News and Views is a twice-weekly column containing an assortment of interesting state, national and international political and financial information, opinions, candidate reviews, scheduled events, Tea Party information, meetings and press releases that we hope will interest you. We will now offer a special section segregating media bias and Hollywood bias to give the reader a better idea of how prevalent it is.
LOCAL & STATE
Sweeney Super Saturday Volunteer Weekend: This weekend (September 7th-8th), we will once again be knocking on hundreds of doors and making thousands of phone calls. The contact we make with voters now can be the edge we need to achieve victory in November! Many people have already signed up, but we still have time slots available on Friday and Saturday. If you could give us even just a couple hours of your time, it would be extremely helpful.
Please click here, reply to this email, or call Bob at 312-768-8767 to sign up for a few short hours during our Super Saturday volunteer weekend.
The voter contacts we make this weekend will pay huge dividends in November!
Susan Sweeney Candidate for State Representative 55th District (Illinois)
If you want to make a difference in the Chicago Vote:
Call Adam Robinson, GOP Party Chairman of Chicago, 312-952-1847
Or send him an E-mail.
Links: mailto:arobinson@48thWardGOP.com
Sign up today, to be a Election Judge in Chicago on Election Day!
Arlington Heights TEA Party
A meeting tonight, Thursday evening, Sept 6, starting at 6:30 pm in the Palatine Library, which you’ll probably want to attend. Read on for details.
*Secrets revealed on how you can legally leverage your vote and make
your vote count over and over again *Learn how you can make a difference from home and impact the race that are so critical for AMERICA’S RESTORATION..
*We will share how you can preserve the integrity of voters and ….. so much more.
If you only have one hour per week to devote to the RESTORATION OF
AMERICA, they will show you how to be the most effective and productive with your most precious nonrenewable asset; your time.
WE have many programs in place that can suit any lifestyle and personality: YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU…… WILL YOU ANSWER THE CALL?
Let us once again together do EXCEPTIONAL THINGS to KEEP THE AMERICAN DREAM ALIVE. WE REALLY HAVE TWO DISTINCT CHOICES THIS CYCLE….. IT IS VERY BLACK AND WHITE. DO WE CHOOSE TO PRESERVE THE DREAMS FROM OUR FOUNDING FATHERS OR WILL WE CHOOSE TO ENABLE THE DREAMS FROM OBAMAS FATHER?
IF NOT US WHO? IF NOT NOW WHEN?
JOIN the Arlington heights Tea Party at 6:30 PM THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2012 FOR THIS EMPOWERING EVENT. DON’T MISS IT AND SPREAD THE WORD.
IT IS OUR COUNTRY AND IT IS OUR TIME TO AWAKEN AMERICA.
Arlington Heights TEA Party Meeting
Who: Patriots & Citizens; What: Regular meeting of the Arlington Heights TEA Party. When: Thursday, September 13, 2012 @ 7:00 PM note this is second Thursday.
Where: Hendricksen Room of Arlington Heights Library
500 North Dunton Ave, Arlington Heights, IL 60004
Topics: One: How to defeat the new $39 Million Park District
Referendum. Two: How to defeat our Marxist President. Three: How we got our Constitution – Part 3, taught by David Barton
GOP Voters at All Time High: According to new research released earlier this week by Rasmussen, more voters identify themselves as Republican than ever in the last 8 years. More importantly, by a 4 point margin, more voters identify as GOP than Democrat. This is the largest spread between the parties ever. Worse for Democrats, the number of voters who identify with their party is also approaching an historic low.
In August, 37.6% of voters identified themselves as Republican. That is up from 34.9% in July. By contrast, just 33.3% of voters identify themselves as Democrats. That is very near their historic low in February, when 32.4% of voters identified as Democrat. The 4.3 margin in favor of the GOP is the biggest gap ever between the parties. In November 2010, when the GOP won a landslide in the mid-term elections, their advantage was just 1.3 points.
Immediately prior to Obama’s inauguration, the Democrat party held a nearly 9 point edge over Republicans. Over 41% of voters called themselves Democrats then, compared to around 32% who were Republicans. It is a stunning reversal as Obama heads into reelection.
The last time GOP was close to this level was September 2004. President Bush went on to win reelection two months later, with an electorate that was evenly split. Even then, more voters called themselves Democrats then, but the party’s advantage over the GOP was just over 1 point.
Most of the polls this year are based on the assumption that the Democrats will have a numerical advantage on election day. Many media polls assume even that the electorate in November will be more Democrat than it was in 2008. Based on these results, that event is close to mathematically impossible.
If the GOP advantage holds through November, it is likely that the electorate will be evenly split, like it was in 2004 or possibly have a Republican edge. If that is the case, then current media polling is way off-base. Democrats and the media may wake up in shock on November 7th.
Huntley Tea Party Now or Never Rally September 8
It is NOW OR NEVER to show support for change to a new administration and save our country! We meet from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM on the open grounds in front of Culvers on route 47.
September 18th Meeting: State of IL and US economies It is important to change….otherwise, we will get where we are going. The United States is at a fork in the road; one path leads to prosperity & growth in the 21st century, the other leads only to more decline, dependency and despondency.
Join us September 18th for a lively and informative session with two guest speakers:
-Dan Proft, entrepreneur, respected political author and commentator, and radio talk show co-host with Bruce Wolf on WLS-AM 890. Proft is also former Republican candidate for Illinois Governor, and a Senior Fellow at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free market think tank in Chicago. Dan will speak on the state of IL spending and debt, deficits, where do we go from here.
-Steve Beaman, successful entrepreneur and subject matter expert on the economy, will talk about issues such as the national debt, federal spending, the growing “fourth branch” of government agencies. Steve will tell us how to restore our nation to a path of growth and prosperity with under-control-spending and balanced budgets.
Mark your calendar for September 18th and join us at 6:30 PM for meet and greet, 7:00 PM start time at the Cosman Rec Center, 12015 Mill St.,Huntley IL. See you there and bring a friend!
Agenda: the movie
Join us on September 27th at the Cosman Rec Center at 7:00 PM to view the Agenda, a vital documentary to understand the Progressive movement.
Caution! Teaparty.net and Teaparty.org are fake groups, raising $ for their own benefit, no $ going to the Tea Party effort. Do not donate your $!
NATIONAL
Obama Wants Constitutional Amendment to Silence Free Speech: Barack Obama used the online springboard provided by Reddit to dive into the media crush at the GOP convention, with a skillfully executed call for a constitutional amendment to curb the free-speech of wealthier people and corporations.
“I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United. … Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change,” Obama said during 4:30 p.m. EST online event.
The publicity-grabbing gambit complements his campaign-theme portrayal of himself as the defender of middle-class Americans, and Gov. Mitt Romney as the champion of wealthy, job-exporting plutocrats. The proposal also helps shift the media’s focus away from the stalled economy, record unemployment, debts and deficits.
Money has always been a factor in politics, but we are seeing something new in the no-holds barred flow of seven and eight figure checks, most undisclosed, into super-PACs,” Obama told his Reddit audience.
Those super PACs “fundamentally threaten to overwhelm the political process over the long run and drown out the voices of ordinary citizens,” he declared.
Obama’s new focus on spending curbs comes as he is being out-raised by Romney.
Gingrich Calls Out Media Refusal to Focus on Extremism in Democratic Platform: “I’m frankly, fed up, with the one-sided bias, a frustrated Newt Gingrich asserted on Sunday’s Meet the Press, citing two blatant examples. First: Where is the outrage over overt, deliberate racism in Vice President Joe Biden telling a black audience if the Republicans win you will be in chains? Second, President Obama voted three times to protect the right of doctors to kill babies who came out of abortion still alive. That plank says tax-paid abortion at any moment, meaning partial birth abortion – that’s a 20 percent issue, a position which Democrats couldn’t defend…for a day if it was made clear and as vivid as all the effort is made to paint Republicans. Gingrich charged: If the news media spent as much time on the extremism of the Democrats as they spend trying to attack us, they would not be able to adopt that plank this week.
Only ABC Highlights Drunken Delegate Forced to Leave Democratic Convention: Of the three morning shows, only ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday highlighted two drunken delegates at the Democratic National Convention, one of whom was forced to leave North Carolina. Fill-in host Lara Spencer touted the story, asserting that “things are already off to a shaky start.” Reporter Cecilia Vega explained, “Two California Democratic delegates partied into the wee hours of Sunday morning. In the lobby of their Charlotte hotel, one was so drunk he apparently passed out and was taken to the hospital.” She added that the unidentified delegate was “belligerent” and threatened with arrest for impersonating a congressman. ABC reported the story in the 7am and 8am hour. CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today, however, skipped it.
Media Stooges call GOP Convention ‘Colossal Hoax’: Sunday brought an overload of New York Times columnists, including former reporters, calling the previous week’s Republican National Convention a celebration of lies and extremism on abortion and gay marriage.
Times columnist and former White House correspondent Maureen Dowd was given more room than usual to rant about Paul Ryan and the Republicans in her Sunday column, “Cruel Conservatives Throw a Masquerade Ball.” After calling the Republican Convention “a colossal hoax,” she said of Paul Ryan’s speech, “the altar boy altered reality, conjuring up a world so compassionate, so full of love-thy-neighbor kindness and small-town goodness, that you had to pinch yourself to remember it was a shimmering mirage, a beckoning pool of big, juicy lies….” Dowd concluded that “….Ryan’s lies and Romney’s shape-shifting are so easy to refute that they must have decided a Hail Mary pass of artifice was better than their authentic ruthless worldview.”
Obama Lawyer Warned Against Certifying Eligibility: A former U.S. Justice Department attorney who founded the government watchdog Judicial Watch and later Freedom Watch has warned a key Barack Obama attorney that Democratic Party or state elections officials certifying Obama’s eligibility for the 2012 election could become the targets of election-fraud charges.
The letter from Larry Klayman explains that’s because those officials simply cannot know Obama’s eligibility for sure, and the law doesn’t allow them to make assumptions.
In his letter to Robert Bauer, general counsel to the Democratic National Committee, Klayman explained that the evidence shows no one knows for sure about Obama’s eligibility, so letters from the DNC to states about Obama’s 2012 candidacy may be problematic.
“There is therefore no longer any state or national official in the Democratic Party who can escape legal responsibility for ignoring the proof herein provided, and a plea of ignorance of the facts will no longer be possible, especially under the informed legal counsel provided by you (and your state counterparts), Mr. Bauer,” Klayman wrote.
Former White House correspondent Frank Bruni’s Sunday column, “Excluded from Inclusion,” was all about how he and his fellow gays didn’t see themselves in Tampa.
INTERNATIONAL
State of Security in the US/Mexico Border Region Explored in New Report
A new paper released in August hopes to establish a “framework for measuring border security” that will “begin to set a base line for measuring border security between the United States and Mexico.”
“Concerns about global terrorism, potential threats posed by those entering the United States illegally, and fears that skyrocketing violence in Mexico might spillover into the United States have led to dramatic policy shifts and significant efforts to secure the border,” noted the report’s authors, Erik Lee, associate director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, and Eric Olson, associate director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
“Without a doubt,” Lee and Olson stated, “the US and Mexican federal governments have made large investments in staffing, infrastructure and technology and have reorganized and refocused efforts to respond to specific threats and events. Yet gains in areas such as apprehensions of undocumented migrants and reductions in violence in key cities such as Ciudad Juarez seem tenuous at best and beg for more comprehensive, creative and collaborative solutions between these two countries, one a superpower and the other a key emerging power.”
The working paper, The State of Security in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region, explores these challenges and some potential solutions, will be published this fall as a chapter in the forthcoming State of the Border Report that seeks to provide a comprehensive yet accessible look at the state of affairs in border management and the border region, focusing on four core areas: trade and economic development, security, sustainability, and quality of life.
Iran Preparing Large Increase in Nuclear Fuel Production
A new IAEA report shows that sanctions on Iran have failed, that Iran has in fact accelerated its nuclear weapons program, and that Tehran is planning a massive increase in the production of nuclear fuel. Also alarming is substantial evidence that Iran used the summer of 2012 to move its nuclear fuel production effort to a fortified underground facility to defend against an attack by Israel or the United States. The new IAEA report also points to a further increase in the number of nuclear weapons Iran could potentially construct and increases the potential for an Israeli air strike.
Chinese Naval Destroyer Could Tip Balance Over Taiwan
A new, technologically advanced Chinese guided missile destroyer is threatening to upset the regional balance of power by making the defense of Taiwan a costly calculation. The new warship, known as Type 052D, is meant to extend China’s already robust maritime force, but its primary focus is challenging foreign intervention in a cross-strait conflict with Taiwan.
Somalia: Only Changes on Land Can Stop Piracy
The international community is turning the tide on piracy off the Somalia coast but dangers still lurk for ships transiting the Horn of Africa and the costs of defending against pirate attacks remain substantial. It’s clear that the real answer to piracy will not be found on the seas, but on land, in the form of a more stable Somali government and society.
