The "Al's" Have It!

[My take on this]

I hafta tell you, I don't think this story needs any commentary.  Even the most ardent Liberal has to see the hypocrisy in this.  Al Gore, our former liberal Vice President, the lib that came to Barack Hussein Obama's defense after his pitiful performance in the first debate (because he didn't have his teleprompters) by blaming the altitude and resulting lack of Oxygen in the mile high city.

And, yes, he was serious...seriously.  So, what does our patriotoc Democratic left wingnut do to his country?  He gives the communications platform of the Arab nation - including even the most radical factions like Al Qaeda and The Taliban -- a front door entre to the United States TV veiwing audience.  For a mere $100 million.  I guess that's the threshold price to commit treason. 

But the most hypocritical side note to this blatant sell out is described at the end of the article below.   (I actually cannot fault Al for trying to avoid the higher tax rate by getting the deal cut before December 31st, because I do believe it the right and obligation for all U.S. citizens to pay their fair share of taxes, but only their fair share.  And that means using all legal means to minimize their tax burden.) 

But, I really have a problem with the reason why Gore and partner rebuffed the offer from Glenn Beck's media company "The Blaze" - as stated by The Current - “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.”  So, to whom does the network go?  An anti-American, Arab-supported advocacy backed by the country that is drenched in big oil profits (Qatar).  How does Al the environmentalist, rationalize that?  On which "point of view" is The Current and Al Jazeera aligned I wonder.  Pitiful. 

And, while I really don't need to state the obvious, I still will - can you imagine if this had involved a network owned by a Republican - or worst yet, A Tea Party member?  Good Lord!  Chris Matthews, Brian WIlliams, Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory, Piers Morgan, Soledad O'Brien, and the rest of the liberal media lapdogs would have had a barbecue, skewering the culprit on every broadcast, on the front pages of the NYT, WaPo, and certainly all over the blogosphere.  (Don't believe me? - read this - http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/pdf/BiasBasics.pdf )

One last note of interest - I read that Time Warner had the courage to remove Current TV Network from their cable offerings following the deal.  Hopefully the other major Cable networks will follow suit.   Please become an informed American and learn how our country is being routed and destroyed by the "big government, tax and spend, entitlement happy liberal democrats.  BEFORE it is too late. 

 

Gore Sought to Skirt Taxes on TV Sale Profits

https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/13c1042b76b8255f


Al Gore’s sale of his cable channel Current TV to Al Jazeera has an intriguing footnote: The former vice president sought to close the sale before Jan. 1 to avoid higher taxes in the new year.

Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news giant financed by the government of Qatar, reportedly paid $500 million for Gore’s low-rated channel, meaning Gore stands to gain $100 million for his 20 percent stake in Current.

“Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1, according to several people who insisted on anonymity,” The New York Times reported.

But the deal was not signed until Wednesday, Jan. 2.

Gore said in an interview in November that the “most fortunate” in America should pay their “fair share” in taxes.

Fox talk show host Greta Van Susteren said on Thursday: “Apparently he doesn’t want to apply that rule to himself, or he has a different idea of what his fair share is.”

Gore and his business partners founded Current TV seven years ago. Al Jazeera now plans to rebrand Current, which is available in more than 40 million U.S. homes.

Current TV co-founder Joel Hyatt said he and Gore would join the advisory board of the new channel.

Observers may also find irony in the fact, noted by Politico, that “Current, which was co-founded by climate change advocate Al Gore, agreed to be bought out by a broadcaster owned by the Qatari government, and therefore funded by oil.”

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s media company The Blaze approached Current about a sale last year, The Wall Street Journal reported, but was told that “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.”

Al Jazeera ran an op-ed in July 2011 comparing Beck to a terrorist, saying he and several prominent terrorists “share the same core afflictions” and are “insecure, violently inclined, and illiberal.”  [Wow.  Talk about a ludicrous statement from A Jazeera].

Liberal = Hypocrite

Headline - AT&T, Microsoft on donors list for Obama's second inauguration, in change from 2009

Link -  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/05/att-microsoft-on-donors-list-for-obama-second-inauguration-in-change-from-200/

[My take on this article] 

I really have to wonder why the turn about regarding corporate donations for Hussein’s second inauguration.  Let’s see.  What’s different between this one and the first?  Oh, yea.  The first promise to accept no corporate donations came during campaigning.  Now, with his second (and perhaps last) inauguration, no need to even have the pretense of respectability. 

Or, maybe its just simply the well known fact – proven time and time again – that liberals are just plain hypocrites.  Its always what’s best for the little people, but not them.  I can list – and will list – many, many examples of the liberal hypocrisy penchant on this blog.  Anyway, I really just think its another example how this arrogant, narcissistic socialist (or collectivist, or Marxist, whatever moniker best fits his latest action) feels he is entitled to do whatever he damn well pleases.  After all, its not like the liberal media lapdogs are going to call him on it. 

Maybe our Face The Nation "journalist" David Gregory can ask Hussein if this is "his Lincoln moment".  I’ll have lots of examples of this media bias behavior as well.  heck, I can't help it.  Just reporting on real events illustrates the treasonous behavior of the main stream media. 

Our founding fathers most assuredly are rolling in their graves for so many reasons - this one in particular.  They felt the free press was a vital tool in keeping the government legitimate.  Now, ABC, CBS and most blatantly - NBC are simply Hussein cheerleaders.  The POTUS can do no wrong in their eyes.  And when he does, they simply close their eyes.   

Here are the two excerpts from the cited article I thought said it all.  As with all posts, the link to the full article is immediately below the headline.

"Most of the donors are individuals, but the committee has said it will accept unlimited sums of corporate money to pay for Obama's inauguration."

"President Obama made a point in 2009 to reject big-dollar donations from corporations to finance his inauguration. This year, however, as he prepares for his second inauguration Jan. 21, the Presidential Inaugural Committee is logging donations from heavy hitters in the business world, including AT&T and Microsoft."

Of course the Libs will say "Don't confuse me with facts"

Poll: Most Americans Would Feel Safer with Armed Guard at their Child’s School

By Leah Barkoukis

1/4/2013

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, the NRA proposed placing an armed police officer in every school saying that it’s “the one thing we can do immediately that can make our children more safe.” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter slammed the proposal, calling it a “completely dumb*** idea,” but a Rasmussen poll finds that most Americans don’t agree—especially among parents of school-aged children.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of American adults would feel safer if their child's school had an armed security guard. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 26% would feel safer if their child attended a school where no adults were allowed to have guns.

Another 20% are undecided.

Among parents of school-aged children, support for armed guards is even higher. Sixty-two percent (62%) of such parents would feel safer with an armed security guard at the school, while 22% would feel safer if their child attended a gun-free school. 

Granted, the cost of such a program can’t be ignored when considering the proposal but when it comes to the idea alone, it seems that parents would feel safer with an armed guard present at their child's school. Even David Gregory [See post below for details on Gregory's hypocrisy - remember, Libs know what is best for others, but rarely does their advice apply to them] thinks it’s a good idea when it comes to his own children (just not other people’s).

Leah Barkoukis

Leah Barkoukis is the Townhall.com web editor.

 

In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, Rep. Louie Gohmert told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that he wished the principal had a gun to prevent the carnage from taking place. NRA leader Wayne LaPierre agreed with the idea of having armed guards in our schools, saying that, “It’s the one thing we can do immediately that can make our children more safe.” NBC’s David Gregory mocked LaPierre’s proposal, however, which brings to light (yet again) the blatant hypocrisy of some of the most vocal proponents of gun control.

But when it comes to Gregory's own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards.

The Gregory children go to school with the children of President Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post. That school is the co-ed Quaker school Sidwell Friends.

According to a scan of the school's online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed.

Moreover, with the Obama kids in attendance, there is a secret service presence at the institution, as well. 

It's safe to say the school where Gregory sends his kids is a high-security school. It's just odd he'd want it for his kids, but wouldn't be more open to it for others.

Are you ready for an even more bloated government?

Return of the Real Obama By Charles Krauthammer January 3, 2013 8:00 P.M.

The rout was complete, the retreat disorderly. President Obama got his tax hikes — naked of spending cuts — passed by the ostensibly Republican House of Representatives. After which, you might expect him to pivot to his self-proclaimed “principle” of fiscal “balance” by taking the lead on reducing spending. “Why,” asked the Washington Post on the eve of the final “fiscal-cliff” agreement, “is the nation’s leader not embracing and then explaining the balanced reforms the nation needs?”

Because he has no interest in them. He’s a visionary, not an accountant. Sure, he’ll pretend to care about deficits, especially while running for reelection. But now that he’s past the post, he’s free to be himself — a committed big-government social democrat.

As he showed in his two speeches this week. After perfunctory nods to debt-and-spending reduction, he waxed enthusiastic about continued “investments” — i.e., spending — on education, research, roads and bridges, green energy, etc.

Having promised more government, he then promised more taxes — on “millionaires” and “companies with a lot of lobbyists,” of course. It was a bold affirmation of pre-Clintonian tax-and-spend liberalism.

Why not? He had just won Round 1: raising rates. Round 2 is to raise yet more tax revenues by eliminating deductions. After all, didn’t John Boehner offer him $800 billion of such loophole-closing revenues just a few weeks ago?

To paraphrase Churchill on the British Empire, Barack Obama did not become president of the United States to preside over the liquidation of the welfare state. On the contrary, he is dedicated to its expansion. He’s already created the largest new entitlement in half a century (Obamacare). And he has increased federal spending to an astronomical 24.4 percent of GDP (the post-war norm is about 20 percent), a level not seen since World War II.

But this level of spending requires a significantly higher level of taxation. Hence his hardball fiscal-cliff strategy of issuing an ultimatum to Republicans to raise tax rates — or be blamed for a massive across-the-board tax increase and a subsequent recession.

I’ll get you the money by eliminating deductions, offered Boehner. No, sir, replied the president. Rates it must be.

Why the insistence?

(1) Partisan advantage. As I wrote last month, the ultimatum was designed to exploit and exacerbate internal Republican divisions. It worked perfectly. Boehner’s attempted finesse (Plan B), which would have raised rates but only for those making more than $1 million, collapsed amid an open rebellion from a good quarter of the Republican caucus.

At which point, power passed from the House to the Senate, where a deal was brokered. By the time the Senate bill reached the House, there was no time or room for maneuver. Checkmate. Obama neutralized the one body that had stymied him during the past two years.

(2) Ideological breakthrough. Obama’s ultimate ambition is to break the nation’s 30-year thrall of low taxes — so powerful that those who defied the Reaganite norm paid heavily for it. Walter Mondale’s acceptance speech at the 1984 convention promising to raise taxes ended his campaign before it began.

President George H. W. Bush’s no-new-taxes reversal cost him a second term.

On this, too, Obama is succeeding. He not only got his tax increase passed. He did it with public opinion behind him.

Why are higher taxes so important to him?

First, as a means: A high-tax economy is liberalism’s only hope for sustaining and enlarging the entitlement state. It provides the funds for enlightened adventures in everything from algae to Obamacare.

Second, as an end in itself. Fundamentally, Obama is a leveler. The community organizer seeks, above all, to reverse the growing inequality that he dates and attributes to ruthless Reaganism. Now, however, clothed in the immense powers of the presidency, he can actually engage in unadorned redistributionism. As in Tuesday night’s $620 billion wealth transfer.

Upon losing the House in 2010, the leveler took cover for the next two years. He wasn’t going to advance his real agenda through the Republican House anyway, and he needed to win reelection.

Now he’s won. The old Obama is back. He must not be underestimated. He has deftly leveraged his class-war-themed election victory (a) to secure a source of funding (albeit still small) for the bloated welfare state, (b) to carry out an admirably candid bit of income redistribution, and (c) to fracture the one remaining institutional obstacle to the rest of his ideological agenda.

Not bad for two months’ work.

— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2013 the Washington Post Writers Group

Obama’s Tax Evaders of the Year

By Michelle Malkin  •  January 1, 2013 08:54 AM

 

Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

Well, it happened last night. The U.S. Senate Democrats and bend-over Republicans delivered a massive tax-hike/puny spending-cut bill in the ratio of 41-to-1 tax hikes to spending cuts. This is the Washington idea of a “balanced approach” to our fiscal woes. The McConnell-Biden love connection screwed us over big time.

But as American families, business owners, and struggling entrepreneurs now brace for their “fair share” punishment, many of Obama’s wealthiest friends are busy evading the tax hikes their candidate spearheaded. Let’s ring in the new year exposing the hypocrites.


President Obama will kick off the new year the same way that he kicked off the old year: by demanding that the wealthy pay their “fair share” in taxes. But while millions of small business owners, struggling entrepreneurs, inventors, and investors brace for a double whammy of fiscal cliff tax hikes and new Obamacare taxes, the class warrior-in-chief’s richest pals are getting a pass.

It’s a Golden Pass for liberal millionaires and billionaires who support higher Obama taxes for everyone but themselves. Meet the Democratic tax evaders of the year.



*Facebook. The social networking giant’s founder Mark Zuckerberg told Obama in 2011 at a town hall forum that he was “cool” with paying higher taxes. But neither Zuckerberg nor his many Facebook execs are actually down with following through. Co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his American citizenship in a blindingly obvious bid to evade nearly $70 million in taxes. In addition, Zuckerberg and a half-dozen Facebook insiders are all skirting hefty estate and gift taxes on their family Facebook shares held in annuity trusts. According to the Wall Street Journal the legal maneuver is called a “grantor-retained annuity trust, or GRAT,” and the total Facebook tax avoidance sum adds up to at least $200 million. A “cool” $200 million, that is.

*GOOGLE. The left-wing Internet giant provided Silicon Valley’s biggest campaign finance boost to Obama, with individual employee donations supporting the tax-hiking candidate by a ratio of more than 31-to-one. Google rank-and-file workers pitched in some $800,000 to Obama. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Chief Legal Officer and Senior Vice President David Drummond, and Google vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vint Cerf are all vocal Obama supporters and top donors.

In December, Google’s Netherlands subsidiary disclosed in a tax filing that it had shifted nearly $10 billion in revenues to a Bermuda shell company. That’s “almost double the total from three years before,” according to Bloomberg News. In response to criticism, Google defended the scheme as a legal response to government incentives. “It’s called capitalism,” Schmidt snarked defiantly.
Wonder what all of Obama’s operatives and media lapdogs who bashed evil, selfish Republican offshore tax havens have to say about that? Cue crickets chirping.

*The Washington Post. Speaking of media lapdogs, this newspaper sanctimoniously supported Obama for president and singled out his support for “revenue [tax] increases.” Its endorsement editorial castigated Mitt Romney for embracing an America “in which an ever-greater share of the nation’s wealth resides with the nation’s wealthy, at a time when inequality already is growing.”

The privileged wealthy barons at the Washington Post, however, increased that inequality at the end of the year when they joined a growing number of companies who are paying 2013 dividends in 2012 to protect investors from paying higher Obama taxes on dividend income. It’s “proof positive,” my friend and guest-blogger Doug Powers noted, “that no matter what happens in the negotiations, the country is definitely going off the irony cliff.”

Bonus irony: The $70 million year-end dividend payment will be a windfall for other “higher taxes for thee, but not for me” Obama supporters, including donor Warren Buffet’s firm Berkshire Hathaway. According to the Associated Press, “Berkshire is its largest shareholder with an estimated 1.7 million shares, which means it couldget a roughly $17 million dividend payment.”



*Costco. The mega-retailer’s co-founder, Jim Sinegal, is a lifelong Democrat and top Obama fundraiser. He crusaded aggressively for Obamacare and sent out a campaign dispatch defending his candidate from criticism over his “you didn’t build that remarks.” But while Sinegal purported to speak for beleaguered small business owners, his company was availing itself of rarified tax avoidance strategies. Like the Washington Post, the Costco Board of Directors voted to pay special $7 per share year-end dividends to avoid higher taxes. In addition, Costco will borrow $3.5 billion to finance the payout, according to the Wall Street Journal. Higher taxes, more debt. They built that.





*George Lucas. The billionaire Star Wars director called Obama a “hero” and parroted his candidate’s capitalism-bashing rhetoric in a January 2012 interview with PBS dinosaur Charlie Rose. “I do not believe that the rich should be able to buy the government,” Lucas lectured. He does, however, believe in shirking higher taxes the one-percenter way. In October, Lucas sold his film company to Disney for a whopping $4 billion in cash and stock to evade anticipated capital gains tax increases and Obamacare Medicare surtaxes on investment income.



*Andre “Dr Dre” Young. Forbes magazine named this California gangsta rapper-turned-music industry mogul the highest-paid musician in the world in 2012. He raked in an estimated $100 million, mostly from sales of his Beats headphone company along with concert revenue. Dre’s music electronics company was co-founded with Jimmy Iovine, who also founded Dre’s parent record label, Interscope Records. Interscope was funded by “progressive” billionaire Ted Field, heir to the Marshall Field retail empire and one of the nation’s biggest Democratic Party donors.

Dre boosted the careers of prominent Obama hip-hop cheerleaders Eminem and 50 Cent. But overseas, he’s rolling like a Romney supporter. The rap mogul is now using a County Cork, Ireland, tax haven to protect his global headphones empire subsidiaries and avoid high U.S. corporate tax rates. The Irish Examiner newspaper explained that the elaborate structuring “allows for money to be [channeled] between the separate companies in the form of royalty payments or [license] fees to artificially but legitimately reduce profits as a means of reducing tax liabilities.”

To paraphrase Dre and his Obama-endorsing rap partner Snoop Dogg, it ain’t nuthin’ but an E thang: Elitism. Exemptions. Evasion.

It really can't get much simpler than this explanation

But I bet even this plain language explanation of why Obama is the worst thing that ever happened to our country will still not resonate with the millions of his supporters too uninformed, too uninitiated, too uneducated, too dependent upon entitlements to begin to grasp.
 

Fiscal cliff averted! America still headed off a fiscal cliff  --

It wasn't pretty, but the fiscal cliff was averted late Tuesday night when the House --- led by Democrats --- passed the Senate bill put together by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden. TheDC's Alexis Levinson reports:

"Republican concerns over insufficient spending cuts prompted talk of amending the bill and sending it back to the Senate, but support for that plan collapsed after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made clear that he would not bring his chamber back to consider an amended version of the bill. When a Republican whip count in the early evening failed to come up with the requisite votes to pass the amended bill, Speaker of the House John Boehner brought the bill to the floor unamended. The bill passed 257-167, with just 16 Democrats voting no, and only 85 Republicans voting yes."

At the end of the day, the Republicans who voted for the bill were --- probably --- in the right. It staves off a potential market crisis and locks in most of George W. Bush's tax rates. But let no one delude themselves that anything was solved with the bill, at least in regard to our long-term fiscal situation. Our long-term fiscal picture is just as precarious as before --- and it will remain so unless America's entitlement programs, particularly Medicare, are seriously reformed. Period. End of sentence.
And Obama still wants the rich to pay more --

President Barack Obama didn't exactly project leadership during the fiscal cliff debates, though he could always be counted on to give campaign-style speeches using "middle-class" voters as props. But after getting through a bill in the Senate (and ultimately the House) that does effectively nothing to fix our long-term fiscal problems, President Obama was quick to promote more of the same. TheDC's Neil Munro reports:

"President Barack Obama is demanding yet more tax increases, shortly after using his clout to win Senate approval of $620 billion in new taxes over the next 10 years. 'Tonight’s agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans,' he said in a 2:30 a.m. 'victory' statement, following the Senate vote in the wee hours of New Year’s Day."

Isn't there a limit to soaking the rich? The answer is yes. In fact, even if you taxed all the earnings of all the richies you could find at 100%, you wouldn't go very far to fixing our long-term debt problem. For that, you have to tackle entitlements (see above). If we had a media that didn't adopt the White House line on this issue, they would be pointing out that the president is not a serious man by perpetually proposing taxing the rich as his go to budget solution.

Business as usual --

In case you were worried that the fiscal cliff deal was rushed through too quickly for our elected officials to add irrelevant provisions to it, have no fear. There was plenty of time to load the bill up with nonsense. The Daily Caller News Foundation's Michael Bastasch reports on one such provision:

"The wind power industry may have just won another year of taxpayer support, as the fiscal cliff deal being negotiated between congressional Republicans and President Obama includes a one-year extension of the wind Production Tax Credit. 'Extending the wind Production Tax Credit is a long-overdue dose of certainty for manufacturers who employ more than 5,000 Coloradans and 60,000 workers across America,' said Colorado Democrat Sen. Mark Udall, one of the main proponents of extending the tax credit."

Obama continually proves himself to be the worst leader our country has ever elected to the Presidency

GOP outraged by Obama comments

By Ramsey Cox - 12/31/12 02:14 PM ET

Republicans expressed outrage over President Obama's public comments Monday on the "fiscal cliff," warning he had hurt prospects for a deal.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said President Obama likely lost votes for the deficit-reduction deal because of the “pep rally” he chose to hold Monday.

“I just listened to the president and my heart is still pounding,” Corker said on the floor Monday minutes after Obama called on Congress to finish work on a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.

 

“I was very disappointed to hear what the president had to say in front of a prep rally," he said. “I know the president has fun heckling Congress, but I think he probably lost a number of votes with this.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he couldn't understand why Obama would mock Republicans in the midst of delicate talks.

"What did the president of the United States just do?" McCain said. "He sent a message of confrontation to Republicans."

"I guess I have to wonder — and I think the American people have to wonder — whether the president really wants this issue resolved, or is it to his short-term political benefit to go over the cliff?"

Obama's comments also provoked howls from the GOP on Twitter, with several Republican operatives raising questions about why he would hit the GOP as Vice President Biden and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) appear to be closing in on a deal to prevent looming tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in January.

The president in his comments said a deal was close but not done yet. He spoke in front of people the White House identified as "middle class taxpayers" who repeatedly applauded as Obama took shots at Congress for its inaction on the fiscal-cliff issues.

McCain said Obama's comments would "clearly antagonize" House Republicans.

"What he was saying is … take it or leave it," McCain said. "That's not the way presidents should lead."

— Pete Kasperowicz contributed.

Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/275017-corker-says-obama-lost-votes-by-holding-his-pep-rally