The truth: Robert Stephens graduated from Carleton College (average cost: $42,942/year) in 2010 and now studies law at The George Washington University Law School (average cost: $70,449/year). His father has a Ph.D. and two master’s degrees; his mother also has a master’s degree. Only in America could a kid have been blessed with so much… and only in America could he still claim to be a victim. America’s capitalist society has apparently leveled a grave injustice against his family and Robert will not stand for it. Phone inquiries into the county property records & taxpayer services office reveal that the Stephens family home is not and never has been in foreclosure, that property taxes had been paid in full this year and the remaining balance on their mortgage for the half-million dollar home is less than one year’s worth of tuition+fees at their son’s law school. Robert Stephens is upset his well educated hard working parents have lost their home to foreclosure. The videographer was summarily arrested for just being on a crowded street and daring to film our government in action. |
"Like the Tea Party, the origins of Occupy Wall Street are a bit murky."
Wow MSNBC, let's try and marginalize the Tea Party by comparing them to a bunch of children hypocritically decrying Wall St. greed as they tweet from their iPhones and Macbooks! LOL Like the Tea Party, the origins of Occupy Wall Street are a bit murky. |
Familiar refrain: Wall Street protest lacks leaders, clear message |
By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer |
It’s messy. It’s disorganized. At times, the message is all but incoherent. |
All of which makes Occupy Wall Street, the loosely organized protest in lower Manhattan now in its second week, a lot like the rest of the current American political discourse. |
"It's democracy - real democracy," said Micah Chamberlain, 23, from Columbus, Ohio, who sat behind a makeshift table where organizers maintain a schedule of daily events. “It’s slow and it's tedious and it's complicated, but everyone has a voice. No one’s voice gets marginalized.” |
The organizing theme, such as it is, centers on the influence of large corporations in shaping government policy. Many here blame the paralysis in Washington on a campaign finance system run amok. In that sense, the Occupy Wall Street movement seeks to “take back the country” no less than its Tea Party counterparts on the other end of the political spectrum. The two movements (if that's what this is) also share a common sense of despair and disgust with the two-party system now gearing up for another election cycle. |
Like the Tea Party, the origins of Occupy Wall Street are a bit murky. The idea for the protest apparently originated with a Vancouver-based magazine called Adbusters, which in a July 13 blog post called on a handful of unaffiliated groups to “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.” The purpose of the protest, according to the post, is to end “the influence money has over our representatives in Washington.” |
On Sept. 17, hundreds of protesters heeded the call to Occupy Wall Street, though they've missed the target by a few blocks. Denied permanent access to pavement outside the New York Stock Exchange, the symbolic heart of capitalism at 11 Wall St., the group has fallen back to a space formerly known as Liberty Park. Sitting in the shadow of One World Trade Center, the skyscraper rising at Ground Zero formerly known as Freedom Tower, the three-quarter-acre rectangle of pavement, granite benches and tables is a carefully manicured urban landscape that includes a grove of honey locust trees illuminated nightly by hundreds of in-ground lights. |
The New York Police Department, meanwhile, has set up a maze of barricades along the sidewalks for several blocks near the stock exchange itself, blocking street access and forcing pedestrians to make long detours. For Swili Rally, a newsstand operator across the street from the exchange, the barricades have killed foot traffic. |
“This is usually a very busy time of day, but everything is blocked off,” he said. “These protesters are really bad for business.” |
For most of the past ten days, the police made only a handful of arrests. But on Saturday, as protesters marched on nearby Union Square, police tried to corral demonstrators using waist-high lengths of orange plastic netting. Some 80 people were arrested, mostly on charges of blocking traffic, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. |
By Monday morning, the protester's weekend reinforcements were back at work and the ranks of hard core park occupiers had thinned. As the stock market opened, a parade of protesters, corralled by cops on motorcycles, wound through the barricade maze up Wall Street, waving signs, shouting slogans, blowing horns, banging drums and tambourines while tourists snapped pictures of loved-ones posing in front of the throng. The parade made its way back to the park, which has been transformed into a makeshift staging area, campground and media center where a few occupiers, huddled over laptops, maintain a live video stream of events on the Internet. |
So who are these people? Some are day-trippers from the suburbs and five boroughs. Others are out-of-towners staying in the relative comfort of a friend or family member's apartment. But many have come from all over the country to live in the park more or less full-time: sleeping on the ground, sharing a buffet of donated food and availing themselves of the facilities at a handful of nearby fast-food restaurant in a city famous for limited access to public rest rooms. |
They’ll tell you, almost to a person, that they’re here for “as long as it takes.” But there’s far less consensus about just how they’ll measure the success of their occupation. Or know when it's time to leave. |
“We haven’t quite gotten our unified message together,” said Chamberlain, who is taking a quarter off from studying political science at Ohio State University. |
While the message may not be unified, there are common themes reflecting the harsh economic realities confronting a generation that came of age during the worst recession since the 1930s. Many of the people here were in middle school during the 2001 recession and entered high school about the time the housing market collapsed. If they made it to college, they were greeted by the Panic of 2008 and the deepest recession - and weakest economic recovery - in generations. |
Unemployment is another unifying theme: a lot of people are here because they don’t have a job. While the unemployment rate for all U.S. workers stood at 9.1 percent in August, some 14.8 percent of those aged 20–to 24 were out of work. |
“I used to a have great construction job, and (now) I can't find a job for more than $10 a hour,” said Brandon Szalay, 28, from Boulder, Colo. “I can pay my rent, but I can’t buy my groceries and I can’t pay my electric bill. It’s not good. I’ve got all sorts of skills, but they tell me I’m either overqualified or underqualified. “ |
Bill Cosby: "I'm 76 and Tired"
I'm 76. Except for brief period in the 50's when I was doing my National Service, I've worked hard since I was 17. Except for some some serious health challenges, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn't call in sick in nearly
40 years. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am.
Given the economy, it looks as though retirement was a bad idea, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honour"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't
"believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and
Shari'a law tells them to.
I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia, New Zealand, UK, America and Canada, while no one from these countries are allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach love and tolerance..
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught.
I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination
or big-whatever for their problems.
I'm also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens
and early 20's bedeck them selves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves un-employable and claiming money from the Government.
Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 76.. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter and her children. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in.
Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote
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He doesn't have a 'messaging' problem. He has a record of bad policies and anti-Israel rhetoric. |
New York's special congressional election on Tuesday was the first electoral outcome directly affected by President Obama's Israel policy. Democrats were forced to expend enormous resources in a losing effort to defend this safe Democratic district, covering Queens and Brooklyn, that Anthony Weiner won last year by a comfortable margin. |
A Public Policy Poll taken days before the election found a plurality of voters saying that Israel was "very important" in determining their votes. Among those voters, Republican candidate Robert Turner was winning by a 71-22 margin. Only 22% of Jewish voters approved of President Obama's handling of Israel. Ed Koch, the Democrat and former New York mayor, endorsed Mr. Turner because he said he wanted to send a message to the president about his anti-Israel policies. |
This is a preview of what President Obama might face in his re-election campaign with a demographic group that voted overwhelmingly for him in 2008. And it could affect the electoral map, given the battleground states—such as Florida and Pennsylvania—with significant Jewish populations. In another ominous barometer for the Obama campaign, its Jewish fund-raising has deeply eroded: One poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that of Jewish donors who donated to Mr. Obama in 2008, only 64% have already donated or plan to donate to his re-election campaign. |
The Obama campaign has launched a counteroffensive, including hiring a high-level Jewish outreach director and sending former White House aide David Axelrod and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to reassure Jewish donors. The Obama team told the Washington Post that its Israel problem is a messaging problem, and that with enough explanation of its record the Jewish community will return to the fold in 2012. Here is an inventory of what Mr. Obama's aides will have to address: |
• February 2008: When running for president, then-Sen. Obama told an audience in Cleveland: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel." Likud had been out of power for two years when Mr. Obama made this statement. At the time the country was being led by the centrist Kadima government of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Olmert had been pursuing an unprecedented territorial compromise. As for Likud governments, it was under Likud that Israel made its largest territorial compromises—withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza. |
• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put "daylight" between America and Israel. "For eight years"—during the Bush administration—"there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished," he declared. |
Nothing? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon uprooted thousands of settlers from their homes in Gaza and the northern West Bank and deployed the Israeli army to forcibly relocate their fellow citizens. Mr. Sharon then resigned from the Likud Party to build a majority party based on a two-state consensus. |
In the same meeting with Jewish leaders, Mr. Obama told the group that Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection." This statement stunned the Americans in attendance: Israeli society is many things, but lacking in self-reflection isn't one of them. It's impossible to envision the president delivering a similar lecture to Muslim leaders. |
• September 2009: In his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama devoted five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, during which he declared (to loud applause) that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements." He went on to draw a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. There was not a single unconditional criticism of Palestinian terrorism. |
• March 2010: During Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, a Jerusalem municipal office announced plans for new construction in a part of Jerusalem. The president launched an unprecedented weeks-long offensive against Israel. Mr. Biden very publicly departed Israel. |
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a now-infamous 45-minute phone call, telling him that Israel had "harmed the bilateral relationship." (The State Department triumphantly shared details of the call with the press.) The Israeli ambassador was dressed-down at the State Department, Mr. Obama's Middle East envoy canceled his trip to Israel, and the U.S. joined the European condemnation of Israel. |
Moments after Mr. Biden concluded his visit to the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority held a ceremony to honor Dalal Mughrabi, who led one of the deadliest Palestinian terror attacks in history: the so-called Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38, including 13 children and an American. The Obama administration was silent. But that same day, on ABC, Mr. Axelrod called Israel's planned construction of apartments in its own capital an "insult" and an "affront" to the United States. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on Fox News to accuse Mr. Netanyahu of "weakening trust" between the two countries. |
Ten days later, Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington to mend fences but was snubbed at a White House meeting with President Obama—no photo op, no joint statement, and he was sent out through a side door. |
• April 2010: Mr. Netanyahu pulled out of the Obama-sponsored Washington summit on nuclear proliferation after it became clear that Turkey and Egypt intended to use the occasion to condemn the Israeli nuclear program, and Mr. Obama would not intervene. |
• March 2011: Mr. Obama returned to his habit of urging Israelis to engage in self-reflection, inviting Jewish community leaders to the White House and instructing them to "search your souls" about Israel's dedication to peace. |
• May 2011: The State Department issued a press release declaring that the department's No. 2 official, James Steinberg, would be visiting "Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank." In other words, Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Later in the month, only hours before Mr. Netanyahu departed from Israel to Washington, Mr. Obama delivered his Arab Spring speech, which focused on a demand that Israel return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders with land swaps. |
Mr. Obama has made some meaningful exceptions, particularly having to do with security partnership, but overall he has built the most consistently one-sided diplomatic record against Israel of any American president in generations. His problem with Jewish voters is one of substance, not messaging. |
Congresswoman Seeks to Derail U.N. Vote on Palestinian Statehood by Withholding Aid |
As the United Nations prepares to convene its annual General Assembly in New York next week, a key congresswoman is calling for the U.S. to withhold aid to the Palestinians unless they drop attempts to get the world body to recognize an independent Palestinian state – a move that both Washington and Israel opposes. |
Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, also wants to persuade the U.N. to refrain from recognizing an independent Palestinian state if the Palestinians ask. |
Ros-Lehtinen, a frequent critic of the U.N., is pushing a plan to withhold or slash U.S. money earmarked for the world body. And she held a hearing Wednesday to examine the $500 million in annual aid the U.S. provides to the Palestinians. |
“Despite decades of assistance totaling billions of dollars, if a Palestinian state were declared today, it would be neither democratic nor peaceful nor willing to negotiate with Israel,” Ros-Lehtinen said at the hearing Wednesday. “By providing the Palestinians with $2.5 billion over the last five years, the U.S. has only rewarded and reinforced their bad behavior.” |
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday the U.S. continues to see any kind of effort by the Palestinians at the U.N. gathering in New York as “counterproductive.” |
Congresswoman Seeks to Derail U.N. Vote on Palestinian Statehood by Withholding Aid |
As the United Nations prepares to convene its annual General Assembly in New York next week, a key congresswoman is calling for the U.S. to withhold aid to the Palestinians unless they drop attempts to get the world body to recognize an independent Palestinian state – a move that both Washington and Israel opposes. |
Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, also wants to persuade the U.N. to refrain from recognizing an independent Palestinian state if the Palestinians ask. |
Ros-Lehtinen, a frequent critic of the U.N., is pushing a plan to withhold or slash U.S. money earmarked for the world body. And she held a hearing Wednesday to examine the $500 million in annual aid the U.S. provides to the Palestinians. |
“Despite decades of assistance totaling billions of dollars, if a Palestinian state were declared today, it would be neither democratic nor peaceful nor willing to negotiate with Israel,” Ros-Lehtinen said at the hearing Wednesday. “By providing the Palestinians with $2.5 billion over the last five years, the U.S. has only rewarded and reinforced their bad behavior.” |
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday the U.S. continues to see any kind of effort by the Palestinians at the U.N. gathering in New York as “counterproductive.” |
"Pass this bill right away"....when your own base is balking ya might have a problem there Mr. Know-it-all....I have an answer...how about Mr. Know-it-all ask Mr. Big Mouth (aka Warren Buffet) to cough up the 450 billion...he did offer to pay his fair share 
Some Democrats balking at Obama's jobs bill
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President Obama anticipated Republican resistance to his jobs program, but he is now meeting increasing pushback from his own party. Many Congressional Democrats, smarting from the fallout over the 2009 stimulus bill, say there is little chance they will be able to support the bill as a single entity, citing an array of elements they cannot abide.
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“I think the American people are very skeptical of big pieces of legislation,” Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said in an interview Wednesday, joining a growing chorus of Democrats who prefer an à la carte version of the bill despite White House resistance to that approach. “For that reason alone I think we should break it up.” |
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has said he will put the bill on the legislative calendar but has declined to say when. He almost certainly will push the bill — which Mr. Obama urged Congress to pass “right now!” — until after his chamber’s recess at the end of the month; Mr. Reid has set votes on disaster aid, extensions for the Federal Aviation Administration and a short-term spending plan ahead of the jobs bill. |
There are also Democrats, some of them senators up for election in 2012, who oppose the bill simply for its mental connection to the stimulus bill, which laid at least part of the foundation for the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. |
Call it Robbing From Peter to Pay Paul....Call it Robin Hood Syndrome....Or in today's day and age, call it the Madoff Syndrome...any way you slice and dice Obamanomics, it sure as hell looks like a ponzi scheme that takes the future tax dollars of America and pays off the entitlement class of today.
What might even be worse than his economic policy, is the team surrounding Obama. Sec of the Robbery Geitner was full steam ahead this weekend on talk shows. Fear mongering about how bad it will get, the doom of default etc....Hey, wasn't last summer the summer of recover? Hey, wasn't the stimulus supposed to cap unemployment at 8%, and by now be at 6.3%? WTF, now you want a 2 trillion dollar tax raise, another round of stimulus and to raise the debt ceiling further?
So let me get this straight...an illegal alien, who's family pays no taxes, gets free high school education - gets an in-state tuition rate of $11,000 at UCLA. I, as a US citizen and taxpayer, who wants to send my kid to UCLA, has to pay $32,000...yeah, that's friggin brilliant... URL: video.foxnews.com
"Israel must have the right to defend itself, BY itself..." Uh excuse me BHO? WTF does "BY itself" mean? So the US will come to the aid of every muslim country, but Israel your on your own from now on? "Palestine must be a state with "contiguous" borders.." Again moron, how is that possible with Gaza and the West Bank? Or is the next step to ask Israel to ceed the bottom half of its state?
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