Since President Barack Hussein Obama took office (which seems like an eternity ago), he has increased the amount of drone attacks in the Middle East.

Which is an extremely hypocritical policy, considering how he’s blasted the Bush Administration’s War on Terror, err, excuse me, man-caused disasters:

During an Oct. 3, 2011, appearance on the Fox Business Network, Rep. John Fleming, R-La., said he agreed with comments critical of President Barack Obama that former Vice President Dick Cheney had offered one day earlier during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union.

Cheney had argued that Obama had criticized aspects of the Bush-Cheney approach to countering terrorism, yet once in office chose to follow many of his predecessors’ policies. “If you’ve got the president of the United States out there saying we overreacted to 9/11 on our watch, that’s not good,” Cheney said.

Host Candy Crowley then asked Cheney, “You’d like an apology, it sounds like?”

Cheney responded, “Well, I would. I think that would be, not for me, but I think for the Bush administration. …”

Fleming, in his Fox Business Network interview, echoed Cheney’s line of argument. During the interview, host Eric Bolling asked Fleming, “Does the president owe an apology to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney?”

Fleming answered, “Absolutely, Eric. I agree with the former Vice President. President Obama is more and more beginning to look like the hypocrite-in-chief when it comes to the war on terrorism. All sorts of things that he criticized the president for, he’s actually continued and even extended. This drone attack program, he’s got it at the highest level ever.”

Unfortunately, the more you use a technology, the more you take the chance that the technology, or its operators,  will eventually screw up:

The Obama administration promised a full investigation into a NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers Saturday.

Hours after the attack, Secretary of State Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed regret over the loss of life to their Pakistani counterparts, officials said.

Officials in Islamabad claimed the United States-led forces fired on the Pakistan Tensions between Islamabad and Washington, which have been high for years, grew worse after terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden was found living peacefully in Pakistan.

U.S. officials have also accused Pakistan of not doing enough to stop militant attacks on American soldiers, while many in Pakistan have long been suspicious of the NATO presence in the region.

NATO investigators believe the air strike was meant for insurgents who inhabit the troubled border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The coalition launched an immediate investigation into the attack, officials said.

Needless to say, Pakistanis do not wish to forgive and forget:

Hundreds of enraged Pakistanis took to the streets across the country Sunday, burning an effigy of President Barack Obama and setting fire to US flags after 24 soldiers died in NATO air strikes.

The rallies were organised by opposition and right-wing Islamist groups in major cities of the nuclear-armed country of 167 million people, where opposition to the government’s US alliance is rampant.

In Karachi, the port city used by the United States to ship supplies to troops fighting in Afghanistan, more than 700 people gathered outside the US consulate, an AFP photographer said.

They shouted: “down with America, stay away Americans, Pakistan is ours, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our army”, while Pakistani riot police were deployed near the consulate.

Outside the press club in Karachi, dozens of political activists burnt an effigy of President Obama, an AFP photographer added.

In the central city of Multan, more than 300 activists loyal to the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, as well as local traders took to the streets, burning US and NATO flags.

They carried placards and banners, and shouted: “down with America,” “down with NATO,” “Yankees go back”, “vacate Afghanistan and Pakistan” and “stop drone attacks” — a reference to a CIA drone war against Islamist militants.

Speaking at the rally, opposition lawmaker Javed Hashmi demanded that the government end its alliance in the US-led “war on terror”.

In Islamabad, at least 200 activists of the radical Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party held a rally in the middle-class I-10 neighbourhood.

“We strongly condemn the attack and the killing of our soldiers,” local JI chief Mian Aslam told the rally in reference to the air strike early Saturday, as protestors chanted “Pakistan is America’s graveyard.”

Pakistan has reacted with fury over the killings, and has called the attack by NATO helicopters and fighter jets on two military posts close to the Afghan border “unprovoked”.

In response, Islamabad has sealed its Afghan border to NATO supply convoys and is reviewing its alliance with the United States and NATO, mulling whether to boycott a key international conference on Afghanistan next month.

Unfortunately for Obama, and even more unfortunate for Americans, this incident is just a pimple on the posterior of a failed Foreign Policy which has allowed the replacement of Moderate Muslim Dictators in the Middle East with hard-line adherents, who are friendly with, if not members of, the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic Terrorist organization our idiotic Administration has been courting.

All of this, under the watch of a Commander-in-Chief who once said that

The Muslim Call to Prayer is one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.

Because of his dangerous Foreign Policy, several of the countries in the Middle East will be hearing that sound more often.

When did the Occupy Wall Street movement start and why are these hygenically-challenged, Moms’ basement-dwelling slackers still around?

Per the Liberal-leaning wiki.answers.com:

The Occupy Movement began in September 2011, with the occupation of Wall Street in New York as a protest against the fact that roughly 1% of the world’s population owns and manipulates the world’s wealth as well the 99% from whom it derives that wealth.

Towards the end of November 2011 the Occupy Movement had spread to just under 1000 cities in 82 countries all over the planet.

The Occupy Movement is a protest against the transnational corporations and companies (including financial institutions, like banks) whose only motivation is greed and profiteering, and who do not care about the preservation of the world’s diverse cultures and environments, or the exploitation of the world’s precious resources, or the continuing pollution of the planet and the irreversible damage that is being done to the delicate biosphere in which we all must live.

Delicate biosphere, my foot.

September…September…what else was going on in September?  Oh, yeah…Obama proposed a $447 Billion fiasco of a jobs bill:

I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans — including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything.

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for long-term unemployed. It will provide — it will provide a tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business.  It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled, and give companies confidence that if they invest and if they hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away.

Everyone here knows that small businesses are where most new jobs begin. And you know that while corporate profits have come roaring back, smaller companies haven’t. So for everyone who speaks so passionately about making life easier for “job creators,” this plan is for you.

Support for Obama’s Jobs Act has been non-existent.  Congresscritters have been running away from the bill faster than Occupiers from personal responsibility.

Why, if someone was a conspiracy buff, one might think that the Occupy movement was nothing but camouflage for the Administration…a misdirection play, if you will.

Nah, couldn’t be…could it?

Gentle Reader, have you been wondering where these Moms’ basement-dwellers have been getting the money for their exercise in futility?

Reuters.com reported on 10/13/11 that:

There has been much speculation over who is financing the disparate protest, which has spread to cities across America and lasted nearly four weeks. One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros, who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans. Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.

Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.

“I can understand their sentiment,” Soros told reporters last week at the United Nations about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which are expected to spur solidarity marches globally on Saturday.

Pressed further for his views on the movement and the protesters, Soros refused to be drawn in. But conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh summed up the speculation when he told his listeners last week, “George Soros money is behind this.”

He’s not the only one, Rush.  Gateway Pundit reported on 10/15/11 concerning thisannouncement from the Communist Party USA:

This is an exciting time! Thousands of mainly young people have been occupying Wall Street for three weeks already, and the “Occupy Movement” has spread to more than 200 other cities. On Oct. 6 the actions spread to our nation’s capital.

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) will hold a national teleconference to discuss it:

Arturo Cambron

The Communist Party and the Occupy L.A. Movement

Tuesday, October 11, 8 pm Eastern

Teleconference number: 605-475-4850 (please note this is the corrected number. ignore previous.)

Access code: 1053538#

Southern California Party leader Arturo Cambron will share how the CPUSA and Young Communist League (YCL) are working in “Occupy Los Angeles.”

This movement, also known as the “99% movement,” is being hailed across the country. Movements and organizations are reaching out in solidarity. The AFL-CIO is opening union halls and offering other material assistance. Ordinary people are donating food, money and materials.

In many areas, the “Occupy Movement” is linking up with the National American Wants to Work Week of Actions, Oct. 10-16.

No doubt the “Arab Spring” demonstrations and those that exploded in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere have inspired it. But underlying it all is the economic crisis, the massive unemployment and growing realization that nothing is getting better, and in fact we may be slipping into a “double dip” crisis. The crushing student debt and the feeling of being locked out of society with no future compound this.

The movement is the newest wrinkle in the all-people’s upsurge against the banks and corporations and reflects a new level of class-consciousness.

So, here we are, at the end of the Thanksgiving Holiday, and the Occupiers are still around.  However, regardless of what Liberals will tell you, they are not making friends and influencing people:

If anything, the Occupy crowd’s efforts have backfired. A new survey (as of 11/17/11) by the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling finds just 33% now support the Occupy movement, down from a month ago and lower than the 42% who say they support the Tea Party. And Gallup finds more identify themselves as conservative today than did so two years ago.

Personally, I find myself agreeing with Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who had the following advice for the Occupiers:

Go get a job right after you take a bath!

Pop Quiz, Hot Shots:

Yesterday, President Barack Hussein Obama told a group:

You are the reason that I ran for office.

Whom was he speaking to?

A.  The Veterans of Foreign Wars

B.Those anonymous campaign donors from the Middle East

C.  The NBA

D.  Reggie Love

The answer is None of the Above:

President Obama was heckled on Tuesday during an appearance at a New Hampshire high school.

Obama had traveled north to the Granite State, which holds the nation’s first presidential primary, to discuss the economy and his proposal to extend a current payroll tax cut.

Just as the president started his speech, protesters, apparently from the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, used the “human mic” technique to amplify their voices. It was unclear what the protesters were saying, or what point they were attempting to make.

The president smiled through the disruption, saying: “No, it’s OK,” as other parts of the crowd sought to hush the protesters by chanting his name and old campaign slogan, “Yes We Can.”

“OK, guys,” Obama said after supporters drowned out the hecklers.

Obama to hecklers: ‘I’ll listen to you, you listen to me’

“I appreciate you guys making your point; let me go ahead and make mine,” Obama said before continuing his speech. “I’ll listen to you, you listen to me, OK?”

A few minutes later, Obama acknowledged the Occupy protest movement again, saying: “You are the reason I ran for office.”

So, the man who occupies the most important position in the world was trying to suck up to a bunch of depraved, publically-defecating, mom’s basement-dwelling, hygienically-challenged losers?

I’m not surprised.

Things just are not going very well for “the Lightbringer” these days.

When Obama arrived in the Granite State, he discovered that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had left him a greeting in the form of full page newspaper ads and a television commercial attacking the president.

“Your policies have failed,” Mr. Romney writes in an “open letter” to the president that is running in the state’s three biggest newspapers — the Union Leader, Concord Monitor, and The Telegraph — less than two months out from New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.

The full-page ads are part of a broader offensive that coincides with Mr. Obama’s visit Tuesday to the Granite State and includes Mr. Romney’s first television spot of the campaign season, which blasts Mr. Obama and features snippets of Mr. Romney’s campaign speeches.

“I am confident that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis,” the ad shows Mr. Obama saying in the old footage, before “He failed” spills across the screen. “We need a rescue plan for the middle class. We need to provide relief for homeowners.”

The ad then moves to Mr. Obama saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”

The Democratic National Committee has already suggested the ad is deceitful because the footage used is of Mr. Obama quoting an aide from Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008.

On Tuesday, the DNC said that Mr. Romney’s career has been built on deceiving people.

Pot…meet kettle.

“When he was running for governor he looked pro-choice activists in the eye and said he’d protect a woman’s right to choose and would even take that position to Washington if he pursued national office — now he wants to overturn Roe V. Wade and supports so called “personhood” policies,” the DNC said in a press release. “No candidate in modern times has had more trouble with the truth than Mitt Romney.”

If anyone should be able to recognize a prevaricator when they see one, it’s the Democratic National Committee.

I’ll bet you thought that since they ran them out of city parks from coast to coast and then sanitized the parks, we had heard the last of the OWS movement?

Nope.  They’ve got big plans.  These immature idiots plan on boycotting Black Friday.

Per their website:

Keep in mind that we are not occupying small businesses or hardworking people—we must make a distinction between the businesses that are in the pockets of Wall Street and the businesses that serve our local communities.

We are NOT anti-capitalist. Just anti-crapitalist.

Below is a shortlist for publicly traded large businesses to Occupy or to boycott on Black Friday. Luckily, most of them don’t have good presents anyway. If you want to see the top 100 retail businesses for 2010 to boycott, click here.

On Black Friday, Occupy or boycott:

– Abercrombie & Fitch [ANF 45.85 -0.62 (-1.33%) ]

– Amazon.com (yes, we have to stay away from Amazon, too!) [AMZN 192.34 3.09 (+1.63%) ]

– AT&T Wireless [ATT 27.04 0.15 (+0.56%) ]

– Burlington Coat Factory

– Dick’s Sporting Goods (I was surprised, too!) [DSG-FF 28.935 0.055 (+0.19%) ]

– Dollar Tree [DLTR 77.09 1.40 (+1.85%) ]

– The Home Depot [HD 37.10 0.04 (+0.11%) ]

– Neiman Marcus

– OfficeMax [OMX 4.49 0.09 (+2.05%) ]

– Toys R’Us [JPM 29.41 -0.50 (-1.67%) ]

– Verizon Wireless [VZN 94.30 -0.40 (-0.42%) ]

– Wal-Mart [WMT 56.85 0.19 (+0.34%) ]

Solidarity!”

They probably sent the message out from their iPhones.

I tell you what, boys and girls.  C’mon down to DeSoto County, Mississippi and try to stand in front of that Michigander I married, my daughter-in-law, or any of the other little flowers of womanhood out before dawn’s early light in quest of bargains this Friday morning and see what happens.

You’ll wish you would have stayed in your Moms’ basements.

The bipartisan congressional Supercommittee, who were given the assignment of trying to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction announced yesterday that they have been as effective as Casey at the Bat:

They’ve struck out.

According to this august body, they are at loggerheads and the chance of success at this point equals the chance of the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.

Supercommittee co-chairs, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., announced:

After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.

The declaration came late Monday afternoon in a written statement from the 12-member Joint Select Committee.

The committee come up a loser because the Republicans refused to raise taxes and cut defense spending and the Democrats said no to any entitlement reforms, because, after all, the elections are less than a year away.

The Supercommitte was created this summer under a law agreed to by Republicans and Democrats in the throes of political panic during the debt ceiling crisis.

Unfortunately, that very law allows the committee’s failure to trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts over 10 years, starting in 2013.  Known as a sequestration, it will include cuts to spending on our National Defense.

Republican lawmakers are promising to immediately sponsor legislation to block those automatic cuts to the defense budget.

Our country’s deficit stands now at about $15 trillion. And things are not going to get any better, anytime soon. In fact, yesterday’s Stock Market freefall was in anticipation of the failure announcement by the Supercommittee.

President Barack Hussein Obama came on national television in a press conference after the Supercommittee’s announcement threatening to veto any attempts to get around the automatic cuts.

He basically told Congress that they had 1 more year to do it his way…or else.

That’s an awful nice system of checks and balances you got there…it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it…

Meanwhile, GOP Elite/Main Stream Media Favorite Mitt Romney tried to make a little political hay concerning the situation:

Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama on Sunday for refusing to intervene in congressional talks to cut the deficit.

With the so-called supercommittee at an impasse ahead of Wednesday’s deadline, Mr. Romney blamed the president for the apparent failure of the bipartisan panel, which was tasked with finding savings in excess of $1.2 trillion. He also called on Mr. Obama to introduce legislation to restore $600 billion in defense spending that will be cut automatically if the panel fails to offer alternatives.

“He hasn’t had any role,” Mr. Romney told roughly 200 supporters outside the city hall building in Nashua, where he appeared for a campaign event with Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte. “He’s done nothing. It’s another example of failed leadership.”

The problem Obama is beginning to face, as his re-election bid rolls along, it’s not just the opposition party who’s out gunning for him.  Some of his own political party are beginning to pile on, also.

ABC News’ Mary Bruce and Richard Esposito reported yesterday about one of the president’s staunchest minions…er…supporters who seems to be distancing himself just a little bit:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today said the failure of the supercommittee is a “damning indictment of Washington’s inability to govern” and blamed President Obama in part for the breakdown of the debt talks.

“It’s the chief executive’s job to bring people together and to provide leadership in difficult situations. I don’t see that happening,” Bloomberg said at a news conference. “The failure of the committee will mean that thousands of jobs that would have been created will just go without being created. And thousands of men and women who would have gotten back to work will remain unemployed.”

Bloomberg, who has been rumored as a potential third-party candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, criticized both parties for their lack of action.

“I think it’s a failure, you know people say, who do you blame? The blame is both sides of the aisle and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said.

The White House has defended the president’s engagement with the super-committee.

“This committee was established by an act of Congress. It was comprised of members of Congress. Instead of pointing fingers and playing the blame game, Congress should act, fulfill its responsibility,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Monday.

Obama and the Democrats pulled for the formation of this Supercommittee in order to lay a trap for Republicans, by showing them as unwilling to compromise.

The problem for Obama and his political party is that it is exposing his failure of leadership, even more.

And Republicans holding fast on National Defense Spending is not exactly a negative message.

The First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama, and the wife of the Vice-President, Dr. Jill Biden, attended the NASCAR Sprint Cup Finale yesterday.

When FLOTUS was introduced as Grand Marshall for the race, judging from the reaction of the NASCAR fans in attendance, one might have thought they were ringside at Monday Night Raw when “heel” wrestler “The Miz” was being introduced.

The first and “second” lady were co-Grand Marshalls, attending the event supposedly for the purpose of honor America’s veterans and military heroes.

Earlier that day, they attended a Private Barbeque given in honor of the heroes and their families.  Sgt. Andrew Barry was actually sent out on stage with the ladies, possibly to act as a boo-deflector.

The Obamas have an image problem. They are seen by Mr. and Mrs. Average American as not only the figureheads atop a failed Administration, but also as jet-settin, limousine-ridin’, tax-dollar spendin’, anti-American snobs.

With good reason.

On January 23rd, 2008, during a speech given in Columbia, South Carolina, Michelle Obama said:

We don’t like being pushed outside of our comfort zones. You know it right here on this campus. You know people sitting at different tables, y’all living in different dorms. I was there. Y’all not talking to each another, taking advantage of the fact that you’re in this diverse community because sometimes it’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?

The, in February of 2008, while campaigning for her husband in Wisconsin, Mrs. Obama said:

Let me tell you something. For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.

And let me tell you something. I need to believe that we live in that kind of nation, where hope and possibility and unity is still what drives us.

She made the “proud” comment twice in 2 different speeches.  David Axlerod, Obama’s Chief Strategist, tried to explain it away at the time, saying:

She gives this talk all the time, and I don’t think she formulates the words quite that way generally. But if you look at the whole quote and read beyond it, she was plainly talking about this burst of participation, this sense of hope, the sense of possibility and so on. And she was talking about the politics of our country.

In an article titled “The Other Obama”, published on March 10, 2008, in The New Yorker Magazine, writer Lauren Collins gives us the following insights into the Future First Lady’s true feelings about America:

The four times I heard her give the speech—in a ballroom at the University of South Carolina, from the pulpit of Pee Dee Union, at an art gallery in Charleston, and in the auditorium of St. Norbert College, in De Pere, Wisconsin—its content was admirably consistent, with few of the politician’s customary tweaks and nods to the demographic predilections, or prejudices, of a particular audience.

Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”

From these bleak generalities, Obama moves into specific complaints. Used to be, she will say, that you could count on a decent education in the neighborhood. But now there are all these charter schools and magnet schools that you have to “finagle” to get into. (Obama herself attended a magnet school, but never mind.) Health care is out of reach (“Let me tell you, don’t get sick in America”), pensions are disappearing, college is too expensive, and even if you can figure out a way to go to college you won’t be able to recoup the cost of the degree in many of the professions for which you needed it in the first place. “You’re looking at a young couple that’s just a few years out of debt,” Obama said. “See, because, we went to those good schools, and we didn’t have trust funds. I’m still waiting for Barack’s trust fund. Especially after I heard that Dick Cheney was s’posed to be a relative or something. Give us something here!”

During a private fund-raiser in San Francisco in April of 2008, Candidate Barack Hussein Obama said:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.

And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

And today, the pundits in the Main Stream Media are probably scratching their heads, wondering why Michelle Obama got booed yesterday.

In the next few months, look for the Obamas’ handlers to try to make them appear as normal, everyday Americans, as they did with Michelle’s staged shopping trip to Target, and her appearance last summer at a professional baseball game.

After all, November 6, 2012 is less than a year away.

On January 25th, 2011, during his annual State of the Union Address, the 44th President of these United States, Barack Hussein Obama, read aloud, before a Joint Session of Congress, a packed gallery, and a national television audience, the following:

We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.

But we have never measured progress by these yardsticks alone. We measure progress by the success of our people. By the jobs they can find and the quality of life those jobs offer. By the prospects of a small business owner who dreams of turning a good idea into a thriving enterprise. By the opportunities for a better life that we pass on to our children.

That’s the project the American people want us to work on. Together.

We did that in December. Thanks to the tax cuts we passed, Americans’ paychecks are a little bigger today. Every business can write off the full cost of new investments that they make this year. And these steps, taken by Democrats and Republicans, will grow the economy and add to the more than one million private sector jobs created last year.

But we have to do more. These steps we’ve taken over the last two years may have broken the back of this recession, but to win the future, we’ll need to take on challenges that have been decades in the making.

Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck and good benefits and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company.

That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts on once busy Main Streets. I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans who’ve seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear -– proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the United States Census Bureau, earlier this month, released a study that showed one of the most profound effects of  “The Lightbringer’s” Economic Policies.

There are a lot of Americans financially holding on for dear life. The Bureau’s report showed that 51 million people are struggling, with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line. That number is actually 76 percent higher than the previous official account, published in September. This means that 100 million people, one in three Americans, are living either in poverty or just above it.

The Census Bureau is shocked.  Shocked, I tell you.

“These numbers are higher than we anticipated,” said Trudi J. Renwick, the bureau’s chief poverty statistician. “There are more people struggling than the official numbers show.”

Outside the bureau, skeptics of the new measure warned that the phrase “near poor” — a common term, but not one the government officially uses — may suggest more hardship than most families in this income level experience. A family of four can fall into this range, adjusted for regional living costs, with an income of up to $25,500 in rural North Dakota or $51,000 in Silicon Valley.

But most economists called the new measure better than the old, and many said the findings, while disturbing, comported with what was previously known about stagnant wages.

“It’s very consistent with everything we’ve been hearing in the last few years about families’ struggle, earnings not keeping up for the bottom half,” said Sheila Zedlewski, a researcher at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social research group.

Patched together a half-century ago, the official poverty measure has long been seen as flawed. It ignores hundreds of billions the needy receive in food stamps, tax credits and other programs, and the similarly large sums paid in taxes, medical care and work expenses. The new method, called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, counts all those factors and adjusts for differences in the cost of living, which the official measure ignores.

The results scrambled the picture of poverty in many surprising ways. The measure shows less severe destitution, but a bit more overall poverty; fewer poor children, but more poor people over 65.

Of the 51 million who appear near poor under the fuller measure, nearly 20 percent were lifted up from poverty by benefits the official count overlooks. But more than half were pushed down from higher income levels: more than eight million by taxes, six million by medical expenses, and four million by work expenses like transportation and child care.

Demographically, they look more like “The Brady Bunch” than “The Wire.” Half live in households headed by a married couple; 49 percent live in the suburbs. Nearly half are non-Hispanic white, 18 percent are black and 26 percent are Latino.

Perhaps the most surprising finding is that 28 percent work full-time, year round. “These estimates defy the stereotypes of low-income families,” Ms. Renwick said.

As of Sunday, November 20, 2011, the American people polled by gallup.com, held the following opinions:

Obama Job Approval  43%

Economic Conditions  Excellent/Good  9% 

                                                       Poor  50%

Economic Outlook  Getting Better  22%

                                               Getting Worse 73%

Economic Confidence  -46%

On January 21, 2009 President Barack Hussein Obama spoke the following words during his Inauguration:

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift. And we will act, not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We’ll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

We’re still waiting, Mr. President...for one more year.

As the fight for the Republican nomination drags on, those vying for it seem determined to make the Main Stream Media’s self-appointed job of choosing a less-than-Conservative Republican candidate for us, easy.

In fact, at times, the nomination choices appear to have just exited the clown car at the circus.

What are our choices?

We have a wacky old isolationist (Ron Paul), who is now talking about the possibly of running as a third party candidate…again.

There’s a former employee of Obama’s  (Whatever-his-first-name-is Huntsman) whose ideological stances are better suited for the Democratic Primary.

There’s a female candidate (Michele Bachmann), who, while excellent as a speaker at Tea Party Rallies, has been labelled as having “crazy eyes” by the MSM.

There’s Rick Santorum…?

There’s Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose pro-amnesty stance and tongue-tied debate performances have put the brakes on a promising campaign.

There’s Herman Cain, who, while seemingly in the process of overcoming a bimbo eruption, has been hurt by it and by less than stellar responses to foreign affairs questions, not to mention suspicions about the aptitude of his campaign staff.

Realistically, that leaves two Washington Insiders, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Gingrich, has both surprised and shocked the MSM and Conservatives alike with his performance on the stump.  His answers have been forthright, logical, and easy for the average American to understand. Plus, his boldness in standing up to the Main stream Media has been being well-received by the American public.

His biggest obstacle is the public’s reservations about his personal life, with the perception that he cheated on a woman riddled with cancer, and delivered divorce papers to her on her death bed.

Gingrich’s daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, wrote the following in an article titled “Setting the Record Straight”:

As for my parents’ divorce, I can remember when they told me.

It was the spring of 1980.

I was 13 years old, and we were about to leave Fairfax, Va., and drive to Carrollton, Ga., for the summer. My parents told my sister and me that they were getting a divorce as our family of four sat around the kitchen table of our ranch home.

Soon afterward, my mom, sister and I got into our light-blue Chevrolet Impala and drove back to Carrollton.

Later that summer, Mom went to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for surgery to remove a tumor. While she was there, Dad took my sister and me to see her.

It is this visit that has turned into the infamous hospital visit about which many untruths have been told. I won’t repeat them. You can look them up online if you are interested in untruths. But here’s what happened:

My mother and father were already in the process of getting a divorce, which she requested.

Dad took my sister and me to the hospital to see our mother.

She had undergone surgery the day before to remove a tumor.

The tumor was benign.

As with many divorces, it was hard and painful for all involved, but life continued.

As have many families, we have healed; we have moved on.

We are not a perfect family, but we are knit together through common bonds, commitment and love.

My mother and father are alive and well, and my sister and I are blessed to have a close relationship with them both.

My sister and I feel that it is time to move on, close the book on this event and focus on building a great future. We will not answer additional questions or make additional comments regarding this meaningless incident, which occurred more than three decades ago.

As I said, my mother is a private person. She will not give media interviews. She deserves respect and should be allowed to live in peace.

But, knowing the MSM, she won’t be allowed to.

As far as the Main Stream Media’s candidate of choice, Mitt Romney is concerned, his biggest baggage is Romneycare, and his refusal to distance himself from it.

Jeffrey Anderson, reporting for weeklystandard.com, reports that:

On Labor Day, during the GOP presidential forum in South Carolina, Mitt Romney had the following exchange with the host, Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.). DeMint asked, “As you know, if you’re the nominee, the president is going to say that you implemented Obamacare in Massachusetts. How would you describe what Massachusetts did, the mandate to buy health insurance at the state or federal level?”

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Romney replied, “That will be one of my best assets if I’m able to debate President Obama, as I hope to be able to do, by saying, Mr. President, you give me credit for what you’ve tried to copy in some ways.”

Romney immediately continued: “Our bill dealt with 8 percent of the population, the people who aren’t insured and said to them, if you can pay, don’t count on the government. Take personal responsibility. We didn’t raise taxes, Mr. President. You raise them $500 billion. We didn’t cut Medicare. One president in modern history cut Medicare, this president, and I’ll say to him, why don’t you give me a call and I’ll [tell] you what to do right and what not to do. And the critical thing is this: He dealt with — we dealt with 8 percent; he dealt with 100 percent of the American people.”

Romney curiously concluded, “It [ObamaCare] has got to be stopped, and I know it better than most.”

It’s true that Romney didn’t cut Medicare. (Nor, as a governor, could he.) Romney’s health-care law, however, applies to all Massachusetts residents, not just 8 percent of them — even if only 8 percent were originally out of compliance with it. Like ObamaCare, Romney’s health-care law requires 100 percent of residents, with perhaps very few exceptions, to buy (often heavily taxpayer-subsidized) government-approved health insurance. True, the vast majority of Massachusetts residents already had insurance when the law was passed, but that’s the case nationally as well.

And Romney did raise taxes on those who violated this newly imposed insurance mandate.

…During the South Carolina forum, Romney also reiterated his oft-repeated pledge that, on day-1 of his administration, he would issue a “waiver from ObamaCare to all 50 states” (a proposal that is also highlighted in his newly released economic plan). But Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, has already been issuing more than enough ObamaCare waivers — including waivers to two entire states that also happen to be swing-states in the upcoming election: New Hampshire and Nevada.

So, where does that leave us?  Is the G.O.P going to screw up what should be a fait d’accompli by nominating a flip-flopping Moderate in the tradition of Bob Dole and John McCain?

Is nominating a Conservative too much to ask for?