

Obama Exhausted From Fund Raising Trips - To Take Well-Earned Vacation

Obama Exhausted From Fund Raising Trips - To Take Well-Earned Vacation


“Seriously, Mr. President, if I had a golf swing that looked like yours I’d take up lawn darts.”



By Dell Hill

Practically exhausted from fund-raising junkets from coast-to-coast, President Barack Obama has announced the First Families vacation plans for “the holidays”.  And, as I had guessed just yesterday, the President will tee it up in Hawaii.



The Obamas will enjoy a 17 day holiday vacation this year.

On Saturday, December 17th, 2011, the President will travel to Honolulu, Hawaii.  He will return to Washington, DC on Monday, January 2nd, 2012… No public events are scheduled during the trip.



Just In Case....

No “public events” are scheduled, but you can bet the rent money that there will be some weapons grade re-election meetings taking place.  Just watch for the photos and pool reporters posts and we’ll see a virtual who’s who of Democrats who “just happened to be in Hawaii at the same time” and dropped in to play a round of golf with the emperor and maybe discuss what roles each will play over the next several months.

Other than an incredibly failed political agenda over three years time, Obama has nothing he can call a “record” to run on.  Therefore, as Vice President Joe Biden would say, gird your loins for the most negative political campaign in the countries history.

We’ve already seen what the Democrats can do.  One very strong candidate’s run for the nomination has been totally destroyed by innuendo and there are several legitimate connections to Democrat operatives, along with circumstantial evidence to suggest that Herman Cain was set up and slaughtered by the “Chicago Connection”.  A campaign that was set to trigger as soon as the man reached the top three in nationwide polls.  Had Herman Cain languished with less than 10% of the vote, we would never have heard any of the sexual misconduct accusations that just suddenly appeared.

Over the next several months, watch for political advertising that takes us back to the Bush administration and let the blame-game begin anew.  That’s all the man has left.

I’m certain that in-house, Democrat sponsored polls are telling the Obama campaign committee that they need to take drastic action, otherwise a tsunami of Republican votes this way comes.  Not only is the White House in serious trouble; the all-important senate races could easily swing the balance of power.  The chances of Democrats re-taking the House are simply non-existent, no matter what Nancy Pelosi says for public consumption.  More Democrats are taking the Barney Frank route and opting out of the 2012 campaign and with each additional retiree comes the added burden of just finding a replacement candidate, rather than an assured “hold” on the House seats.  Not only will the Republicans retain control of the House, they may add seats to their already massive advantage.

Meanwhile, can we expect Mrs. Obama and her daughters to fly in separate jumbo jets again?  Of course we can!  Don’t be surprised at all to this very strange acting First Family split up mid-vacation and Michelle and the daughters winging their way back to Washington on a practically empty Air Force jumbo jet.  

You’re footing the bill for all of it...and the total cost will easily exceed a million dollars.  In fact, every Obama vacation costs a small fortune at a time when the country is staggering dangerously close to default.



Seriously, Mr. President, if I had a golf swing that looked like yours I’d take up lawn darts.  This swing has so many flaws it would be best just to sell your clubs. 

FHA Poised To Re-sink Housing Market

FHA Poised To Re-sink Housing Market


“FHA is underestimating future default risk and losses on its single-family mortgage guarantee portfolio by at least $50 billion”


By Dell Hill

I think I smell another massive federal government bailout coming up.

I’ve been writing about the housing market for over two years.  Including today, I haven’t written one word of good news that has come out of that God-forsaken industry and today isn’t looking too good, either.
   

Federal Housing Authority Poised to Re-Sink the Economy

           
Tim Cavanaugh at Reason TV has this heart-warming news.

                     

Back in the innocent days of 2007 or so, it was customary for experts to say that housing had led the recession and housing would lead us out. Whatever measure of truth there may have been in that cliché, the reality is that by refusing to accept the real estate correction as the healthful and decades-overdue solution it is, America’s leaders have created a new dynamic: Housing led us into the recession, and it continues to lead us into newer, deeper and more destructive recessions.

Last month Wharton School real estate finance professor Joseph Gyourko warned that the Federal Housing Authority is shaping up as the next likely target for a bailout. Although the full report [pdf] is worth reading,
Gyourko’s central argument is pretty simple:

(1) FHA has become a much larger and riskier government entity since the housing crisis began because it has increased its risk exposure without anything close to a commensurate scaling up of its capital base;

(2) it is underestimating future default risk and losses on its single-family mortgage guarantee portfolio by at least $50 billion;  and,

(3) this should be corrected with an immediate recapitalization of FHA sufficient to compensate for the high risks it faces.

The FHA issued a rebuttal, noting that it had upped its assets by $400 million over the last year – a pittance, as Gyourko notes, compared to the $213 billion in new guarantees it issued over the same period.

We’ll just have to wait and see whether HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan ends up lassoing taxpayers to shore up the insolvent FHA, but one thing is for sure: Everything has gotten worse, and FHA’s policies have become even more reckless, since Gyourko’s report.

In the middle of the month, the Obama Administration even managed to walk back one of the few things it has done right: allowing the expanded conforming loan limit for “high-cost areas” to lapse. At the start of the real estate correction FHA upped its conforming loan limit (the mortgage amount the federal government guarantees) to $729,750. That emergency increase expired October 1, and the high-cost conforming loan limit dropped back to $625,500.

But in a tribute to the lobbying power of Realtors®, the conforming loan limit got jacked back up a few weeks ago. The move makes negative sense. (Why do you need to increase the subsidy when house prices continue to fall?) It’s also offensive to the broadly held belief that public assistance should be reserved for actual poor people: Presuming a 20 percent down payment, you’re talking about a house in the high $900k range being subsidized by taxpayers. Who mourns for the million-dollar starter home?  Apparently we all do.”

Read the entire piece by clicking right here.

The Only Unemployment Chart You Need To See Today

The Only Unemployment Chart You Need To See Today

These Are The REAL Numbers and The REAL Numbers Aren’t Good

By Dell Hill via Director Blue

    The only unemployment chart you need to see today

   
Courtesy of Calculated Risk -- via Business Insider -- comes a chart that helps illustrate the real unemployment situation.
 
This is why the situation seems so dire. Why people are walking around in a daze. Why your neighbors are worried and glum.

Forbes editor Vahan Janjigian explains

...the unemployment rate has been very high for quite some time. If you look at the U6 figure [Ed: now 15.6%], which includes people who are working part-time, the underemployed because they can’t find a full-time job, or people who have simply given up looking for work; that figure is always extremely high.

But there is another figure I like to focus on. It is called the participation rate. That figure has really been plummeting... Now this figure is never 100%, because, of course, there are some people who are capable of working who aren’t working. An 18-year-old who is in school, for example, is not going to be working. Someone who chooses to be a stay-at-home mom or dad is not going to be working, or somebody who is 65 years old and retired but is capable of working is not going to be working.



So in a healthy economy, we would expect this figure to be somewhere above 70%. It is currently down at 64%, which means that there are a lot of people who cannot find jobs—they want to be working, they can’t find jobs.

With that context in mind, please consider these headlines:

 
No matter how the dying, legacy media tries to spin it, no matter how the administration twists arms at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to make things look rosier, the facts are clear:

The American economy is dying under this President.