Category: United States

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marco rubio Politics United States

Former Republican Presidential Candidate Cannot Spell “United States” – PIC

Marco Rubio, the defacto brains of the Republican party and favorite son of the Republican establishment, dropped out of his bid to become president a few weeks ago. But now the real reason for him suspending his campaign becomes evident – Rubio cannot spell “United States” and his spell check is apparently not working either.

In a letter to the Chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, Marco Rubio told Peter Goldberg that he does not wish to release the delegates he earned while running for president, thus making sure that his delegates “vote for me on at least the first nominating ballot at the national convention.”

In other words, Rubio is still hoping to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States. But maybe he should first learn to spell “United States” before trying to become its president. It’s United Marco, not “Untied.”

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Ebola United States

Breaking – First Confirmed Case of Ebola Now in America

The disease that has killed thousands in Africa is now confirmed in the United States. The victim who showed symptoms of the disease had blood-work tested and received the terrible news from the CDC, that the blood tested showed evidence of Ebola.

A patient being treated at a Dallas, Texas, hospital is the first case of Ebola virus diagnosed in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.

Several other Americans were diagnosed in West Africa and then brought to the United States for treatment.

The CDC is expected to provide more details on the case in a press conference at 5:30 p.m.

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Egypt Foreign Policies News Politics Russia United States war

The World Gets Dangerous

You can’t say we weren’t warned that Vladimir Putin might try to flex some muscles in Ukraine. After all, the Olympics are over, there were no terrorist attacks, Russia won the most medals, and Viktor Yanukovych turned out to be better suited for the summer games, beating a hasty vamoose from Kiev all the way to Moscow. Perhaps we could have a Dictator’s Marathon in Rio come 2016. I’d watch “Baby Doc” Duvalier run from shouting crowds. And you would too. After all, you watched Curling, right?

Let’s move on.

The latest is that Russian security forces are now in the Crimea and are asking Ukrainian forces to defect. They’re also trying to neutralize and reverse the events of last week when crowds in Kiev forced the President from his post. Putin is painted as the bad guy here, but the West has a problem on its hand that is similar to what happened in Egypt last year. A democratically elected government has been overthrown in a decidedly non-democratic manner, but since the people who have taken over are seen as a better alternative, the western powers are accepting the change. This is dangerous.

Of course, Yanukovych made this problem worse by leaving. Had he stayed and honored the agreement he made with the opposition, then the system would not be under such strain. And I suppose he could be invited to come back as part of a Putin-sponsored deal that restores the legitimately elected government and keeps Yulia Tymoshenko out of jail. I don’t expect this, but I didn’t expect the Crimea to become a world headline and another part of the world that most Americans can’t find on a map.

President Obama and John Kerry will need to finesse this so that we don’t look weak, but that we also don’t get involved in a shooting war. I trust that they’ll hold off the Republicans who want us to refight the Cold War with hot weapons and show Vlad the Invader what a real country does with its taxpayer-bought arsenal.

Maybe we can use Governor Christie’s expertise and cause a traffic jam that bottles up the Russian forces until we can get the UN to negotiate an exit.

This one bears watching, and is a reminder that we need to be thankful that we have a level-headed team in the White House to see us through.

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Barack Obama Democratic Politics presidential Republican United States

I WAS HERE

 

I was here
I lived, I loved
I was here
I did, I’ve done, everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know
I was here

1 / 60

 

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Sports United States

Team USA Has Been Selected For WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC

Today at 10am, Joe Torre released a provisional 27 man roster for the World Baseball Classic. Above is a break down of that roster. The team has some powerful bats in Ryan Braun, Mark Teixiera, Giancarlo Stanton and David Wright. I like the team that was put together but I don’t love it. This is why Baseball was eliminated as an Olympic sport. Countries continuously brought their top talent and the U.S. shows up with a B team.

You have to love the strong outfield on Team USA but where is Josh Hamilton, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper? The infield looks pretty strong but where is Troy Tulowitzki? He was rumored to be on the roster but then come 10am and his name was left off. Another person who was oddly left off the roster is Andy Pettitte. He was confirmed to be on the team but was left off the roster due to his contract being uninsured. Pettitte is 40 years old and was injured for 3 months last season. So his contract was too risky to insure should he get injured.

Pettitte would have been a nice addition to what I think is a drab rotation behind Cy-Young winner R.A. Dickey but, where is David Price, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander? That would have been a great group of guys to see on the mound along with Dickey. Nothing against Torre’s team, he obviously did his best but I’m wondering why all these guys said no to representing the United States.

The World Baseball Classic is very popular throughout the world but as long as MLB players keep turning down the opportunity to put on the red white and blue, it’s never going to be very popular in the U.S.

Team USA will begin there quest to dethrone Japan on March 8th at 9pm ET.

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Barack Obama Politics Rick Santorum United States

Santorum Criticizes President Obama For Quran Burning Apology

Rick Santorum, the present Republican flavor of the month,  is now criticizing President Obama for apologizing to the Muslim world for American troops accidentally burning Qurans in Afghanistan.

 The Associated Press Reports: Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum criticized President Barack Obama’s apology for the burning of Qurans in Afghanistan, adding that Afghanistan should apologize to the U.S. for the deaths of four U.S. soldiers during six days of violence sparked by the incident.

“There was nothing deliberately done wrong here,” Santorum said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”. “This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake. It was something that deliberate.”

More than 30 people have been killed in clashes since it emerged Tuesday that copies of the Muslim holy book and other religious materials had been thrown into a fire pit used to burn garbage at Bagram Air Field, a large U.S. base north of Kabul. Protesters angry over Quran burnings by American troops lobbed grenades Sunday at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan and clashed with police and troops in a day of violence that left seven international troops wounded and two Afghans dead.”

But is President Obama the first president to issue an apology? If you only listen to Santorum and the other Republican presidential hopefuls, you’ll think he is. But even George W. Bush and the Republican god Ronald Reagan, issued apologies.

President Ronald Reagan was initially reluctant to apologize to Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned in camps during World War II. He did so after Congress issued its apology and provided for reparations.

Bush apologized for abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib after the photographic evidence was seen around the world. He called it “a stain on our country’s honor and our country’s reputation”

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Mitt Romney Politics Republican Tax taxes United States

Mitt Romney Admits His Tax Rate Is Probably 15 Percent

Ever wonder why Mitt Romney is so hesitant to do the right thing and release his tax returns? Well maybe the reason has something to do with his tax rate – a rate the Republican frontrunner admits is “probably” less than 15%.

Meanwhile, middle class America pays a rate of 38%.

GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney on Tuesday said he probably pays a tax rate of about 15 percent.

Romney, who has come under pressure from Republicans and Democrats alike to release his tax forms, said most of his income is in long-term capital gains, which is hit with a 15 percent rate.

“It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything, because my last 10 years, I’ve — my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income, or rather than earned annual income,” Romney said during a press conference in Florence, S.C. “I get a little bit of income from my book but I gave that all away. And then I get speakers’ fees from time to time but not very much.”

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Barack Obama Politics United States

For Congressional Approval, It’s How Low Can You Go

You couldn’t get this low of an approval even if you tried.

Hammered by bipartisan discontent with its partisan rancor, the U.S. Congress reconvenes Tuesday with its lowest approval rating on record in polls dating back nearly 40 years –ideal fodder not just for late-night comedians, but also for President Obama in the election year ahead.

Just 13 percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of the way Congress is handling its job, while 84 percent disapprove – its worst rating in poll results since 1974. Sixty-five percent disapprove “strongly,” a vast level of high-intensity criticism.

Congress’ rating is a broad 35 points below Obama’s 48 percent approval, the biggest gap between approval of the president and Congress since 1990

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Barack Obama Politics Republican South Carolina United States

Jon Huntsman Ends Campaign Calling For Unity, While Engaging In Divisive Lies

Today, Jon Huntsman – the man most people believed was the sanest, most sensible candidate in the Republican party running for his party’s nomination for president – officially quit the race.

Huntsman ended his campaign asking for “unity and trust.” In his speech, he mentioned the divisive politics that has separated and divided this country, then engaged in the same divisive politics he spent his speech denouncing, by claiming that President Obama is engaging in “class warfare.”

Let’s invest out time and resources in building trust with the American people, and uniting them around a common purpose. Three years ago, the President promised to unite the American people, yet his desire to engage in class warfare for political gain has left us more divided than ever.

Huntsman then continued his call for unity and trust.

Maybe Huntsman wasn’t the best, most sane and sensible candidate after-all. Something is definitely wrong with a person who calls for and preaches trust and unity, then in the same sentence, spews lies with the sole intent of causing mistrust and divisiveness.

Good riddance Huntsman, you had a lot of people fooled.

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Mitt Romney Politics Republican Rick Santorum United States

It’s Capital, Not Capitalism

Mitt Romney has said on the campaign trail that an attack on him is an attack on capitalism. Aside from being a self-serving, disingenuous, mendacious statement (which is enough, don’t you think?), it also shows how shallow and dangerous the Republican party has become.

Romney’s career at Bain Capital is a touchstone for his presidential aspirations, and his success at convincing American voters that it makes him qualified to be president will decide whether he wins in November. As of this moment, I would say that this particular venture is off to a rocky start.

Polling for President Obama’s PAC is showing that anti-Bain rhetoric is a winning issue for him. Rick Santorum is saying that Romney can’t win based on his Bain experience. Rick Perry called out Bain as “vulture capitalism” (and this is officially the last time that anything Rick Perry says will be quoted in the Farmer blog). Newt wants Romney to stop the “pious baloney.” The attacks have continued at such a pace that conservatives are rushing to defend Mitt and capitalism itself.

They must really be worried. After all, the GOP has fought for the last year to defund social services such as Planned Parenthood, enact cuts to education, redesign Medicare so seniors will actually have to pay more, and demonize people who are on unemployment benefits as lazy. Their candidates want to deny law-abiding children of illegal immigrants a shot at the American Dream, obliterate the Federal Reserve, go back into Iraq, make abortion illegal even in cases of rape or incest, oppose full civil rights for gays, keep taxes low on the wealthy so the rest of us have to make do with less, and allow banks and financial institutions to continue to do what got us into this recession in the first place.

But don’t mess with capitalism, mofo.

As usual, they have it all wrong. The questions about Bain Capital and venture capitalism are not about the future of our financial system. The problem is the function of that type of business in the American system. Venture firms do play some positive roles in the economy by either rescuing companies that might otherwise go out of business or by scooping up bargains due to bankruptcies. The makers of Twinkies recently went back into bankruptcy for the second time and I, for one, would like some venture firm to resuscitate it.

The negatives, though, are compelling. These firms have a reputation for chopping up companies into parts and selling them off to make money, and as a result people get laid off and towns suffer. They are seen as paper-pushers whose only concern is for profits and bonuses, not for actually building something. And they’re seen as being cold, calculating, number-crunching entities that don’t care about the effects of their work, only the results. They are ruthless in their Darwinian cruelty, but criticism of their tactics is about capital, not capitalism. Has Bain engaged in this type of behavior? Yes, yes, and yes.

The Republican Party has bet its success on a combination of Cold War-era baiting and big lies, as if their candidates are the only ones who can fix the financial problems created by their ideology. In the end, that strategy will fail because it ignores the fact that more people are not siding with the wealthy (though they don’t always blame them for the inequality). Romney’s defense of capitalism is laudable, but by aligning himself with the 1%, he’s left himself open to the withering attacks not only from his right flank, but from a full frontal assault that’s coming from Obama and the Democrats.

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Martin Luther King Politics United States washington

The Legendary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr – Free At Last…

January 15, 1929 – The day that gave us Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A man of courage, vision, passion, and fortitude to see equality come for all mankind. There were many who helped during the Civil Rights Movement, but Dr. King was someone with such a dynamic presence that it was hard to not be moved by the conviction of his words. A bold leader who promoted unity through a peaceful force, Dr. King became the recognizable face of the Civil Rights Movement.

Growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was all too aware of the social and economic inequities and racial discrimination directed towards minorities. He believed African-Americans were indeed “entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens”.

As a true activist, Dr. King spent over a decade dedicating his energy and efforts into making strides towards freedom for all. His imminent wish for change would not allow him to rest as continued injustice spread throughout America.

“I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Dr. King went on to lead the Montgomery bus boycott, the Birmingham Campaign, and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Despite being threatened and arrested on several occasions, Dr. King never tired in his desire for change through peaceful demonstrations, nor did he cease preaching both love and reconciliation to America and its lawmakers.

“The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community. A boycott is never an end within itself. It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.”

That relentless energy eventually paid off as President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended previously legal segregation practices and disavowed discriminatory voting laws towards African-Americans.

Dr. King was taken away from our world when James Earl Ray assassinated him on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April, 4, 1968. Except, James Earl Ray was too late. Dr. King’s message and momentum was already instilled in many and the soul of his movement continued on for change in America up until this very day.

We cannot forget that Dr. King did not and could not do it alone without the bravery of those who were willing to follow his lead, yet he was, and is admired for his willingness to be the face of change for many.

Today, we must continue to spread his message and possess the courage and resilience needed to strive for freedom for the oppressed here in America and our fellow nations.

I will leave you with the powerful words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. …all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Dear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

We will never forget.

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Barack Obama Politics United States weekly address White House

Weekly Presidential Address: Helping American Businesses Succeed

In his weekly address, President Obama highlighted companies and businesses that are bringing the jobs back home.

This week, I invited executives from businesses that are insourcing jobs to a forum at the White House. These are CEOs who take pride in hiring people here in America, not just because it’s increasingly the right thing to do for their bottom line, but also because it’s the right thing to do for their workers and for our communities and our country.

And the President spoke about the tax incentives he is offering to these businesses;

I will put forward new tax proposals that reward companies that choose to do the right thing by bringing jobs home and investing in America – and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

Just another move by the President to put the American people back to work.

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