Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command — 1 Chronicles 12:32
Liberals have been pushing for relaxed drug laws for years. Because liberals are people who use drugs (except of course Bill Clinton who as we all know “didn’t inhale”) and who rely on drug users for their voting base.
Barack Obama and Eric Holder both have acknowledged – you know, in the face of overwhelming evidence – that they DID inhale their ganja smoke. It is very likely the only honest thing either man has ever said in his life.
And Obama’s law thug just said – and I’m quoting here – “I’m cautiously optimistic” – regarding making it easier for more people to get stoned than ever before in American history.
The habit of smoking pot during teen years causes long-term brain damage, according to a Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine study.
Two years after young adults (early twenties) quit smoking marijuana, researchers found changes in the sub-cortical regions of their brains associated with memory and reasoning, indicating the long-term effects of chronic use. They were also found to perform poorly on memory tests.
“The study links the chronic use of marijuana to these concerning brain abnormalities that appear to last for at least a few years after people stop using it,” Matthew Smith, an assistant research professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead study author, said in a press release. “With the movement to decriminalize marijuana, we need more research to understand its effect on the brain.”
[…]
Through the MRI scans, the researchers found that heavy users displayed abnormalities in all the three brain regions (striatum, thalamus and globus pallidus), irrespective of whether they had schizophrenic disorder or not. The volume of the thalamus was found greatly reduced in heavy users.
Then the participants were asked to undertake four memory tests, like recollecting a sequence of numbers. Heavy users fared badly than healthy controls and non-using schizophrenics.
“The abuse of popular street drugs, such as marijuana, may have dangerous implications for young people who are developing or have developed mental disorders,” said co-senior study author John Csernansky, M.D., chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “This paper is among the first to reveal that the use of marijuana may contribute to the changes in brain structure that have been associated with having schizophrenia.”
The finding has been published Monday in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.
In short, marijuana causes brain damage. And when you’ve got more memory derangement than schizophrenics, well, let’s tally that one in the “bad thing” column.
But like all the other things Democrats are doing to poison and undermine Americans and America, that’s actually a GOOD thing.
Because more brain damage = more Democrats. And more people who cannot ever amount to anything other than parasites = more welfare. And ergo sum more Democrats, of course.
Obama is on the record as documented by one of his demonic homosexual liberal minions Perez Hilton:
Barry O is no stranger to some kind bud!
President Obama revealed in a new candid interview that he has smoked pot in the past and finds it to be no more harmful than drinking alcohol!
Wow. Never did we ever think we’d hear the Prez say something like that!
Obama explained:
“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”
But if marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol, shouldn’t it be legalized nationwide??
The President didn’t unveil any plans to make weed legal coast to coast but he did weigh in his support for Colorado and Washington’s new laws that make dancing with Mary Jane A-OK.
Obama is completely wrong, of course. Because the fool has never been right about anything in his life.
America has become a nation of moral idiots dawdling to their own self-destruction much like dodo birds. And Barack Obama is our Dodo-Bird-in-Chief with Eric Holder ignoring one law while using another one like a hammer to protect our Dodo-Bird-in-Chief and of course to reward his friends and punish his enemies.
So toke up, America. Rot your brains. And when your brain is sufficiently rotted, vote Democrat. Because they’ll get you more pot.
The best thing about schizophrenia is that you’ll be able to see all the jobs Obama is lying about and all the tea party racists that Eric Holder keeps seeing.
Some time back – going on three years ago now – I wrote an article titled, “Why I Call Obama A Fascist.” That was before the IRS was turned into a political weapon against conservatives, before Obama’s profoundly unconstitutional lawless abuse of power as he simply changed the law (when only CONGRESS has the power to change or make law) with ObamaCare and numerous other times such as gay marriage and illegal immigration.
The essence of liberalism IS fascism. It is LIBERALS who want to create economic and political fascism in America. Fascism is ALL ABOUT government control. As a conservative, for instance, I am pro-American founding fathers, pro-grammatical-historical Constitution, pro-laisssez faire free market, pro-individual liberty and pro-limited federal government. And for liberals to claim that it is conservatives who want to expand government control of society in a fascist way is as irrational as it is evil. Because just how in the HELL am I like Hitler when it is YOU DEMOCRATS who want what Hitler wanted (MORE government power; more power for the government to impose, less power for the people to resist government tyranny, fewer guns in the hands of the people versus the State)???
If you want to see a fascist, go look at a Democrat. If you are a Democrat and you want to see a fascist, go look in the damn mirror.
There have been so many instances in which Barack Hussein Obama has revealed himself as a naked fascist since I wrote this article it is beyond unreal. Let it be said that I was RIGHT as usual when it comes to Barack Obama. When he was running for president and I heard his “reverend” of 23 years say, “No, no, no, NOT God bless America! God DAMN America!” I knew that only a truly evil man would have sat in that church under such demon-possessed “preaching.” And I had what turned out to be a very accurate vision of the wicked man who has plunged America onto the path of dodo-bird-extinction.
The correct answer, ye Democrat fascists, is NEVER. And yet had Bush done one-fifty-thousandth the fascism Obama has done you people would have been riotously burning cars in the street in protest. Because you are the worst kind of hypocrites who ever lived. “Period. End of story,” to quote Obama’s words.
And it was a LIBERAL legal analyst who pointed out what a godawful CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Barack Hussein Obama has been as he described a nakedly fascist hijacking of the constitutional role of Congress by a dictator-in-chief:
The great concern I have for this body is that it is not only being circumvented, but it is also being denied the ability to enforce its inherent powers. Many of these questions are not close in my view; the President is outside the line. But it has to go in front of a court and that court has to grant review, and that’s where we have the most serious Constitutional crisis I view in my lifetime. And that is, this body is becoming less and less relevant.
“I have great trepidation of where we are headed, because we are creating a new system here – something that is not what was designed. . . . Within that system, you have the rise of an Uber-Presidency. There could be no greater danger for individual liberty. I really think that the Framers would be horrified by that shift, because everything they dedicated themselves to was creating political balance – and we’ve lost it.”
You know,
This fascist hypocrite Nazi Stalinist thug Obama made all KINDS of false promises to America when he was lying his way into power. In 2008 he said:
I taught constitutional law for ten years. I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m President of the United States of America.”
Now he’s our Nazi thug-in-chief. And the American people should be acting like the people of Ukraine while we still have the freedom to act. Because Barack Obama is a clear and present danger to America BY HIS OWN STANDARD.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will soon launch an initiative — the Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs (CIN) — “in order to assess whether government action is needed to ensure that the information needs of all Americans are being met, including women and minorities.”
When the FCC’s Office of Communications Business Opportunities (OCBO) announced the initiative in a release last November 1, it stated it had selected Columbia, South Carolina, to field-test the Research Design for the CIN. OCBO expects to complete this next phase of its Critical Information Needs Research no later than July 2014.
Citing the FCC, Jason Pye (the editor-in-chief for the United Liberty website and former legislative director for the Libertarian Party of Georgia) wrote that the stated purpose of the CIN is to collect information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” as well as to assess “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”
The FCC will also ask reporters: “Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?”
The FCC attempts to justify the intrusive fact-finding mission by asserting that the results are necessary to complete a report that the FCC “is obligated under § 257 of the Communications Act of 1934 … to review and report to Congress on: (1) regulations prescribed to eliminate market entry barriers in the provision and ownership of telecommunications services and information services, or in the provision of parts or services to providers of telecommunications services and information services by entrepreneurs and other small businesses; and (2) proposals to eliminate statutory barriers to market entry by those entities, consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
However, Pye quotes the FCC’s Ajit Pai: “This claim is peculiar. How can the news judgments made by editors and station managers impede small businesses from entering the broadcast industry? And why does the CIN study include newspapers when the FCC has no authority to regulate print media?”
The statement came from an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal for February 10 written by Ajit Pai, who is a commissioner of the FCC. In the article, Pai noted that news editors often disagree about which stories are important enough to be covered and which stories are not. But, stated Pai, “everyone should agree on this: The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”
Then Pai makes an amazing admission, especially since he was nominated to his post by President Obama: “Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission, where I am a commissioner, does not agree.”
As part of the process to uncover the information it wants, notes Pai, the FCC selected eight categories of “critical information,” including the “environment” and “economic opportunities,” that it believes the local news media should cover. The FCC will ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors, and on-air reporters to tell the government about their “news philosophy” and how the station will assist the FCC’s quest to (as we noted previously) “ensure that the information needs of all Americans are being met.”
As an indication of the egregious intrusiveness of the CIN study, the FCC’s follow-up questions will ask for “specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions.”
But Pai’s assessment of the FCC’s new program becomes more ominous:
Participation in the Critical Information Needs study is voluntary — in theory. Unlike the opinion surveys that Americans see on a daily basis and either answer or not, as they wish, the FCC’s queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore. They would be out of business without an FCC license, which must be renewed every eight years.
A frank acknowledgment, coming from an Obama nominee! If a broadcast media outlet is dependent on not running afoul of FCC bureaucrats in order to keep its license and remain in business, what we have, in effect, is a fascist system not too different from what existed in Italy under Mussolini. Though fascism has multiple characteristics, a hallmark of the system is that instead of openly nationalizing private property, as did the communists, fascists allowed private property to exist in name — while controlling it via regulation. Under fascism, entrepreneurs have only the illusion of private property, since the government dictates how their property is to be used.
In his book, Propaganda: The Art of Persuasion: World War II, Anthony Rhodes noted that Italian fascist authorities seized control of some newspapers on the grounds that they published false information likely to incite class hatred or express contempt for the government. In contrast, pro-fascist periodicals were subsidized. By 1926, government permission was needed for a publication to operate. From 1937 to 1944, the Italian Ministry of Culture exercised control of all channels of communication in Italy, both print and broadcast.
Fascist dictator Mussolini personally chose all newspaper editors in Italy, and those who did not possess a certificate of approval from the fascist party could not practice journalism. Though Mussolini created the illusion of a “free press,” no such freedom existed.
Even more repressive control of the media existed in fascist Italy’s sister state, Nazi Germany, where censorship was implemented by Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Under Goebbels, newspapers, radio, and all forms of media were put under the control of the Nazis. Radios capable of receiving uncensored broadcasts from outside Germany were confiscated.
The U.S. government’s interest in regulating the broadcast media began with commercial radio broadcasting itself. The Radio Act of 1912, which mandated that all radio transmissions be licensed, was superseded by The Radio Act of 1927, which transferred most of the responsibility for regulating radio to the newly created Federal Radio Commission (FRC). The five-person FRC was given the power to grant and deny licenses, and to assign frequencies and power levels for each licensee. The Commission was not given any official power of censorship, but programming could not include “obscene, indecent, or profane language.”
The first commercially licensed radio station in the United States, KDKA in Pittsburgh, began broadcasting in 1920. The March 1, 1922 issue of the Commerce Department’s Radio Service Bulletin listed 67 stations, but by the end of that year that number would increase to more than 500. (Today there are around 15,000 commercial radio stations in the United States.)
The FRC was replaced by the FCC when the Communications Act of 1934 was passed. The proliferation of radio stations was used as a rationale for federal policing of the airwaves to prevent radio signals from overlapping and interfering with each other. But what is the rationale for federal regulation of broadcast content?
The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Does not freedom of speech and the press apply to radio and TV broadcasting as well?
Obama in an interview with CBS said he couldn’t guarantee Social Security checks would be sent out on Aug. 3 if Congress did not raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, when the Treasury Department has said it will no longer have the money to pay all of the U.S. bills
Republican Allan West is entirely right in saying, “That’s fear mongering that’s not leadership, that’s sad and pathetic.”
Allow me to point out first of all that this fearmongering from Obama is nothing new. Allow me to quote a Wall Street Journal article from almost immediately after Obama was sworn in as president:
“President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.”
Obama’s fearmongering then resulted in our undertaking a suicidal $3.27 TRILLION pork-laden “stimulus” that has massively failed to do what Obama promised it would do at a giantic cost to our children. But he is an evil, cynical loathsome man who has experience in the fact that the lowest common denominator often wins.
Let’s move on to a demonstration of a man who is A) a liar; B) a fearmonger; and C) the worst kind of demagogue. Let me begin by citing the Bipartisan Policy Center:
With under a month left until the U.S. hits its statutory limit to borrow more money, Republicans and Democrats continue to disagree about what exactly would happen if Congress and the president fail to reach an agreement that raises the debt ceiling.
“Failure to raise the limit would precipitate a default by the United States,” wrote Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner earlier this year. No, that’s not true, say Republicans. There’s enough federal revenue to pay the interest on the debt as well as fund the troops and entitlement programs.
According to a study by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), Treasury could indeed avoid a debt default by prioritizing payments, but failure to raise the debt ceiling would mean deep and immediate cuts.
Which is to say that Democrats are lying and fearmongering, and Republicans are telling the truth. But seriously what else is new???
And, with that, a piece of an article from Market Watch that provides the numbers to support what the Republicans are saying and to factually disprove what lying Obama is saying:
Q: What is a default?
A: In this case, a default would be the failure by the U.S. Treasury to make payments of principal or interest on its debt in a timely manner.
Q: In a given month how much does the Treasury owe as interest on its debt?
A: Roughly about $15–20 billion (more on this in a moment).
Q: How much revenue does the Treasury take in on average in a month?
A: Roughly about $200 billion.
Q: Are you saying the Treasury could pay interest on its debt 10 times over (or more) from monthly income?
A: Yes. Therefore the likelihood of not paying interest on its debt is zero.
Q: But, what about redeeming bonds that come due?
A: As bonds come due, the Treasury would again use monthly income to pay them off. This would lower the debt owed beneath the so-called debt ceiling. Then, the Treasury could turn around and issue debt in that amount up to the debt ceiling.
Q: Why then do Treasury Secretary Geithner and others in government make such apocalyptic statement about the horrors of default.
A: I’m afraid Secretary Geithner and others in government are doing the moral equivalent of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater and they are doing so for political reasons rather than financial reasons. They simply do not want any interruptions in the bloated spending underway in Washington and they want to scare Americans into thinking the end of the world is nigh unless the gravy train keeps chugging along.
Math is hard for politicians
Now, let’s do the math to flesh out some of these points. I know that for many politicians and pundits math is hard, but I’ll try to make it as simple as possible. If we do not raise the debt ceiling by August 2nd, we will not default on Treasury obligations. Nor, will we have trouble making Social Security payments. However, there would be a big drop — roughly 44% — in government spending because that percentage represents the difference between government revenues which would be about $200 billion for the full month of August and $172 billion for August if we start counting after the first week when the deadline hits. Spending is slated to be over $300 billion that month.
Here are the numbers from an excellent and highly detailed study by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) quoted in this piece [emphasis added]:
…The BPC study found that the United States is likely to hit the debt limit sometime between August 2 and August 9. “It’s a 44 percent overnight cut in federal spending” if Congress hits the debt limit, [BPC’s Jay] Powell said. The BPC study projects there will be $172 billion in federal revenues in August and $307 billion in authorized expenditures. That means there’s enough money to pay for, say, interest on the debt ($29 billion), Social Security ($49.2 billion), Medicare and Medicaid ($50 billion), active duty troop pay ($2.9 billion), veterans affairs programs ($2.9 billion).
That leaves you with about $39 billion to fund (or not fund) the following:
Defense vendors ($31.7 billion)
IRS refunds ($3.9 billion)
Food stamps and welfare ($9.3 billion)
Unemployment insurance benefits ($12.8 billion)
Department of Education ($20.2 billion)
Housing and Urban Development ($6.7 billion)
Other spending, such as Departments of Justice, Labor, Commerce, EPA, HHS ($73.6 billion)
The decision to prioritize payments would fall on the Treasury department, and Powell points out it would be chaotic picking and choosing who gets paid (in full or partially) and who doesn’t…
No doubt picking and choosing who gets paid and who doesn’t would be chaotic. And, lots of programs would not get their funding and that would lead to plenty of screaming. Nonetheless, it should be clear from this exactly how much we are spending in excess of government revenues. And, that could and should lead to a sober assessment of what government can and cannot do.
We can easily make all of our debt payments (both interest and principal), our Social Security payments, our contributions to Medicare and Medicaid, our payments to our active duty soldiers and provide funding to the VA system. With room to spare. Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner (a lying weasel who didn’t pay his own taxes) are lying weasels.
They are treacherous and un-American. They are the very worst kind of cockroaches. They represent everything that is wrong with this country’s political system. What Obama is doing is low and loathsome beneath contemptible. The only way that we wouldn’t send out Social Security checks is if Obama decides to fund demonic ACORN instead of sending out those checks (see here and then see here and here). And the scumbag might actually do that because he’s simply that wicked and depraved and uncaring about the American people or their suffering.
A report by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) on medical cost trends for 2012 provides a dismal forecast of continued increases that consumers will see in their health care costs.
Key findings of the PWC report indicate:
The Democrats’ health care law has done little to ease the compliance burdens facing employers – as the PWC report points out, “employers have had their hands full complying with the avalanche of new regulations under PPACA.”
Medical costs are expected to increase: PWC expects medical costs to increase 8.5% in 2012, up from 8% in 2011.
More Americans will NOT be able to keep the health care coverage they have and like, with the report noting that “some employers are becoming less confident in their ability to offer health benefits on a long term basis.”
Of note:
84% of employers are likely to make changes to offset the costs associated with the Democrats’ health care law,
86% are likely to re-evaluate their overall benefits strategy, and
50% are considering significantly changing or eliminating company subsidies for dependent medical coverage.
The “fog of controversy” is lifting. Now we’re starting to see that the FACT that Democrats have created a monster that will eat us alive.
I think of fellow communist country North Korea. You’d think leftists would care about their people, but they don’t. Back in 2004, the New York Times wrote of fellow socialist traveller North Korea – “that claims to follow the world’s purest brand of communism” – “almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death.” And nothing has changed since then.
Let’s consider the attitudes of leftists. Take Chairman Mao – who has been publicly praised by top Obama officials.
“The atom bomb is nothing to be afraid of,” Mao told Nehru, “China has many people. . . . The deaths of ten or twenty million people is nothing to be afraid of.” A witness said Nehru showed shock. Later, speaking in Moscow, Mao displayed yet more generosity: he boasted that he was willing to lose 300 million people, half of China’s population.” [Annie Dillard, “The Wreck of Time” in Harper’s from January 1998].
LEE EDWARDS, CHAIRMAN, VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION: In 1959 to 1961 was the so-called “great leap forward” which was actually a gigantic leap backwards in which he tried to collectivize and communize agriculture.
And they came to him after the first year and they said, “Chairman, five million people have died of famine.” He said, “No matter, keep going.” In the second year, they came back and they said, “Ten million Chinese have died.” He said, “No matter, continue.” The third year, 20 million Chinese have died. And he said finally, “Well, perhaps this is not the best idea that I’ve ever had.”
CHANG: When he was told that, you know, his people were dying of starvation, Mao said, “Educate the peasants to eat less. Thus they can benefit – they can fertilize the land.”
Think of energy. Liberals have demonized oil, gas, coal, nuclear and everything else that actually produces energy. They want to leave us with “renewable energy” which produces about 8% of our energy needs. What are we going to do for the rest? Obama says he plans to bankrupt the coal energy which supplies half of America’s electricity. Obama has continued to pursue this reckless policy with regulations that are crippling us. What are we going to do? And the shocking secret is it doesn’t matter to them.
And the reason that the Kim Jong Ils and the Chairman Maos and the Joseph Stalins and the Barack Obamas stay in power is that people simply can’t believe that their leaders are truly that depraved.
They don’t care about your LIFE, let alone about your health care. These people hate God, and they want to create massive government in place of God, and they want to be the high priests of that government, and they want you to come hat in hand and bow down before them such that they get to decide who the winners and losers are.
The beast is coming. He too will be a leftist. He will actually be able to create what the left have been dreaming of for a generation and beyond: a one-world government. He will be a big government totalitarian who will promise to take care of everybody just as every leftist has done from Karl Marx to Stalin to Hitler to Chairman Mao to Kim Il Sung Pol Pot Mao to Kim Jong Il. He will produce a government system in place of God, and then he will declare himself as god over that government (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-21; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4; Revelation chapter 13.
D. James Kennedy issued a prophetic warning: “Watch out, Grandpa! Because the generation that survived abortion will one day come after YOU!”
Senior citizens – and those close to being senior citizens – are going to find out that they aren’t working anymore, which means they are no longer productive. Their going to find out that aging people consume vastly more medical resources than younger, healthier people. They’re going to find out that Obama has already spent America into staggering debt that it cannot possibly repay. And they’re going to find out that liberals think they’ve already lived their “complete lives.”
Remember how Obama and Democrats and their Joseph Goebbels propagandists in the mainstream media kept reporting that the stimulus had created jobs, but the American people kept saying, “Baloney!”?
And this particularly baloney is a store brand purchased with a coupon.
Only SIX PERCENT of Americans believe that Obama’s porkulus has created any jobs at all. That means more Americans believe that space aliens have anally probed them than believe in the stimulus. It also means that 94% think Obama and his entire administration and the entire Democrat congressional leadership are completely full of crap.
And 48% of Americans polled don’t think porkulus will EVER create jobs.
All that nothingness for the low, low price tag of only $862 billion.
Basically, we’ve got the same thing going on with the economy. Obama, the Democrat Party, and the mainstream media are increasingly being ignored as they keep assuring us that the economy is moving along just swimmingly. And that’s a good thing.
NEW YORK, March 31 /PRNewswire/ — By a very sizeable margin, American consumers appear to be at odds with recent reports that the economy has improved. A new nationwide study reveals that more than eight out of ten supermarket shoppers see no improvement in the economy, and forty percent actually believe things have gotten worse. As consumers continue to cope, the study affirms, the appeal of store brand products is stronger than ever and may even be intensifying.
The findings are based on a poll of nearly 800 main household grocery shoppers conducted in February 2010 by GfK Custom Research North America for the Private Label Manufacturers Association, New York. The full report, entitled “Recession, Recovery and Store Brands” is available for download at www.cli.gs/PLMAGfKRpt.
Among the GfK study highlights:
For most American shoppers, the recovery has yet to begin. Asked whether the economy has changed over the past few months, 40% said conditions were worse, while another 42% said things have stayed the same. Fewer than one in five felt the economy had improved.
As a result, the recent surge in store brands sales is likely to continue. When asked how important economic conditions were in deciding to buy a supermarket store brand, four in ten responded “very important.” A solid majority of consumers — more than six in ten — said they plan on buying more private label as they attempt to stretch their food dollars. Another finding that may also accrue to store brands’ benefit: Half of shoppers intend to spend less money on groceries in the months ahead.
Consumer awareness of store brands is also rising. More than half of respondents said they are more aware of store brand products now than they were a year ago.
Moreover, shoppers who identify themselves as “frequent” buyers of store brands are at an all-time high. Some 57% say they buy private label products frequently, a figure that has been increasing (it was under 55% a year ago).
A greater number of shoppers are switching to store brands in product categories where they had previously only purchased a national brand. Some 43% report they have recently forsaken a familiar national brand for a private label counterpart, a marked increase since June 2009 when only 35 % said they had done so.
Virtually all of the shoppers who switched are pleased with their decision. Ninety-seven percent compared store brands favorably to their previous national brand choices in the same categories. About half said that their store brand selections compare “very favorably,” a dramatic increase from the June 2009 study when only one quarter reported that.
Study participants endorsed a variety of strategies to cope with what they see as a persistently difficult economy.When asked how they think the economy will impact their supermarket shopping habits, more than two thirds said they will take advantage of discounts by buying larger sizes or quantities for items they regularly purchase; two thirds will look for more coupons and promotions on national brands. About a third plan to change the stores or types of stores where they do their primary grocery shopping.
PLMA commissioned GfK to monitor consumer attitudes and behavior toward store brands in the U.S. as private label sales and market shares across all retail channels began to surge about two years ago. Sales of store brand products topped $86.4 across the major U.S. retail channels over the past year, according to the latest data compiled by The Nielsen Company for PLMA. In supermarkets alone, where market share in units reached an historic high of 23.7%, store brands growth outpaced national brands by a spread of 8 basis points and dollar market share also set a new record at 18%. Store brands accounted for 90% of the sales growth in supermarkets, adding $1.5 billion in incremental sales (+2.9%), while national brand sales were virtually flat for the year at +0.1%.
The February 2010 survey updates findings from two earlier PLMA studies on “Store Brands and the Recession,” published in February 2009 and in June 2009. GfK Custom Research North America is part of the GfK Group, the world’s fourth largest market research company.
The elitist mainline liberal talking heads are going to keep talking because they couldn’t shut up if they tried.
The poll finds that 79 percent of voters think it’s possible the economy could collapse, including large majorities of Democrats (72 percent), Republicans (84 percent), and independents (80 percent).
“Change” is “fundamentally transforming” America into socialism, and “hope” is praying that we don’t get to find out what the Great Depression looks like firsthand.
Take a gander at the definition of fascism, and ask yourself how many parts of it Barack Obama has already implemented:
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
Barack Obama has seized control of the auto industry, in spite of the fact that Americans overwhelmingly thought it was a bad idea (with 59% disapproving). He has taken Bush measures to control the banks in order to control the scope of the financial crisis to an entirely new levels. And Obama additionally recently seized “unprecedented powers” over Wall Street:
The plan clearly grants the central bank unprecedented new powers to conduct comprehensive examinations of almost any U.S. financial company, as well as any of that company’s foreign affiliates. It would also give the central bank oversight of any commercial company that owns a banking charter known as an industrial loan company, according to TheJournal.
The only thing that anyone could argue was lacking in labeling Barack Obama as “a fascist” has been Obama’s contrived persona as presented in the media.
But that’s been blown away as well.
It’s somewhat surprising who would blow that mask away, but the fact that 40-year liberal White House Press Correspondent Helen Thomas would be the one to do it shows how obviously and how blatantly the Obama administration has sought to manipulate the media in full fascist fashion.
Helen Thomas: I’m a liberal, I was born a liberal, I’ll be one ’til I die, what else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth?
CBC Interviewer: Well, you know, it’s interesting because I’m sure that if somebody from the right was sitting here they would say… if you ask the question what should a reporter be they will say, “Oh, I don’t know, How about objective?”
Barack Obama had a much publicized “town hall” which turns out to have been very “tightly controlled,” with a tightly controlled audience and a tightly controlled list of White-House-approved questions. Barack Obama wants to keep the real tought questions – such as who will pay for the massive government health care, how much will it cost, and will any bureaucrat ever be allowed to get between a patient and his/her physician and make decisions based on statistics rather than medical needs, just to name a few – out of the spotlight. And so he has an event that is falsely presented as an open forum, but in actuality being controlled by the White House for propaganda purposes.
And Helen Thomas, to her credit, came unglued as White House Press Secretary Gibbs cheerfully presented the false face of propaganda as though nothing was amiss:
Gibbs: “… But, again, let’s–How about we do this? I promise we will interrupt the AP’s tradition of asking the first question. I will let you [Chip Reid] ask me a question tomorrow as to whether you thought the questions at the town hall meeting that the President conducted in Annandale—“
Chip Reid: “I’m perfectly happy to—”
Helen Thomas:“That’s not his point. The point is the control–”
Reid: “Exactly.”
Thomas: “We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some, but not– This White House.”
Gibbs: “Yes, I was going to say, I’ll let you amend her question.”
Thomas:“I’m amazed. I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and—”
Gibbs: “Helen, you haven’t even heard the questions.”
Reid:“It doesn’t matter. It’s the process.”
Thomas: “You have left open—”
Reid: “Even if there’s a tough question, it’s a question coming from somebody who was invited or was screened, or the question was screened.”
Thomas:“It’s shocking. It’s really shocking.”
Gibbs: “Chip, let’s have this discussion at the conclusion of the town hall meeting. How about that?”
Reid: “Okay.”
Gibbs: “I think—“
Thomas: “No, no, no, we’re having it now–”
Gibbs: “Well, I’d be happy to have it now.”
Thomas:“It’s a pattern.”
Gibbs: “Which question did you object to at the town hall meeting, Helen?”
Thomas: “It’s a pattern. It isn’t the question—”
Gibbs: “What’s a pattern?”
Thomas:“It’s a pattern of controlling the press.”
Gibbs: “How so? Is there any evidence currently going on that I’m controlling the press–poorly, I might add.”
Thomas: “Your formal engagements are pre-packaged.”
Gibbs: “How so?”
Reid:“Well, and controlling the public—”
Thomas: “How so? By calling reporters the night before to tell them they’re going to be called on. That is shocking.”
Gibbs: “We had this discussion ad nauseam and—”
Thomas: “Of course you would, because you don’t have any answers.”
Helen Thomas has been a White House correspondent for more than forty years. And she has been a doctrinaire liberal who clearly would tend to see things from the perspective of the administration in power. It should be beyond disturbing to you that such a journalist would say, “We have never had that in the White House.” That she would say, This is really shocking.” And it should frighten you that she is “amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency” even as they reveal themselves to be the most manipulating and controlling administration in history. It’s not just about self-righteous hypocrisy; it goes to Nixonian levels of deceit and lust for power.
An attempt by a president to control the press is bad enough; it’s terrifying when that same president has already grabbed unprecedented control over so many other things.
And it gets downright creepy when you consider that this president who is now trying to control the press has actually recieved the most favorable press coverage of any president (nearly TWICE as much favorable coverage as Bush recieved during the same period even while Bush was virtually as “popular” as Obama was). It makes one wonder: what psychological defect, what pathological need to control, would need to exercise so much control?
This is no small matter. We now have a president who seized more power than any president in American history – FDR included. And we now have a Congress that is dominated by the same party as the president, and now posessing a filibuster-proof majority. For the media to be in bed (to allude to a joke Obama made about NBC anchor Brian Williams) with the president is beyond dangerous – especially with our economy in such a fragile state.
Democracy is doomed in a nation that allows propaganda to dominate – as America is clearly doing. Because in a democracy, people are expected to vote their will, and they cannot vote their own will when their opinion is being shaped and controlled by propaganda.
Update, July 3: As further proof that what I am arguing is true, take something that happened just yesterday, following the publication of this article.
The leftist Washington Post cancelled a “salon” event in the wake of an uproar over the sheer raving inappropriateness of such an event. The Newspaper planned to sell access to reporters and Obama administration officials to lobbyist for sums of up to $250,000. A quote from the Politico article breaking the story:
The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”
The newspaper has an incredibly flimsy excuse for this selling of its credibility, but the entire fiasco merely amounts to yet another of the complete abandonment of journalistic ethics and integrity of the mainstream media.
This is a blurring of the White House and the press that is intended to sell policy to the public. It is dangerous. It is facsist.
WASHINGTON – The United States can defeat al-Qaida if it relies less on force and more on policing and intelligence to root out the terror group’s leaders, a new study contends.
“Keep in mind that terrorist groups are not eradicated overnight,” said the study by the federally funded Rand research center, an organization that counsels the Pentagon.
Its report said that the use of military force by the United States or other countries should be reserved for quelling large, well-armed and well-organized insurgencies, and that American officials should stop using the term “war on terror” and replace it with “counterterrorism.”
“Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests there is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” said Seth Jones, the lead author of the study and a Rand political scientist.
The story went on (blah blah blah) but the last paragraph pretty much told me the study it was reporting was a waste of time.
“Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors.” Too bad their “analysis did not suggest” that there is something called the fallacy of the false dilemma, and that the “lead author” dived right into it head first.
Seriously, when was the last time President Bush, one of our commanders, or any conservative anywhere EVER refer to terrorists as “holy warriors.” When was the last time anyone outside of terrorists referred to them as “holy warriors”?
How about terms such as “Islamic fascists,” “vicious murderers,” “nihilist monsters,” etcetera? Could you refer to them by any of those terms instead?
When you begin with that kind of fallacious presupposition by the lead author, you pretty much can tell you have a study that isn’t even worth lining your bird cage with.
Later in the article Seth Jones acknowledges, “We are not saying the military should not play a role. But unless you are talking about large insurgencies, military force should not be the tip of the spear.”
But al Qaeda most certainly qualifies as a “large insurgency.” It is both large, and it possesses a truly global reach. So Jones isn’t really saying squat.
That doesn’t stop the Associated Press from titling its story, “Study questions US strategy against al-Qaida,” as though somehow we’re supposed to re-examine our entire policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Apparently there IS a battlefield solution to terrorism, after all. Based on its success, the finest military that ever existed makes for a pretty good spear tip.
And just so you know, Iraq was “the war that seemed lost” for Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry “the war is lost” Reid and Barack “the surge will surely fail” Obama. And of course for their “Nothing but Negative News All the Time” counterparts in the media. It didn’t seem lost to President Bush and to our absolutely magnificent military. The greatest tragedy is that we could have won the war a lot sooner – and with a lot fewer lives lost – had despicable Democrats supported it like they should have instead of using it as a political wedge issue.
Our recent successes prove that we shouldn’t be questioning our terror strategy; rather, we should be questioning the moral cowards who spent so much time and energy dividing this country with one pathetic question after another.
Start Thinking Right 