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Our fearless leader is defiantly vowing to bring more Muslim immigrants into the United States no matter what Congress and/or his subjects say. While visiting a Muslim refugee center in Malaysia, Obama once again strummed the harp of misguided compassion in making these comments ... see: Associated Press Story.

I say "misguided" because our doofus president can't see the contrast staring him in the face. Malaysia puts these refugees in camps in order to keep close control on them. Obama wants quickly to insinuate these same immigrants into the American general population where the bad apples among them can cause their deadly mischief. Clearly the world of immigrants is not comprised exclusively of "widows and orphans" as our bumptious Barry likes to claim. Where there are widows and orphans there are also young Muslim men (and, yes, even young women) who seem to be quite easily radicalized these days ... particularly when indulged and dismissed by the leader of the "free" world.

Theodore Roosevelt was correct. The president really does have a "bully" pulpit ... even though this word had a slightly different meaning back then.

reddit Gallery CV

Another excursion into the world of reddit pictures.  See reddit Pics  for sources.  Click on pictures to enlarge them.  Enjoy!

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Water Sky

Grains of Sand

Lunch Tim,e

Tramp Art

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Lois Lerner – The IRS Director who orchestrated the suppression of Tea-Party and other right-wing groups from registering as tax-exempt organizations in advance of the 2012 presidential election.  Ms. Lerner, after asserting her innocence in this matter in front of a Congressional hearing, then refused to answer any question citing her Fifth Amendment rights.  Ms. Lerner has subsequently been allowed to retire from the government with full benefits … see: Christian Science Monitor Story.  Nobody in the Obama administration has been fired as a result of this gross malfeasance.

Bridget Anne Kelly – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff who sent an e-mail to Port Authority executive David Wildstein suggesting that Fort Lee, New Jersey might experience some traffic problems after its Mayor had refused to endorse Christie for Governor in the 2013 election ... which then resulted in huge traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge. When Governor Christie was informed of her action, he immediately fired Ms. Kelly for lying to him … see: Chicago Tribune Story.  Mr. Wildstein retired from the Port Authority last December ... and is now also asserting his Fifth Amendment protection at a state inquiry about this matter in Trenton.

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Tonight Democrat Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, in his State of the State Message, is going to push for his proposed change in his state’s income tax rate from 5.25% to 5.66% … almost an 8% increase.  Allegedly he wants to use the extra annual one billion dollars of revenue that this rate increase would generate for important transportation and educational projects (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  For more on this see: Boston Globe Story . 

Also, the stick-it-to-em voters in California (run by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown) recently voted to increase (retroactively) the income tax rate for those making $250,000+  from 9.3% to 10.3% and those earning $1,000,000+ from 10.3% to 13.3%. (I would opine that these are confiscatory rates and, as such, few of the California glitterati end-up actually paying these taxes.).  Also the low-information voters there voted in a sales tax increase from 7.25% to 7.50%.  (Surprisingly, this is a regressive tax ... proving that those assenting voters were really low-information ones.)  See: Fox News Story

Contrast with these two Democrat-pushed tax-rate increases, two Republican governors, Dave Heineman from Nebraska and Bobby Jindel from Louisiana, have both recently proposed that their states eliminate their state’s income taxes altogether … see: Reuters Story. 

And to better emphasize this political-party contrast, I suggest that you visit the following website to see how taxes are imposed on a state by state basis across our nation … Retirement Living Story.   I would love to have the time to superimpose on this data an indication of which of these states are run by Democrats versus by Republicans … but I believe that you can pretty much figure out these checkerboard results for yourselves.  Perhaps you might even be able to rationalize this disparity.

AFTERWARD:  I was wrong ... Patrick actually proposed last night to raise the state income tax to 6.25% (a full percentage point) and reduce the state sales tax from 6.25% to 4.5% ... spoken like a true tax-and-spend Democrat.