Profiting From a Child’s Illiteracy

Original Post: NY Times

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

THIS is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.

Many people in hillside mobile homes here are poor and desperate, and a $698 monthly check per child from the Supplemental Security Income program goes a long way — and those checks continue until the child turns 18.

“The kids get taken out of the program because the parents are going to lose the check,” said Billie Oaks, who runs a literacy program here in Breathitt County, a poor part of Kentucky. “It’s heartbreaking.”

This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.

Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments.

Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

Most wrenching of all are the parents who think it’s best if a child stays illiterate, because then the family may be able to claim a disability check each month.

“One of the ways you get on this program is having problems in school,” notes Richard V. Burkhauser, a Cornell University economist who co-wrote a book last year about these disability programs. “If you do better in school, you threaten the income of the parents. It’s a terrible incentive.”

About four decades ago, most of the children S.S.I. covered had severe physical handicaps or mental retardation that made it difficult for parents to hold jobs — about 1 percent of all poor children. But now 55 percent of the disabilities it covers are fuzzier intellectual disabilities short of mental retardation, where the diagnosis is less clear-cut. More than 1.2 million children across America — a full 8 percent of all low-income children — are now enrolled in S.S.I. as disabled, at an annual cost of more than $9 billion.

That is a burden on taxpayers, of course, but it can be even worse for children whose families have a huge stake in their failing in school. Those kids may never recover: a 2009 study found that nearly two-thirds of these children make the transition at age 18 into S.S.I. for the adult disabled. They may never hold a job in their entire lives and are condemned to a life of poverty on the dole — and that’s the outcome of a program intended to fight poverty.

THERE’S no doubt that some families with seriously disabled children receive a lifeline from S.S.I. But the bottom line is that we shouldn’t try to fight poverty with a program that sometimes perpetuates it.

A local school district official, Melanie Stevens, puts it this way: “The greatest challenge we face as educators is how to break that dependency on government. In second grade, they have a dream. In seventh grade, they have a plan.”

There’s a danger in drawing too firm conclusions about an issue — fighting poverty — that is as complex as human beings themselves. I’m no expert on domestic poverty. But for me, a tentative lesson from the field is that while we need safety nets, the focus should be instead on creating opportunity — and, still more difficult, on creating an environment that leads people to seize opportunities.

To see what that might mean, I tagged along with Save the Children, the aid group we tend to think of as active in Sudan or Somalia. It’s also in the opportunity business right here in the United States, in places like the mobile home of Britny Hurley — and it provides a model of what does work.

Ms. Hurley, 19, is amiable and speaks quickly with a strong hill accent, so that at times I had trouble understanding her. Ms. Hurley says that she was raped by a family member when she was 12, and that another family member then introduced her to narcotics. She became an addict, she says, mostly to prescription painkillers that are widely trafficked here.

Equipped with a crackling intelligence, Ms. Hurley once aspired to be a doctor. But her addictions and a rebellious nature got her kicked out of high school, and at 16 she became engaged to a boyfriend and soon had his baby.

Yet there are ways of breaking this cycle. That’s what Save the Children is doing here, working with children while they’re still malleable, and it’s an approach that should be a centerpiece of America’s antipoverty program. Almost anytime the question is poverty, the answer is children.

Save the Children trains community members to make home visits to at-risk moms like Ms. Hurley, and help nurture the skills they need in the world’s toughest job: parenting. These visits begin in pregnancy and continue until the child is 3 years old.

I followed Courtney Trent, 22, one of these early childhood coordinators, as she visited a series of houses. She encourages the mothers (and the fathers, if they’re around) to read to the children, tell stories, talk to them, hug them. If the parents can’t read, then Ms. Trent encourages them to flip the pages on picture books and talk about what they see.

Ms. Trent brings a few books on each visit, and takes back the ones she had left the previous time. Many of the homes she visits don’t own a single children’s book.

She sat on the floor in Ms. Hurley’s living room, pulled a book out of her bag, and encouraged her to read to her 20-month-old son, Landon. Ms. Hurley said that she was never read to as a child, but she was determined to change the pattern.

“I just want him to go to school,” she said of Landon. “I want him to go to college and get out of this place.” Ms. Hurley said she was clean of drugs, working full time at a Wendy’s, and hoping to go back to school to become a nurse. I’d bet on her — and on Landon.

“When kids come to us through this program and come here, we can see a big difference,” Ron Combs, the principal at Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary School here, told me. “They’re really ready to go. Otherwise, we have kids so far behind that they struggle to catch up.

“By second or third grade, you have a pretty good feeling about who’s going to drop out,” he added.

A group of teachers were in the room, and they all nodded. Wayne Sizemore, director of special education in Breathitt County, puts it this way: “The earlier we can get them, the better. It’s like building a foundation for a house.”

I don’t want to suggest that America’s antipoverty programs are a total failure. On the contrary, they are making a significant difference. Nearly all homes here in the Appalachian hill country now have electricity and running water, and people aren’t starving.

Our political system has created a particularly robust safety net for the elderly, focused on Social Security and Medicare — because the elderly vote. This safety net has brought down the poverty rate among the elderly from about 35 percent in 1959 to under 9 percent today.

BECAUSE kids don’t have a political voice, they have been neglected — and have replaced the elderly as the most impoverished age group in our country. Today, 22 percent of children live below the poverty line.

Of American families living in poverty today, 8 out of 10 have air-conditioning, and a majority have a washing machine and dryer. Nearly all have microwave ovens. What they don’t have is hope. You see it here in the town of Jackson, in the teenage girls hanging out by the bridge over the north fork of the Kentucky River, seeking to trade their bodies for prescription painkillers or methamphetamines.

A growing body of careful research suggests that the most effective strategy is to work early on children and education, and to try to encourage and sustain marriage. Bravo to Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio for backing a landmark initiative to add one-eighth of 1 percent to the local sales tax to finance a prekindergarten program. Early interventions are not a silver bullet, and even programs that succeed as experiments often fall short when scaled up. But we end up paying for poverty one way or another, and early childhood education is far cheaper than adult incarceration. I hope that the budget negotiations in Washington may offer us a chance to take money from S.S.I. and invest in early childhood initiatives instead.

One reason antipoverty initiatives don’t get traction in America is that the issue is simply invisible.

“People don’t want to talk about poverty in America,” Mark Shriver, who runs the domestic programs of Save the Children, noted as we drove through Kentucky. “We talk more about poverty in Africa than we do about poverty in America.”

Indeed, in the 2012 election campaign, poverty was barely mentioned. A study by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, a liberal watchdog organization, found substantive discussion of poverty in just 0.2 percent of campaign news reports.

Look, there are no magic wands, and helping people is hard. One woman I met, Anastasia McCormick, told me that her $500 car had just broken down and she had to walk two miles each way to her job at a pizza restaurant. That’s going to get harder because she’s pregnant with twins, due in April.

At some point, Ms. McCormick won’t be able to hold that job anymore, and then she’ll have trouble paying the bills. She has rented a washer and dryer, but she’s behind in payments, and they may soon be hauled back. “I got a ‘discontinue’ notice on the electric,” she added, “but you get a month to pay up.” Life is like that for her, a roller coaster partly of her own making.

I don’t want to write anybody off, but I admit that efforts to help Ms. McCormick may end with a mixed record. But those twin boys she’s carrying? There’s time to transform their lives, and they — and millions like them — should be a national priority. They’re too small to fail.

Racist Madison to disenfranchise the elderly and minorities

Original Post:JS Online

Madison to require IDs for bus riders with passes

Madison - Riders who have an unlimited pass on Madison Metro buses will now have to show identification.

University of Wisconsin students and employees have unlimited ride passes. There are concerns the bus passes are being used fraudulently. So, beginning Monday, an employment or school photo ID will be required.

UW-Madison employee and student bus passes are non-transferable. So, if the users don't have their IDs, the passes will be confiscated and a 1-day pass will be offered.

UW and UW Health employees who have their passes confiscated can get a replacement for $20. Students should contact the bus program office.

The university says no identification is needed for the free campus bus routes.

Well this is absolutely outrageous! This only hurts the people who need the bus the most. How can minorities and the elderly ride the bus now? Answer, they can't. We know only white males have Drivers Licenses and that it's not possible for anyone else to get them, even if they're free; so if you can't get an ID you can't ride the bus and you have no options. I'm absolutely disgusted by Madison.

ANOTHER ACTRESS ENDORSES ROMNEY, ANOTHER ACTRESS GETS MAULED BY THE LEFT: ‘I HOPE YOU F**KING DIE B**CH’

Original Post:The Blaze
Actress Melissa Joan Hart, best known for her roles in “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” and “Clarissa Explains It All,” threw her support behind the Romney/Ryan ticket on Twitter Monday, swiftly prompting vicious attacks from the Left.

The actress first tweeted “Finish this sentence for me … Being a Republican in Hollywood is like…” She followed up with a full blown endorsement for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.

@MelissaJoanHart Can't get too political in only 140 chac but for those asking, I'm voting #RomneyRyan. 5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite And that seemingly innocent tweet posted by an American female expressing her constitutional right to vote for the candidate of her choice was more than enough to shake the metaphoric bee hive of the “tolerant left,” as Hart put it.

Here are some of the ugliest attacks hurled at the actress (WARNING! Graphic language):

@MelissaJoanHart Ahhh the "tolerant left" at work!RT @BasiaMilewicz: On behalf of women everywhere, may I say 'Fuck you, bitch!' Washed-up has-been cunt. 5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite

@MelissaJoanHart So to u that is a punishment? RT @17days: @trentvanegas @pitnb am incredible let down. I hope she ends up with a gay child. Clarissa sucks.

5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite Big Crow@BIGCROENT “@MelissaJoanHart: Peace to all! Get out and #VOTE tomorrow! instagr.am/p/RrGrKhlHhs/” Fuck this bitch she's voting for bitch Romney and the hoe

5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite Jah.@JaheemWith2Es Stupid bitch RT “@MelissaJoanHart: Can't get too political in only 140 chac but for those asking, I'm voting #RomneyRyan.”

5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite Ghetto Ass Kass@WhamBamBitch Melissa Joan Hart is a stupid cunt. Her show is garbage and she should just give up on her sad, republican life.

5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite Landon@WhoaLando You aint been shit since Sabrina bitch RT @MelissaJoanHart Can't get too political but for those asking, I'm voting #RomneyRyan.

5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite Eddie Haskell ☜ ™@EddieisKrueger Go fuck yourself Sabrina "@HuffPostEnt Melissa Joan Hart's Last-Minute Romney Endorsement huff.to/Yy1fG3" 5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite Though out of all of the disgustingly profane and ugly tweets, this one may take the cake:

PRETTY MOTHERFUCKA!!@RomanMinaj_ @MelissaJoanHart YOUR A FUCKING IDIOT AND I HOPE YOU FUCKING DIE BITCH #OBAMA2012

5 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite However, it should be noted, for every hateful message that Hart received, she got two or three supportive tweets. And she was appreciative.

“The amazing amount of love & kind messages were overwhelming today. Lets all get out and #vote tomorrow for whichever candidate u prefer!” she later tweeted.

The same media that calls Occupy a peaceful demonstration demonizes peaceful protest

Original Post:The DM online
BY GRANT BEEBE, JENNIFER NASSAR

I'm citing this article because another article refered to the protest as "a riot".

Hundreds of Ole Miss students exchanged racial epithets and violent,politicized chants What is a "violent, politicized chant"? in response to the announcement of the re-election of President Barack Obama.

What began as an argument around midnight quickly spread across campus.

UPD responded to a fire alarm being pulled in Brown Hall as crowds gathered near Kincannon and Stockard.

Just as all seemed to calm down, those in disagreement moved to the Grove.

UPD cleared the Grove on the grounds that it closes at midnight. Displeased, crowds continued to grow and returned to Kincannon.

UPD responded and forcibly dispersed the crowd.

“Disperse or go to jail,” UPD officers said.

So no one was hurt, nothing was damaged and this is considered a riot? I don't even know that there were "racial epithets".

Lib Dem Energy Secretary slapping down Tory minister who declared 'enough is enough' on onshore wind farms

Original Post:Daily Mail
By MATT CHORLEY and JAMES CHAPMAN A furious coalition row erupted today after a junior Tory minister declared that the relentless march of onshore wind farms is at an end.

Insisting ‘enough is enough’, energy minister John Hayes said turbines had been ‘peppered around the country’ with little or no regard for local opinion. He said existing sites and those in the pipeline would be enough to meet green commitments with no need for more.

‘Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are going to reach our 2020 target,’ he said. ‘I’m saying enough is enough.’

But at an early-morning showdown with his boss - Lib Dem Energy Secretary Ed Davey - Mr Hayes was told he does not decide government policy.

Mr Hayes told the Mail he had commissioned research on the impact of wind turbines on the landscape and whether they drive down house prices.

He has also asked scientists to examine noise complaints and more sinister suggestions that the turbines endanger military aircraft by blocking radar signals. The intervention by Mr Hayes, who became energy minister in last month’s reshuffle, will delight 100-plus fellow Tory MPs who have urged David Cameron to take a more sceptical approach to onshore wind power.

It does however risk a clash with the Liberal Democrats, who are enthusiastic advocates of renewable energy.

A source close to Mr Davey said today: 'John does not decide government policy. There will be no change. We are in a coalition government, not a single party government and definitely not a single minister government.

'We are determined to make sure the coalition lives up to the Prime Minister’s pledge to make it the greenest government ever.'

Energy Secretary Ed Davey today slapped down Mr Hayes, insisting onshore wind has 'an important role to play' in Britain

'Onshore wind is one of the cheapest renewables, which is why we’ve been able to cut the subsidy. It has an important role to play in our energy future.'

However Mr Hayes suggested the controversy over turbines was giving other sources of renewable power – such as offshore wind, solar and tidal power – a bad name.

‘The onshore wind debate is skewing the whole debate, which is not good for the Government, not good for people and not good for the renewables lobby,’ he told the Mail.

‘We can no longer have wind turbines imposed on communities. I can’t single-handedly build a new Jerusalem but I can protect our green and pleasant land. ‘Firstly, I have asked the planning minister to look again at the relationship between these turbines and the landscape.

‘It seems extraordinary to have allowed them to be peppered around the country without due regard for the interests of the local community or their wishes. ‘We have issued a call for evidence on wind. That is about cost but also about community buy-in. We need to understand communities’ genuine desires.’

Mr Hayes said policy should not be based on some ‘bourgeois left article of faith’. ‘These things are about the people and I am the people’s minister,’ he added.

Controversial: The Energy Minister said onshore wind farms are turning people against other sources of renewable energy such as offshore alternatives and solar power ‘I want to look at a broader analysis of the effects – I mean house price values, and other quality of life issues. I want to look particularly at noise, so I have asked the Institute of Acoustics to look at the noise issue from a completely independent perspective.

‘There is a case where people had to move from their family farm because of noise. It is very often the case that local authorities don’t have the wherewithal to address these planning issues.’

Mr Hayes said defence ministers had agreed to investigate claims of radar interference from the spinning blades.

The Government has set a target of increasing the amount of power generated by onshore wind farms to 13 gigawatts by 2020.

But in an indication of a shift in Government policy, ministers announced this summer that the subsidy for onshore wind power generation would be cut by 10 per cent this year.

Approvals for onshore wind farms – around 3,800 turbines are in operation – have however reached record levels, according to figures published yesterday. RenewableUK, the wind industry trade body, said in a statement: ‘For the first time in five years, the UK is seeing a rise in the amount of UK capacity approved at a local level.’

There was a 15 per cent increase in approval rates for smaller onshore projects with capacity of less than 50 megawatts last year compared with the previous year, it said.

Applications for new wind farms have to be made to councils, and around a half are refused. But under the existing system, energy companies often win on appeal to the planning inspectorate.

Campaigners took heart from a court ruling in May, in which villagers in Hemsby, on the edge of the Norfolk Broads, succeeded in blocking four 350ft turbines after a judge agreed their right to preserve their landscape was more important than renewable energy targets.

Tory MP Chris Heaton Harris, who has led calls for a rethink on wind power, said of Mr Hayes’s remarks: ‘This is a huge step forward. These awful turbines do nothing for the environment – they barely reduce CO2 – they force up energy bills and put more people into fuel poverty.

‘It’s about time the Government listened in this way. Communities will be delighted that they may now be spared the torment they have seen others go through when turbines go up.’

Former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lawson, an arch-sceptic on climate change, said: ‘I would welcome the minister’s statements. I would hope they would translate into a moratorium. An additional problem is that wind power is one of the most expensive forms of generating electricity there is.

‘At a time when there is so much concern both from households and industry about the cost of energy, that too should be a decisive argument against going this way.’ But Labour seized on the coalition row about the future of wind farms.

Mitt Romney literally ripped for gathering food donations

Tell me there's no media bias. Mitt Romney is gathering food for people and this is apparently a poor act. It is no possible for him to do good in the eyes of the media.

Benghazi facts still unreleased, but reporters care about Romney's victory website

Original Post: Yahoo

Romney ‘transition’ website briefly appears online

By Dylan Stableford

Mitt Romney told reporters aboard his plane on Tuesday afternoon that he had prepared an 1,118-word "victory speech" to give supporters on election night. And it appears the Romney campaign was preparing a website for his transition from candidate to president, too.

The site appeared online on Wednesday and was taken down—but not before Taegan Goddard, a blogger for Roll Call's Political Wire, captured screenshots, which included a "President Elect" seal, information about the inauguration, a fresh tagline ("Smaller, Simpler, Smarter") and a quote from the Republican nominee ("I'm excited about our prospects as a nation. My priority is putting people back to work in America.").

The site also included a page with information on how to join the Romney administration, as well as a section on the president-elect's process of picking a Cabinet:

President-elect Romney is working closely with his transition team to put together his administration to ensure a smooth transfer of power on January 20th, 2013 and get to work for the American people.

It's unclear how long the transition site was live or who was responsible for its content. A spokesman for the Romney campaign did not return a request for comment. According to the Huffington Post, it was produced for the Romney campaign by Blue Host, a Provo, Utah-based web-hosting company whose owner said the site was produced about 10 days before the election.

But it's not unusual for the campaign to have had one ready. As CBSNews.com noted, federal funds are provided to both presidential nominees months in advance "to build transition teams and rent office space."

Perhaps the Romney IT team was simply still in shock. A few minutes after the former Massachusetts governor gave his concession speech early Wednesday, President Barack Obama's victory speech was streamed live at the top of MittRomney.com, adjacent to the words "Stand With Mitt."

Obama's pet auto company to outsource Jeep to China

Original Post: Business Week

Fiat Says Jeep Output May Return to China as Demand Rises

By Craig Trudell on October 22, 2012 Tweet Facebook LinkedIn Google Plus 5 Comments

Fiat SpA (F), majority owner of Chrysler Group LLC, plans to return Jeep output to China and may eventually make all of its models in that country, according to the head of both automakers’ operations in the region.

Fiat is in “very detailed conversations” with its Chinese partner, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. (2238), about making Jeeps in the world’s largest auto market, said Mike Manley, chief operating officer of Fiat and Chrysler in Asia. Chrysler hasn’t built Jeeps there since before Fiat took control in 2009.

“The volume opportunity for us is very significant,” Manley, who is also president of the Jeep brand, said in an interview at Chrysler’s Auburn Hills, Michigan, headquarters. “We’re reviewing the opportunities within existing capacity” as well as “should we be localizing the entire Jeep portfolio or some of the Jeep portfolio.”

Chrysler, which entered an alliance with Turin, Italy-based Fiat as part of its U.S. government-backed bankruptcy, is relying on growth in China to counter weakness in Europe’s auto market. The automaker is targeting 500,000 annual sales outside North America by 2014, more than triple its overseas deliveries in 2009.

Chrysler currently builds all Jeep SUV models at plants in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. Manley referred to adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output from North America to China.

Asia’s Strength International sales for Chrysler climbed 22 percent to 153,154 this year through September, according to the company. The Jeep brand accounted for more than three of every four of those deliveries, with sales surging 54 percent to 117,189.

“We’ve grown much stronger in Asia to make up or compensate for some of the difficulties in Europe,” Manley said. Europe will be in “very difficult, tough times” through at least 2013, he said.

Boosted by strong demand for the Grand Cherokee and Compass sport-utility vehicles, Jeep sales in China have more than doubled to 33,463 this year through September. The brand topped total deliveries for all of 2011 by July of this year.

Chrysler’s 2014 international sales target is “certainly within reach,” Manley said. The European auto market is on track to plunge in 2012 by the most in 19 years, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

“Given what we see around the world, it is stretching for sure, but it’s not something we’ve given up on,” he said.

Fiat and Guangzhou’s plant in Changsha in central China has initial annual capacity of 140,000 cars and is capable of eventually assembling 500,000 vehicles per year. The automakers will add production of a new vehicle to the factory roughly every 12 months and began building the Fiat Viaggio compact there in June.

Election 2012: Voter intimidators meet freedom enforcers

Original Post: Examiner
Video
On November 6, 2012, the New Black Panthers (NBP) were photographed outside an Ohio polling place intimidating voters. K. Williams posted a photo via Twitter of the New Black Panthers standing outside an Ohio polling location. These New Black Panthers were out in full force during Election Day across the nation to ensure Barack Obama got his share of popular votes.

One cannot prove if the NBP had an affect on enough voters to make a difference in the outcome of the election, but one thing you can be sure enabling any group to get away with such offenses will only result in more intimidation throughout the legal and political system.

Veterans stood unknown amongst the crowds in known polling areas where voter intimidation took place in the 2008 elections. Some former Army Rangers, Navy Seals, Delta Force, Green Berets and other ex-military volunteered to allow every American their right to vote.

As reported by Philymag.com, U.S. Navy Seal, Ben Brink told Fox News he is reaching out to former special operations veterans to help monitor the polls, especially in known area where there has been voter intimidation. Ben Brink said on the Larry Mendte Show, “The nation saw the video of members of the Black Panthers in Philadelphia intimidating people trying to vote in 2008. We are going to try and make certain that nothing like that happens this year.”

Brink claims to have over a hundred former Army Rangers, Navy Seal, Delta Force, Green Berets and others who have volunteered for duty. The idea of Navy Seals and Black Panthers getting into it at a Philly polling site gives a whole new incentive for casting a ballot. “Our guys aren't easily intimidated,” Brink added.

The intimidating New Black Panthers are a comparison to the Ku Klux Klan of the 60's and American veterans are a comparison to Special Ops of retired military personnel that still stand for freedom. Real winners never have to cheat.

NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year

Original Post:Daily Mail

By STEVE DOUGHTY

Worrying claim: Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial 'death pathway' into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday.

Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.

He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country.

It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent.

There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP. Professor Pullicino claimed that far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the LCP and it had now become an ‘assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway’.

He cited ‘pressure on beds and difficulty with nursing confused or difficult-to-manage elderly patients’ as factors.

Professor Pullicino revealed he had personally intervened to take a patient off the LCP who went on to be successfully treated.

He said this showed that claims they had hours or days left are ‘palpably false’. In the example he revealed a 71-year-old who was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia and epilepsy was put on the LCP by a covering doctor on a weekend shift.

RIGHTMINDS: Killing patients because they're difficult to manage is wrong, but who would want to go on living as a vegetable?

We DON'T want to strike: On the eve of their walk-out, doctors signal that they're ready to put their patients first

Professor Pullicino said he had returned to work after a weekend to find the patient unresponsive and his family upset because they had not agreed to place him on the LCP.

‘I removed the patient from the LCP despite significant resistance,’ he said. ‘His seizures came under control and four weeks later he was discharged home to his family,’ he said.

Professor Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Kent, was speaking to the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

Distressing: The professor has claimed an approved technique of looking after the terminally ill is not being used in all hospitals He said: ‘The lack of evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway makes it an assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway.

‘Very likely many elderly patients who could live substantially longer are being killed by the LCP.

‘Patients are frequently put on the pathway without a proper analysis of their condition.

‘Predicting death in a time frame of three to four days, or even at any other specific time, is not possible scientifically.

This determination in the LCP leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The personal views of the physician or other medical team members of perceived quality of life or low likelihood of a good outcome are probably central in putting a patient on the LCP.’ He added: ‘If we accept the Liverpool Care Pathway we accept that euthanasia is part of the standard way of dying as it is now associated with 29 per cent of NHS deaths.’ The LCP was developed in the North West during the 1990s and recommended to hospitals by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in 2004.

Medical criticisms of the Liverpool Care Pathway were voiced nearly three years ago. Experts including Peter Millard, emeritus professor of geriatrics at the University of London, and Dr Peter Hargreaves, palliative care consultant at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, Surrey, warned of ‘backdoor euthanasia’ and the risk that economic factors were being brought into the treatment of vulnerable patients. In the example of the 71-year-old, Professor Pullicino revealed he had given the patient another 14 months of life by demanding the man be removed from the LCP. Professor Pullicino said the patient was an Italian who spoke poor English, but was living with a ‘supportive wife and daughter’. He had a history of cerebral haemorrhage and subsequent seizures.

Professor Pullicino said: ‘I found him deeply unresponsive on a Monday morning and was told he had been put on the LCP. He was on morphine via a syringe driver.’ He added: ‘I removed the patient from the LCP despite significant resistance.’ The patient’s extra 14 months of life came at considerable cost to the NHS and the taxpayer, Professor Pullicino indicated.

He said he needed extensive support with wheelchair, ramps and nursing. After 14 months the patient was admitted to a different hospital with pneumonia and put on the LCP. The man died five hours later.

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘The Liverpool Care Pathway is not euthanasia and we do not recognise these figures. The pathway is recommended by NICE and has overwhelming support from clinicians – at home and abroad – including the Royal College of Physicians.

‘A patient’s condition is monitored at least every four hours and, if a patient improves, they are taken off the Liverpool Care Pathway and given whatever treatments best suit their new needs.’

Our pick for president: Romney

Original Post: Orlando Sentinel

Two days after his lackluster first debate performance, President Barack Obama's re-election hopes got a timely boost. The government's monthly jobless report for September showed the nation's unemployment rate fell below 8 percent for the first time since he took office.

If that were the only metric that mattered, the president might credibly argue that the U.S. economy was finally on the right track. Unfortunately for him, and for the American people, he can't.

Economic growth, three years into the recovery, is anemic. Family incomes are down, poverty is up. Obama's Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, highlighted these and other hard truths in this week's second debate.

Even the September jobless numbers deserve an asterisk, because more than 4 million Americans have given up looking for work since January 2009.

And while the nation's economy is still sputtering nearly four years after Obama took office, the federal government is more than $5 trillion deeper in debt. It just racked up its fourth straight 13-figure shortfall.

We have little confidence that Obama would be more successful managing the economy and the budget in the next four years. For that reason, though we endorsed him in 2008, we are recommending Romney in this race.

Obama's defenders would argue that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, and would have made more progress if not for obstruction from Republicans in Congress. But Democrats held strong majorities in the House and Senate during his first two years.

Other presidents have succeeded even with the other party controlling Capitol Hill. Democrat Bill Clinton presided over an economic boom and balanced the budget working with Republicans. Leaders find a way.

With Obama in charge, the federal government came perilously close to a default last year. Now it's lurching toward another crisis with the impending arrival of massive tax hikes and spending cuts on Jan. 1.

The next president is likely to be dealing with a Congress where at least one, if not both, chambers are controlled by Republicans. It verges on magical thinking to expect Obama to get different results in the next four years.

Two years ago, a bipartisan panel the president appointed recommended a 10-year, $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan. Rather than embrace it and sell it to the American people, Obama took his own, less ambitious plan to Congress, where it was largely ignored by both parties.

Now the president and his supporters are attacking Romney because his long-term budget blueprint calls for money-saving reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, three of the biggest drivers of deficit spending. Obama would be more credible in critiquing the proposal if he had a serious alternative for bringing entitlement spending under control. He doesn't.

Romney is not our ideal candidate for president. We've been turned off by his appeals to social conservatives and immigration extremists. Like most presidential hopefuls, including Obama four years ago, Romney faces a steep learning curve on foreign policy.

But the core of Romney's campaign platform, his five-point plan, at least shows he understands that reviving the economy and repairing the government's balance sheet are imperative — now, not four years in the future.

Romney has a strong record of leadership to run on. He built a successful business. He rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from scandal and mismanagement. As governor of Massachusetts, he worked with a Democrat-dominated legislature to close a $3billion budget deficit without borrowing or raising taxes, and pass the health plan that became a national model.

This is Romney's time to lead, again. If he doesn't produce results — even with a hostile Senate — we'll be ready in 2016 to get behind someone else who will.

We reject the innuendo that some critics have heaped on the president. We don't think he's a business-hating socialist. We don't think he's intent on weakening the American military. We don't think he's unpatriotic. And, no, we don't think he was born outside the United States.

But after reflecting on his four years in the White House, we also don't think that he's the best qualified candidate in this race.

We endorse Mitt Romney for president.

President says he has problems with math above the 2nd grade, this blogger not surprised

Voting Machines Force Voters to Vote for Obama

Guilford Co. voters say ballot cast for Romney came up Obama on machine

Original Post:Fox 8

by Scott Gustin, Brandon Jones and Charlie Glancy

GREENSBORO, N.C. –The presidential election is just around the corner and voting issues have already become a problem in Guilford County.

On Monday, several voters complained that their electronic ballot machine cast the wrong vote. All the complaints were made by people who voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location.

One of the voters, Sher Coromalis, says she cast her ballot for Governor Mitt Romney, but every time she entered her vote the machine defaulted to President Obama. “I was so upset that this could happen,” said Coromalis.

Guilford County Board of Elections Director George Gilbert says the problem arises every election. It can be resolved after the machine is re-calibrated by poll workers. “It’s not a conspiracy it’s just a machine that needs to be corrected,” Gilbert said. After the third try, Coromalis says she was able to get her vote counted for Gov. Romney but was still annoyed.

“I should have just mailed it in,” Coromalis said. Marie Haydock, who also voted at the Bur-Mil Park polling location, had the same problem.

“The frustration is… every vote counts,” said Haydock. Elections officials say the machines have been fixed as of Tuesday, and no problems have been reported since.

Early voting ends November 3.

Obama condemns violence tied to anti-Muslim film

Apparently I have to post this because the President and Crowley have forgotten that it has happened. It has already gone down the Memory Hole.
Original Post:Yahoo

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Barack Obama is condemning an anti-Muslim film and the violence in the Middle East that has followed its release, saying there is "no speech that justifies mindless violence."

Obama says in a speech Tuesday before the U.N. General Assembly that "there are no words that excuse the killing of innocent" and "no video that justifies an attack on an embassy."

Obama says the video "is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well." The president was speaking in the aftermath of violent protests in the Middle East and North Africa connected to the release of an anti-Muslim video produced in the United States.

Four Americans were killed in Libya, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, along with more than 50 others in the violence.

During the Presidential debate tonight, Obama claims that he was standing in the Rose Garden on 9/11/12 and blamed the Libyan attack on terrorists. Mitt Romney called him on his lie and Obama turned to back him up. SHE AGREED WITH OBAMA!

She went along with the story that Obama called it a terrorist attack from day 1 and did not, in fact blame it on the video. That was less than a month ago. We have stories, we have video. It happened. I felt so bad for Mitt Romney standing there incredulously. It was a fact that the President said what he said and everyone knows it. Everyone, except apparently, Barack Obama and Candy Crowley. The thing is, I don't even think Obama thinks he was lying. I'll bet he's convinced himself that it's the truth. "It's not a lie if you believe it."

Information cannot stay buried. Candy goes on CNN later and recants her idiotic position and lets the world know that Romney was right, Obama lied and she's a fool. Maybe she should have stuck to the moderators traditional position of moderator and not Obama flunky.

SOLAR PANELS THAT BURST INTO FLAMES

Original Post:Human Events

By: Audrey Hudson

A congressional oversight panel wants to know when the Obama administration became aware of significant technological issues at a renewable energy company it helped fund, including the propensity of its solar panels to burst into flames when exposed to the sun.

Abound Solar Manufacturing was awarded a $400 million line-of-credit in taxpayer-backed loans from the Energy Department (DOE), and is the third company funded by President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan to go bankrupt, along with Solyndra and Beacon Power.

Republican Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Cliff Stearns of Florida and Cory Gardner of Colorado, sent a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Wednesday instructing the agency to turn over certain information on the loan.

“While documents prepared at the time DOE awarded a conditional commitment to Abound do not mention any technological problems, an engineering report submitted to DOE just two months before DOE closed Abound’s $400 million loan guarantee indicates that Abound’s panels were already experiencing significant efficiency and technological difficulties,” the lawmaker said.

Abound spent $70 million of the loan it received in 2011 before going bankrupt in July. Company officials blamed the failure on China for dumping solar panels subsidized by the Communist regime on the U.S. at prices below market value.

Upton’s committee led the congressional investigation into whether the Obama White House pressured the Energy Department to lend another solar panel company, Solyndra, $535 million in guaranteed loans. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last year.

The committee is asking the Energy Department to turn over all engineering reports, tests and technical assessments it was provided by Abound, as well as all documents relating to the performance of its products by Oct. 24.

Steve Wynn Says Business Is ‘Frightened’ of Obama

Original Post:Yahoo

Steve Wynn says the Obama administration's policies have directly resulted in American business leaders sitting on their bankrolls rather than investing in projects that would create jobs. Wynn, the founder and CEO of Wynn Resorts (WYNN), told Nevada television host Jon Ralston yesterday that he passed on a $2 billion project that could have created as many as 35,000 jobs because he's "afraid of the President," adding that every business guy Wynn knows is "frightened of Barack Obama and the way he thinks."

Breakout asked Hugh Johnson, chairman and CIO of Hugh Johnson Advisors and a job creator in his own right, if Wynn is onto something or just grinding an ax. Wynn Is "Right on the Mark"

In the attached video Johnson says Wynn is dead right. The rub for Johnson is the proposed tax hike for those making over $250,000 a year. It's not a matter of fair share but of bad business. Many of those people are owners and operators of small businesses. Tax small business people at a higher rate and they'll have less money to hire.

As the owner of a small business himself, Johnson says he would see his taxes rise as a result of the proposed hikes. "I would be affected by an increase in taxes, and that's obviously going to do something to my appetite to hire some new people; it's going to reduce it."

Johnson rejects the notion that the wealthy are opposed to higher taxes because of outsized greed and a lack of compassion. Obama's "creeping policy" against small business in favor of those in need paradoxically limits the beneficiaries' chances of getting a job. Taking money out of the hands of employers is "not how you put the U.S. economy on the road to recovery," as Johnson sees it. Rising Uncertainty on the Election

Even with the sense that the deck is increasingly stacked against him and his fellow business owners, Johnson doesn't think policy is the main culprit behind the economy recovering without as many jobs as would be expected. A far bigger concern is a lack of certainty on what the tax rates will ultimately be. It's impossible to know whether or not hiring makes economic sense when you don't know what your rates are going to be. Romney's comeback in the polls doesn't help — at least for now.

"I want to see who's going to win this election, and I really want to see what the tax and spending policies are going to be for the next four years," says Johnson. "I don't know that right now, so I'm putting things on hold now and waiting for the outcome of this election."

Even if Romney wins the White House come February, there's no guarantee his policies will actually be put in place. But that's a problem for another day. For now guys like Steve Wynn and Hugh Johnson would be happy just to feel like they aren't the scapegoats for a recovery that continues to feel like a recession.

Obama campaign staffer caught helping activist vote twice

Original Post:Newstalk 1130

Videographer James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas caught an official for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign helping who she thought was an Obama supporter set herself up to vote more than once in November. Stephanie Caballero is the regional field director for Obama’s Organizing For America in Houston, Texas. Federal Election Commission documents show, according to Project Veritas, that Caballero is a “salaried employee of the DNC [Democratic National Committee].” Caballero is caught on camera helping the young woman try to vote in Florida and Texas in the upcoming election.

“So I spent some time in Florida, and I got my voter registration card for Florida. So and I know that we have you know it’s a battleground state there,” the Project Veritas reporter said to Caballero.

“Keep it, keep it… so you’re going to vote by ballot?” Caballero responded. “I’m going to vote by ballot and then I have mine here too,” the videographer answered, adding that: “it just really concerns me that if we don’t do everything we can we’re not going to win.”

Caballero then advises: “okay, so you have to make sure because after 60 days you can send in your application to vote by mail ballot.”

“So I can print that out for you. On Wednesday I’ll print it out. You just have to mail it or fax,” she added.

“Okay, or fax it back in so that I can do,” the videographer responded. “So they’ll send you a mail ballot,” Caballero then said. “A mail ballot, and so, and there’s no way that they would be able to cross reference that?” the videographer then asked.

“If you voted twice?” Caballero asked, seeking to clarify, adding, “I don’t know with you. I might just do Florida because in Texas it really doesn’t [count].” Later in the conversation, referencing the voter fraud, the videographer said to Caballero: “And let me know about that. I mean I don’t want to do anything wrong. But if no one’s going to know, like…”

“I’ll definitely look into [it]. I don’t want you to get in trouble at all,” Caballero promised.

The videographer responded: “Yeah, I don’t want to get in trouble. But like I said, if no one’s going to know I don’t have a problem with it, yeah. So anyway, but…” Caballero then said: “Oh, my God. This is so funny. It’s cool though.” O’Keefe then said “a few weeks later,” his videographer went back to the office to follow up. Caballero gave her a Florida absentee ballot application to “help her vote twice.”

After Caballero sets the videographer up to vote in Florida, she asked the Project Veritas investigator: “Are you going to do what I think you’re going do?” The videographer responded: “Well, I mean, if no one’s gonna know…” Caballero audibly laughed, then said: “You’re so hilarious!”

Stacey Dash 'shocked' by 'fury' over her Romney support

Original Post: USA Today

Stacey Dash told Piers Morgan on his CNN show Tuesday night that her support for Mitt Romney has provoked some serious negative feedback.

The Clueless actress tweeted her political opinion on Sunday, writing: "Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future."

She was immediately slammed with Tweets attacking her. One example: "Wait Stacey Dash is voting for Romney? You get a lil money and you forget that you're black and a woman. Two things Romney hates."

And one of the latest came from Samuel L. Jackson, who said, "Wait, did Stacey Dash Really endorse Romney today?! REALLY????! Is she CRA...........??!"

Dash, 46, told Morgan last night, "I really don't understand the fury. I don't get it. ... I was shocked, really shocked. But you can't expect everyone to agree with you."

Dash explained to Morgan that she was a Democrat and voted for Barack Obama in the last election, but now, "I want the next four years to be different." And she says, "It's my right as an American citizen. ... I chose him not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character."

She says that she saw Romney and his wife on Meet the Press, and "they seemed authentic and genuine in what they said about the country. And the need for us to be united and move forward."

Dash said Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, called her Tuesday and told her she was brave. He tweeted his thanks to her, saying, "Had a great conversation with @REALStaceyDash this afternoon. Thank you for your support!"

And there has been other positive support from fans, too. TV game show host Chuck Woolery tweeted: "Stacey Dash, a beautiful young black woman, demeaned by the left, because she is for Romney. Hollywood, It's a tough place to speak U'r mind."

U.S. officer got no reply to requests for more security in Benghazi

Original Post: Yahoo

By Susan Cornwell and Mark Hosenball

A U.S. security officer twice asked his State Department superiors for more security agents for the American mission in Benghazi months before an attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, but he got no response. The officer, Eric Nordstrom, who was based in Tripoli until about two months before the September attack, said a State Department official, Charlene Lamb, wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi "artificially low," according to a memo summarizing his comments to a congressional committee that was obtained by Reuters.

Nordstrom also argued for more U.S. security in Libya by citing a chronology of over 200 security incidents there from militia gunfights to bomb attacks between June 2011 and July 2012. Forty-eight of the incidents were in Benghazi. A brief summary of Nordstrom's October 1 interview with the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was contained in a memo prepared by the committee's minority Democratic staff.

Nordstrom's actions and those of his superiors are likely to figure prominently in a House committee hearing on Wednesday that will be Congress' first public examination of what went wrong at the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi.

The State Department has defended security procedures in Libya and convened its own independent review board. A State Department official declined to comment on what Nordstrom told lawmakers in private, noting that Nordstrom would testify at the public hearing on Wednesday and "that's something that will come out in the hearing." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the department's "posture is to be as cooperative as we possibly can" at the Wednesday hearing. In addition to Nordstrom, it will feature testimony by Lamb, Patrick Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management, and Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood, who headed a security support team at the Tripoli embassy.

Debate over whether the Americans were caught unprepared for the assault by militants on the diplomatic mission in Libya's relatively lawless eastern section has put the administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, on the defensive in the run-up to the November presidential election.

A leading Republican on the committee probing the attack, Representative Jason Chaffetz, told Reuters Tuesday he thought security decisions U.S. officials made for the Benghazi mission had turned out to be "deadly" ones.

The top U.S. intelligence authority, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, says the four Americans were killed in an organized terrorist assault, but the attackers have not been identified.

Separately, a U.S. official confirmed to Reuters that in addition to the four Americans who were killed in the Benghazi attacks on September 11, three more Americans were injured. Only one of those remains in hospital, the official said.

Nordstrom, a State Department regional security officer, told lawmakers that Kennedy issued a "decision memo" in December 2011 requiring that the Benghazi post be manned with five diplomatic security agents, but that it usually had only three or four. "He (Nordstrom) stated that he sent two cables to State Department headquarters in March and July 2012 requesting additional Diplomatic Security Agents for Benghazi, but that he received no responses," the memo said.

At some point, however, it appears Nordstrom learned the views of Lamb because he told the committee she "wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi artificially low," the memo said.

"He said that Deputy Assistant Secretary (for international programs) Lamb believed the Benghazi post did not need any Diplomatic Security Special Agents because there was a residential safe haven to fall back to in an emergency, but that she thought the best course of action was to assign three agents," the memo said. It is unclear who made the final decision about how many agents were stationed in Benghazi.

"Sadly, that was a deadly decision," Representative Chaffetz said of leaving the mission with just a few security agents.

"Look at the result -- the first (U.S.) ambassador killed since the 1970s," Chaffetz said in an interview.

The Oversight and Government Reform committee has been investigating the handling of security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi before the attack. The committee's Republican Chairman Darrell Issa and Chaffetz, a subcommittee chairman, have led the probe.

Chaffetz said he suspects the devotion of so much effort and money to Iraq and Afghanistan has drained resources away from security for U.S. diplomatic efforts in other parts of the world. U.S. troops have withdrawn from Iraq but thousands of security contractors remain there, he said.

"We have 15,000 (security contractors) in Iraq, and we have a hard time having more than two dozen in Libya," Chaffetz said. "It doesn't seem to balance itself out right."

Democrats counter that Republicans have pushed for cuts in the funding of the very embassy security that they now are charging is insufficient. The Democratic staff memo that outlined Nordstrom's pleas for more security also said that House Republicans voted to reduce embassy security funding by about half a billion dollars below the amount requested by the Obama administration since 2010. The Democratic-led Senate had been able to restore "a small portion" of these funds, the memo said.

Ambassador Chris Stevens died of smoke inhalation when he was trapped alone inside the burning building in Benghazi in an attack that began on the evening of September 11.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a conference in Florida on Tuesday that there was no advanced warning about the Libya attack. He scoffed at media portrayals of him as "hapless and hopeless" for acknowledging on September 28 a shift in the intelligence assessment of the Benghazi assault, calling it a deliberate terrorist attack instead of an event stemming from spontaneous protest, as initially thought.

Clapper suggested it was unrealistic for anyone to expect the U.S. intelligence community to have a "a God's eye, God's ear certitude" right after an attack like the one in Libya.

Former NHS director dies after operation is cancelled four times at her own hospital

Original Post: Daily Mail

A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation - at her own hospital.

Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.

Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust - the organisation where his wife had served as a non-executive member of the board of directors.

He said: 'I don't really know why she died. I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off.'

Mr Hutchon, of Great Baddow, Essex, said his wife, 72, had initially undergone major stomach surgery last June but the follow up procedures were repeatedly abandoned. The former mayor remained at the hospital for months but her family feared she was becoming institutionalised and decided to bring her home until an operation was a certainty.

Margaret Hutchon waited nine months for an operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford where she was a non-executive director Mr Hutchon, 71, said: 'The case has been referred to the coroner because of the long time it has taken. In some ways, I would like the coroner to order a post mortem.' The pensioner said his wife had been left very weak before her operation because she had been unable to take in nutrients.

'From July to October there was talk of another operation and then between November and December there were three or four postponements and she was becoming so institutionalised we decided to get her home until an operation was certain. 'It was a blessing because although neither of is could have guessed it - it gave us a last month together.

'Nevertheless, she was unable to take proper nourishment and went into the operation on the better side of a low state - she was very weak.'

Mrs Hutchon was well known and respected after serving in local government for the past 30 years and she became mayor of Chelmsford in 2006.

Mike Mackrory, a fellow Liberal Democrat councillor, said: We were all stunned to hear she had died after the operation. There were constant delays she had to endure before surgery.

'We were given the very sad news and as word spread it threw a pall over the civic dinner. Margaret was much loved and respected in this town.' A spokesman for Broomfield Hospital said it could not comment on individual cases.

U.S. SOLDIERS URGED NOT TO SHOOT TALIBAN AT NIGHT SO LOCALS CAN SLEEP

Original Post: Breitbart

by AWR HAWKINS

Reports indicate U.S. soldiers and British Royal Marines have been urged to show "courageous constraint" by not shooting Taliban members spotted planting IEDs. The reason? Shooting them might disturb the locals.

This news comes out on the heels of an investigation into the death of Royal Marine Sergeant Peter Rayner, whom witnesses say watched the Taliban plant IEDs at night but was ordered not to engage them. Families of other soldiers and Royal Marines are telling stories of how their loved ones were not allowed to use mortars or night illumination when they came across Taliban members in an area full of IEDs.

The reason given was that "the sound of shooting 'might wake up and upset the locals.'" This is not "courageous restraint" -- this is appeasement.

And people wonder why we call the President a socialist

Obama dedicates Chavez national monument

Original Post: Bakersfield Californian

BY JAMES BURGER, COURTENAY EDELHART AND STEVEN MAYER, Californian staff writers

KEENE — President Barack Obama on Monday declared La Paz, the nickname of the United Farm Workers union headquarters and onetime home of Cesar Chavez, a national monument and said it will help tell the story of “who we are as Americans.”

He said the story is about hardworking people determined to make America “a little more just, a little more free.”

Before his speech, Obama laid a single red rose on the grave of Chavez.

The sun-splashed event at the longtime UFW compound was crowded with about 6,600 visitors, but many others were unexpectedly shut out.

Organizers said too many people had responded to an email invitation, so over the weekend they began disinviting hundreds, if not thousands, of those who thought they could attend. Facebook pages quickly filled up with the comments of unhappy people whose dream to see the president would be thwarted.

Obama’s brief speech, in large part, was a tribute to Chavez and his family, and by extension, to the indomitable spirit of the American people.The nation’s monuments, Obama said, tell a story of people, of determined, fearless, hopeful people who have always been willing to devote their lives to making this country a little more just and a little more free.

“And one of those people lies here, beneath the rose garden at the foot of a hill he used to climb to watch the sunrise,” he said.

Chavez, Obama said, embodied the hope and determination that has been evident in generations of immigrants who looked to America, not just as a place to set down roots, but as a land of unlimited possibilities, for themselves and their posterity.

The president stayed away from overt campaign language, never mentioning the upcoming election or his Republican opponent. His only nod to the election was an acknowledgement that the work Chavez began is not yet finished, that more work needs to be done.

Before Obama spoke, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa addressed the audience.

Villaraigosa said Chavez taught America “the promise of freedom is not always for the powerful but also the powerless. Not just for those who owned the fields but also the people who worked the fields.”

Solis said Chavez’s legacy is that “work is not just a source of income, it’s a source of dignity” and that Chavez “brought the plight of farmworkers to anyone who would listen and some who would not.”

Salazar said the Interior Department is working to make sure national monuments reflect all people of all backgrounds.

The crowd erupted into cheers as Cesar Chavez Foundation President Paul Chavez, Cesar's son, took the stage and talked about his father’s connection to Nuestra Señora Reina de La Paz.

"He found the place where he could plan and strategize," he said. "But it was more than that for my father. La Paz became a spiritual harbor for him."

Next to come to the stage was UFW President Arturo Rodriguez.

"Si se puede," he shouted, the UFW motto. He was echoed by the crowd.

Farmworkers and supporters from 25 states came to the event, Rodriguez said.

The monument is, he said, a tribute to Chavez but also to the thousands of people who still carry on the legacy he left behind.

"Each farmworker can change the world," Rodriguez said.

Then he introduced Obama.

"Si se puede," the president shouted. The crowd shouted back, "Si se puede."

The president spoke for about 10 minutes then headed back to Meadows Field for departure out of Bakersfield.

Before making his remarks, Obama stopped to visit Cesar Chavez’s grave.

The gravesite sits amid a lush garden surrounded by low, white adobe walls and arbors of dark wood beams covered in climbing vines. Planters of river rock and terra cotta pots contain a wide variety of flowers and plants. Walkways and steps lead up to the grave, which is flanked by two planters full of red roses.

The Chavez grave is marked by an unpainted wooden cross and low stone marker that sits alone in the midst of a plot of well-tended grass.

Obama was joined by Chavez’s widow, Helen Chavez; Huerta; Paul Chavez; and Rodriguez. The president talked quietly with Helen Chavez at the grave then listened as Paul Chavez, standing in a white shirt, explained the words engraved behind the grave:

“It is my deepest belief that only by giving of our lives do we find life.”

Obama left the gravesite with his arms around Huerta and Helen Chavez.

The president’s visit came a little less than a month before election day, timing not lost on many political pundits and everyday voters who pointed out Obama’s need to turn out the Latino electorate.

Most polls, including CNN’s national survey of likely Latino voters, show Obama is expected to receive close to 70 percent of the Latino vote Nov. 6. But Latino Americans, as a whole, are less likely to vote than whites and blacks, and Latinos are reporting less enthusiasm for the 2012 race than they reported four years ago.

MEMORIES Thousands began arriving at La Paz as early as 4:30 a.m. to watch Obama dedicate the monument.

Victor Garza brought his 10-year-old son, Arik. The longtime civil rights activist from Fresno has come to pray and meditate at the center but said this visit was special.

“I wanted to bring my son to meet President Obama because it’s something that he can remember and cherish for the rest of his life,” he said.

Cesar Chavez Elementary School in northeast Bakersfield brought 23 second- through fifth-graders to the event to sing the program’s closing song.

They wore khaki pants or skirts and navy blue school uniform shirts. The girls wore patriotic red, white and blue ribbons in their hair.

They were happy to be there even though the trip in was grueling.

“It was very long, exhausting and slow,” said fifth-grader Kylie Lopez, 9. “But it’s very exciting. I have only seen (Obama) on television and in pictures.”

Roberta Cumberland, 55, of Bakersfield, woke up at 6 a.m. to head out from Bakersfield with her daughter Cara Cumberland, 28.

"I've actually never been to anything political or anything like this before, so this is my first experience like this," Cara said.

Her mother said she wanted to come because she admires both Chavez and the president and considered the event a historic milestone.

"This is the first time a president I've actually supported has come to Kern County," Roberta said.

Cal State Bakersfield seniors Gracy Mendez, 25, and Maria Moreno, 21, said the speech was well worth rising at 4:45 a.m. to get to La Paz from southwest Bakersfield.

"I thought it was inspiring," Mendez said.

Moreno called the address "touching."

"I love the way he used the ‘Si se puede’ slogan from Cesar Chavez."

The Rev. John Schmoll of St. Augustine Church in Lamont wore a UFW cap. His pastor's collar peeked out from beneath a black T-shirt with "Who would Jesus deport?" in bold white letters.

He said the church office closed Monday so its small staff could come, and the speech was "well worth waiting for. You could live your whole life and never see a president, and it was a good speech to top it all off."

US officials: We didn't link Libya attack to video

Original Post: Yahoo

By BRADLEY KLAPPER and LARRY MARGASAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Tuesday it never concluded that the consulate attack in Libya stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam, raising further questions about why the Obama administration used that explanation for more than a week after assailants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

The revelation came as new documents suggested internal disagreement over appropriate levels of security before the attack, which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S.

Briefing reporters ahead of a hotly anticipated congressional hearing Wednesday, State Department officials provided their most detailed rundown of how a peaceful day in Benghazi devolved into a sustained attack that involved multiple groups of men armed with weapons such as machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars over an expanse of more than a mile.

But asked about the administration's initial — and since retracted — explanation linking the violence to protests over an anti-Muslim video circulating on the Internet, one official said, "That was not our conclusion." He called it a question for "others" to answer, without specifying. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter, and provided no evidence that might suggest a case of spontaneous violence or angry protests that went too far.

The attack has become a major issue in the presidential campaign, featuring prominently in Republican candidate Mitt Romney's latest foreign policy address on Monday. He called it an example of President Barack Obama's weakness in foreign policy matters, noting: "As the administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists."

The administration counters that it has provided its best intelligence on the attack, and that it refined its explanation as more information came to light. But five days after the attack, Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, gave a series of interviews saying the administration believed the violence was unplanned and that extremists with heavier weapons "hijacked" the protest and turned it into an outright attack.

She has since denied trying to mislead Congress, and a concurrent CIA memo that was obtained by The Associated Press cited intelligence suggesting the demonstrations in Benghazi "were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" and "evolved into a direct assault" on the diplomatic posts by "extremists." Alongside defining the nature of the Benghazi attack, Congress is looking into whether adequate security was in place.

According to an email obtained Tuesday by the AP, the top State Department security official in Libya told a congressional investigator that he had argued unsuccessfully for more security in the weeks before Ambassador Chris Stevens, a State Department computer specialist and two former Navy SEALs were killed. But department officials instead wanted to "normalize operations and reduce security resources," he wrote. Eric Nordstrom, who was the regional security officer in Libya, also referenced a State Department document detailing 230 security incidents in Libya between June 2011 and July 2012 that demonstrated the danger there to Americans.

Nordstrom is among the witnesses set to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. According to the panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and the head of a subcommittee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the State Department refused repeated requests to provide more security for U.S. diplomats in Libya.

"You will note that there were a number of incidents that targeted diplomatic missions and underscored the GoL's (government of Libya) inability to secure and protect diplomatic missions," Nordstrom's email stated.

"This was a significant part of (the diplomatic) post's and my argument for maintaining continued DS (diplomatic security) and DOD (Department of Defense) security assets into Sept/Oct. 2012; the GoL was overwhelmed and could not guarantee our protection.

"Sadly, that point was reaffirmed on Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi," he added. Nordstrom said the incidents demonstrated that security in Libya was fragile and could degrade quickly. He added that Libya was "certainly not an environment where (the diplomatic) post would be directed to 'normalize' operations and reduce security resources in accordance with an artificial time table."

Nordstrom also said diplomats in Libya were told not to request an extension of a 16-member special operations military team that left in August, according to an official of the Oversight panel. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and thus spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

The State Department has said it never received a request to extend the military team beyond August, and added that its members were replaced with a security team that had the same skills.

Democrats on the Oversight committee were sharply critical of Issa, the chairman, calling his investigation "extremely partisan."

"The chairman and his staff failed to consult with Democratic members prior to issuing public letters with unverified allegations, concealed witnesses and refused to make one hearing witness available to Democratic staff, withheld documents obtained by the committee during the investigation, and effectively excluded Democratic committee members from joining a poorly-planned congressional delegation to Libya," a Democratic memo said.

It said in the previous two years, House Republicans voted to cut the Obama administration's requests for embassy security by some $459 million.

The Democratic memo said Nordstrom told committee investigators that he sent two cables to State Department headquarters in March and July 2012 requesting additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi, but that he received no responses. He stated that Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary for international programs, wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi artificially low and that Lamb believed the Benghazi facilities did not need any diplomatic security special agents because there was a residential safe haven to fall back to in an emergency.

Issa had a phone conversation Monday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about the committee's investigation.

The FBI is still investigating the attack. Clinton also has named a State Department review panel to look into the security arrangements in Libya.

IPAB Is Even Worse than Romney Says

Original Post: Cato

Posted by Michael F. Cannon

In Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Mitt Romney claimed that ObamaCare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board is “an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.”

President Obama officially denies it, yet he confirmed Romney’s claim when he said, “what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let’s use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do.”

In this excerpt from his column in today’s The Washington Post, George F. Will quotes my coauthor Diane Cohen and me to show that IPAB is even worse than Romney claimed:

The Independent Payment Advisory Board perfectly illustrates liberalism’s itch to remove choices from individuals, and from their elected representatives, and to repose the power to choose in supposed experts liberated from democratic accountability.Beginning in 2014, IPAB would consist of 15 unelected technocrats whose recommendations for reducing Medicare costs must be enacted by Congress by Aug. 15 of each year. If Congress does not enact them, or other measures achieving the same level of cost containment, IPAB’s proposals automatically are transformed from recommendations into law. Without being approved by Congress. Without being signed by the president.

These facts refute Obama’s Denver assurance that IPAB “can’t make decisions about what treatments are given.” It can and will by controlling payments to doctors and hospitals. Hence the emptiness of Obamacare’s language that IPAB’s proposals “shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.”

By Obamacare’s terms, Congress can repeal IPAB only during a seven-month window in 2017, and then only by three-fifths majorities in both chambers. After that, the law precludes Congress from ever altering IPAB proposals.

Because IPAB effectively makes law, thereby traducing the separation of powers, and entrenches IPAB in a manner that derogates the powers of future Congresses, it has been well described by a Cato Institute study as “the most anti-constitutional measure ever to pass Congress.”

Editorial: Dallas Morning News endorses Mitt Romney for president

Original Post: Dallas News

Barack Obama will forever be a historic, as well as historical, figure in American life. The 44th U.S. president, yes, but more noteworthy, he will forever be the first African-American to lead a nation riven through centuries by racial and ethnic division.

His election in November 2008 inspired. Even those who may not have supported him could not deny the significance.

With it came an optimism that the ideals he stressed as a candidate, like a post-partisan Washington where Democrats and Republicans worked together, were within reach. He took office amid great turmoil, a crashing economy and two wars atop his priorities.

Candidate Obama, an orator of great skill and cadence, might have overcome everything and put the U.S. on a brighter path. President Obama, unfortunately, fell short of the challenge. The wars have largely faded from headlines, but the economic struggles remain, along with an attendant worry about future federal spending, deficits and debt.

Obama’s Democratic supporters would argue that no one could have succeeded in what he inherited, that the nation’s problems were far more severe than anyone could handle in four years.

We respectfully disagree. On the central issue that will define his presidency — a stalled U.S. economy weighed down by crushing annual deficits and accumulated debt — Obama showed himself to be less leader than follower. While he expended his political capital on new government programs, unemployment stayed at debilitating heights. For that reason, this newspaper recommends Republican challenger Mitt Romney for president.

We see evidence of Obama’s shortcomings in his re-election campaign, a relentlessly negative push to disqualify his opponent instead of standing on his accomplishments. His campaign has worn voters’ patience thin by constantly blaming predecessor George W. Bush for “the mess he left behind.”

Cleaning up that mess, however large, was what Americans trusted to Obama. Romney had to survive a fractious primary by steering too far right on some issues. At his core, however, we see him as a “Chamber of Commerce Republican,” more attuned to business interests than the tea party/social conservatism that defines today’s GOP.

Importantly, Romney speaks the language of industry. His tenure leading Bain Capital, for instance, has come under sharp criticism for years, but it also reveals a man who understands capital formation and how that, extrapolated through an economy, can lift the U.S. from its stalled state. Even some of Obama’s Democratic allies — notably rising star Cory Booker, former adviser Steven Rattner and former Rep. Harold Ford — were quick to criticize the campaign’s Bain-centric attacks on profit.

Unlike many in his party, Romney understands that government has a place in the economy and in American life, just not as much of a place as Obama would afford it. Obama has cited, with some justification, recalcitrance from congressional Republicans for thwarting him. But in his first two years, when Democrats had a wide margin in the House and filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Obama’s wounds were self-inflicted. He put his chips on a necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program and a massive health care overhaul. Left to languish were a broad-based energy bill, comprehensive immigration reform, entitlement reform and, most ominously, effective job-creation programs.

Obama’s people warned of unemployment rates as high as 8 percent without the stimulus spending, only to see rates exceed 8 percent, anyway, for 43 consecutive months — and counting. Real household income has fallen in consecutive years. Food stamp enrollment has hit record highs; the percentage of adults in the workforce approaches record lows.

Annual deficits for every year of the Obama presidency will top $1 trillion, pushing the federal debt past an astounding $16 trillion.

Obama’s Affordable Care Act was his signature domestic achievement. Its many laudable features included the individual mandate, but one was not its financing, which led this newspaper to oppose it. Obama left the details to Congress, and what emerged had no realistic funding stream and did too little to contain future costs.

Of most concern, Obama was not unaware of the fiscal problem. He put together a bipartisan panel to help forge a solution but then abandoned it. Left to languish, the Simpson-Bowles group could not achieve the votes to force congressional action. The proposal, which included a roughly 3-to-1 package of spending cuts to revenue increases, was the kind of compromise candidate Obama had advocated. As president, he chose not to act.

Romney has shown an ability to lead, from turning around the deficit-ridden 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics to his term as Massachusetts governor. His plans for tax and entitlement reform are encouraging, shifting the focus from government first to freeing the private sector to innovate. Voters should demand more specifics, but at the heart of his plans — especially on reforming a teetering Medicare system — is an instinct to rely on competition over regulation to drive growth.

Yet Romney does give us pause. His famed flip-flops on issues from immigration to health care, always pushing further right, are worrisome. His difficulty in speaking precisely and inoffensively on such issues as London’s Olympic preparedness, Israeli Palestinian issues and U.S. embassy assaults paint him, at best, as a foreign policy neophyte.

And his secretly recorded comments at a Boca Raton, Fla., fundraiser drew an unreasonably sharp line between those who pay income taxes and “the 47 percent” of Americans who only take and would never support him, anyway. These ill-advised statements offended many and played directly into the Obama campaign’s picture of an excessively wealthy candidate out of touch with the common man.

Not his finest moment, nor was it the lone defining one for Romney. What we’ve seen of him over many years — from business success to running a state to impeccable personal and family attributes — convinces this newspaper that the time is right for someone with his broad skill set.

Obama himself once said that if he didn’t repair the economy “in three years, this would be a one-term proposition.” The facts show it’s time for a principled, pragmatic leader who can get Washington working again.

People the President would rather meet with than Netanyahu on the verge of possible war in Middle East

The View

David Letterman

Neither the President nor the Vice President can count to four

Original Post: ABC News

by Mary Bruce and Jake Tapper

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — After bashing Mitt Romney’s “bad math” tax plan all day, it looks like President Obama is also having some trouble adding things up.

It’s a standard part of the president’s stump speech to tout his plan to create jobs by rewarding companies that make goods “stamped with three proud words: Made in America.” Rallying supporters in Kissimmee, Fla., Saturday, however, the president said this: “We can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years, because we’re selling goods around the world stamped with three proud words: Made in the USA.” For those counting, that’s more than just three words.

The president repeated the flub again today in Melbourne, Fla., once again rallying supporters to back his plan to “change our tax code so we stop giving tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas.”

“Let’s reward them for investing in new plants and equipment here in the U.S., and training new workers here in the U.S. … creating jobs right here in the U.S., making products that we sell around the world stamped with three proud words: Made in the USA. That’s what we’re fighting for. That’s the future we want,” he said as the crowd chanted three proud letters, “U-S-A!”

And you'll all remember this one.

Dan Quayle was ridiculed for years for using an archaic albiet correct spelling of potato. Let's recap the things the president doesn't know.
How many states are in America.
How long he's allowed to serve as president.
How big the deficit is.
And finally how to count to four. Truly amazing.

Stupid Obama voters

Four years later.



It troubles me that one of those people's votes will cancel out mine.

Obama administration repeats same jobs line—for the 30th month

Original Post: Yahoo

By Chris Moody

When the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the nation's latest national employment figures Friday, the Obama administration stressed that people should not "read too much" into the data.

Mitt Romney's campaign pounced, and flagged the fact that the White House has repeated that same line nearly every month since November 2009. See below for the roundup of articles from WhiteHouse.gov that Romney's campaign posted on its site. In many of the posts, the authors for the administration do acknowledge that they repeat themselves:

June 2012: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/07/06/employment-situation-june)

May 2012: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/06/01/employment-situation-may)

April 2012: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/04/employment-situation-april)

March 2012: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/06/employment-situation-march)

February 2012: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/03/09/employment-situation-february)

January 2012: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/02/03/employment-situation-january)

December 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/06/employment-situation-december)

November 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/02/employment-situation-november)

October 2011: "The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. There is no better example than August's jobs figure, which was initially reported at zero and in the latest revision increased to 104,000. This illustrates why the Administration always stresses it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/11/04/employment-situation-october)

September 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/10/07/employment-situation-september)

August 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/09/02/employment-situation-august)

July 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/05/employment-situation-july)

June 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/07/08/employment-situation-june)

May 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/06/03/employment-situation-may)

April 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/06/employment-situation-april)

March 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/01/employment-situation-march)

February 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/04/employment-situation-february)

January 2011: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/02/04/employment-situation-january)

December 2010: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/07/employment-situation-december)

November 2010: "Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/12/03/employment-situation-november)

October 2010: "Given the volatility in monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/11/05/employment-situation-october)

September 2010: "Given the volatility in the monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/08/employment-situation-september)

July 2010: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and replace job losses with robust job gains." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/06/employment-situation-july)

August 2010: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/03/employment-situation-august)

June 2010: "As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/07/02/employment-situation-june)

May 2010: "As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/04/employment-situation-may)

April 2010: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/05/07/employment-situation-april)

March 2010: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/04/02/employment-situation-march)

January 2010: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/02/05/employment-situation-january)

November 2009: "Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative." (LINK: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/04/employment-situation-november)