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Post Info TOPIC: In Defense Of The Unfortunate


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In Defense Of The Unfortunate
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Recently Michelle Obama went to serve food to the homeless at a government funded soup kitchen.

cellphoneMichelleImage3.jpg

Cost of a bowl of soup at homeless shelter -- $0.00 dollars

Having Michelle Obama serve you soup -- $0.00 dollars

Snapping a picture of a homeless person who is receiving a government funded meal while taking a picture of the first lady using his $500 Black Berry cell phone -- Priceless
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This photo has appeared in forums and my inbox for some time now. I intend to take issue with the egregious assumptions made from this single photo. Let's count them all, shall we?


1) A BlackBerry doesn't cost $500. Mine was free with a two-year contract. Even without the extended contract you can get them for a mere $25 online. Let's not pretend they're the luxury they're made out to be.

2) Not everyone who eats at a soup kitchen is homeless. They can just be poor.

3) Not all homeless are unemployed. Why couldn't this be a working homeless person? Many of the working poor still need to eat at soup kitchens.

4) Why couldn't it be a homeless person who receives disability? Or veterans benefits?

5) Why couldn't it be a homeless person with a friend or relative who pays their cel phone bill? That's not uncommon.

6) It could be one of the millions of newly unemployed (and thus homeless) due to the recession. If you were suddenly jobless and had to move out of your home, the cel phone is likely the last thing you'd give up. You would still need something to communicate with, to contact potential employers, keep in touch with family, case managers, security or medical emergencies, etc.

The underlying tone of this type of caption implies that a poor or homeless person doesn't have a need for or a right to have a cel phone. That someone who eats at a soup kitchen should barely be able to clothe themselves before accepting food. I've been downsized in my life. I didn't immediately sell all my possessions and start sleeping under the 5th Street bridge. I suspect, neither would you. Perhaps the next time someone feels the need to politicize the homeless, they could try volunteering at a shelter and see the kinds of people who need that help. Perhaps then their icy contempt for less fortunate people will start to melt.

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Here here, MC.

Class warfare is alive and well in the United States.

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class warfare ?

possibly - but you guys have it all wrong .

it is them against us , them being the people in office who demand that legislation be voted on in the affirmative prior to even being read or debated by those who will be voting .

those who voice dissent are branded as racist ? yet a mis applied label does nothing to change the facts .
.......................................................

global warming does not even exist , we are in a period of global cooling , yet the puddinghead in chief is attempting to force the cap and tax legislation through anyway ?    anyone who puts up facts to refute the very reason for the legislation is castigated and branded as a traitor or racist or what ever suits the excuse makers at the time .

this is not an issue for the right or the left or the moderates
all Americans will be affected in a bad way if this gets through .
that means you

Americans who follow NObama


-- Edited by mike of the mountain on Tuesday 7th of July 2009 11:30:32 PM

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still , the people who voted for Nobama worship him and are UNable or UNwilling to see what is real ...

there is no escape

if the current administration continues on the path they are on  their errors will result in financial ruin for America .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124709502661214861.html

...........

Obama Can't Be Trusted With Numbers

So why should we trust him with health care?

In February, President Barack Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus bill while making lavish promises about the results. He pledged that "a new wave of innovation, activity and construction will be unleashed all across America." He also said the stimulus would "save or create up to four million jobs." Vice President Joe Biden said the massive federal spending plan would "drop-kick" the economy out of the recession.

But the unemployment rate today is 9.5% -- nearly 20% higher than the Obama White House said it would be with the stimulus in place. Keith Hennessey, who worked at the Bush White House on economic policy, has noted that unemployment is now higher than the administration said it would be if nothing was done to revive the economy. There are 2.6 million fewer Americans working than Mr. Obama promised.

The economy takes unexpected turns on every president. But what is striking about this president is how quickly he turns away from his promises. He rushed the stimulus through Congress saying we couldn't afford to wait. Now his administration is waiting to spend the money. Of the $279 billion allocated to federal agencies, only $56 billion has been paid out.

Mr. Biden has admitted that the administration "misread" the economy. But he explained that away on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday by saying the administration had used "the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there" to draw up its stimulus plan. That's not true.

The Blue Chip consensus is an average of some four dozen economic forecasts. In January, the consensus estimated that GDP for 2009 would shrink by 1.6% and that unemployment would top out at 8.3%. Team Obama assumed both higher GDP growth (it counted on a contraction of 1.2%) and lower peak unemployment (8.1%) than the consensus.

About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 20002007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 20042007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon & Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.

Or, you can send him a Tweet @karlrove.

Instead of relying on the Blue Chip consensus, Mr. Obama outsourced writing the stimulus to House appropriators who stuffed it with every bad spending idea they weren't previously able to push through Congress. Little of it aimed to quickly revive the economy. More stimulus money will be spent in fiscal years 2011 through 2019 than will be spent this fiscal year, which ends in September.

On Sunday, Mr. Biden, backpedaling from his drop-kick comments, said that "no one anticipated, no one expected that the recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of the money."

This fits a pattern. The administration consistently pledges unrealistic results that it later distances itself from. It has gotten away with it because the media haven't asked many pointed questions. That may not last as the debate shifts to health care.

The Obama administration wants a government takeover of health care. To get it, it is promising to wring massive savings out of the health-care industry. And it has already started to make cost-savings promises.

For example, the administration strong-armed health-care providers into promising $2 trillion in health savings. It got pharmaceutical companies to promise to lower drug prices for seniors by $80 billion over 10 years. The administration also trotted out hospital executives to say that they would voluntarily save the government $150 billion over 10 years.

None of this comes near to being true. On the promised $2 trillion, everyone admits that the number isn't built on anything specific -- it's an aspirational goal. On drug prices, a White House spokesman admitted that "These savings have not been identified at the moment." It is speculative that these cuts will actually be made, when they would begin, or whether they would reduce government health-care spending.

None of this will stop the administration from arguing that its "savings" will pay for Mr. Obama's $1.5 trillion health-care plans. By the time the real price tag emerges, it will be too late to do much more than raise taxes and curtail spending on urgent priorities, such as the military.

The stimulus package is a clear example of how Mr. Obama operates. He is attempting to employ the same tactics of bait-and-switch when it comes to health care, only on a much larger scale.

Mr. Obama has already created a river of red ink. His health-care plans will only force that river over its banks. We are at the cusp of a crucial political debate, and Mr. Obama's words on fiscal matters are untrustworthy. His promised savings are a mirage. His proposals to reshape the economy are alarming. And his unwillingness to be forthright with his numbers reveals that he knows his plans would terrify many Americans.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.



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Pressure Transducers are the answer , what is the question ?
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