American Citizens want their Post Offices!

Barnstable Town Councilwoman Ann Canedy listens while Michael Foley, project coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service, explains the recent review of Cummaquid Post Office.

CUMMAQUID - It is not often (click here) the much maligned U.S. Postal Service gets praise or applause, but that’s what it got Oct. 18 when postal officials announced to a school gymnasium full of Cummaquid residents that everything would remain the same at their favorite neighborhood gathering place, the tiny Cummaquid Post Office on Route 6A.

“There are no changes being made at all,” said Michael Foley, project manager in charge of reviewing the future of small post offices like Cummaquid in the eastern half of the state. The crowd of more than 80 post office customers broke out in applause. “Cummaquid is not on the radar now for any discontinuance or suspension,” he said....

Secretary Clinton is barred from political engagement.

She doesn't want a return of the disaster resulting from a video. No one can doubt there was a severe reaction in the Middle East against our Consulates due to an irresponsible You Tube Posting.

Scott Stearns

October 24, 2012

STATE DEPARTMENT — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (click here) says an Internet claim of responsibility that followed last month's attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is not hard evidence of who killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.  The Obama administration's handling of the event has become an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

Within hours of the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a State Department clearinghouse for publicly available information notified U.S. officials that the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia claimed credit for the violence in posts on Facebook and Twitter....

I mean for real, already.

The jury is still out about the impact the video has on Benghazi. And agency representative was on MSNBC recently stating there could have been an impact on the Benghazi attack by the video. The attack, while well implemented on September 11th, occurred after the reaction in Egypt against the USA Consulate there. The Egypt incident was directly related to the video.

The attack in Benghazi was on the heels of a revolution with a power vacuum and the rise in power of the Salafists. There has been some evidence so the understanding the militia involved was an extremist wing of the Salafists from the attacks in Sirte from the February 11th militia. Sirte was Kaddafi's hometown, where he was found and killed. The intelligence about the Salafists is relatively new. They haven't been a threat to this extent before in the Middle East.

The Salafists have an agenda and it is only taking shape now.

Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, is greeted by Palestinians at cornerstone laying ceremony for a new centre providing artificial limbs in the northern Gaza Strip.Pool Photo

Salafists in bid to break Hamas's grip on Gaza (click here)

Hugh Naylor

...One of those rewards was yesterday's landmark visit by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Qatar's emir. Sheikh Hamad was the first head of state to visit Gaza since Hamas came to power five years ago.

"Hamas has become a one-party dictatorship in Gaza," Mohammed Abu Jamiaa, an Al Nour Party leader, said at the group's headquarters in Khan Younis earlier this month. "But we respect democratic politics and all we seek to do is enter the political system in a democratic and peaceful way, and we seek to implement Sharia in a democratic way."

Still, Hamas could be forgiven for being wary of Salafism....

Ya can't make this stuff up. It is real and it is the reality Secretary Clinton faces regularly.

They still haven't learned what it is to grow.

Published: Oct. 23, 2012 at 4:58 PM


NEW YORK, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Stocks took a beating (click here) in New York Tuesday with investors pondering disappointing third-quarter reports and ongoing economic struggles.
In a two-day stretch without a significant economic report to divert anyone's attention, investors were contemplating DuPont's July through September results, the latest in a string of blue-chip firms that came in under expectations.
By close of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average gave up 243.53 points, 1.82 percent, to 13,102.53. The Nasdaq composite index shed 26.49 points or 0.88 percent to 2,990.46. The Standard and Poor's 500 index dropped 20.71 points or 1.44 percent to 1,413.11.
On the New York Stock Exchange, 825 stocks advanced and 2,222 declined on a volume of 3.5 billion shares traded.
The benchmark 10-year treasury note rose 15/32 to yield 1.764 percent....

I have to laugh at the Republican rhetoric surrounding the issue of the economy. Now, if I remember correctly, the Bush Tax Cuts were suppose to give the high income earners EVERY ADVANTAGE to grow their businesses, put people back to work and spawn economic prosperity. Isn't that what was suppose to happen? Am I mistaken?

Now according to the Republicans, the Bush Tax Cuts had to stay in place for the wealthy past their expiration in 2009. Right? They were suppose to expire January 1, 2010. 

But, the Republicans were so insistent that keeping the Bush Tax Cuts beyond 2010 would return benefit to the economy, President Obama signed the bill passed by the House and Senate to maintain them two more years.

HAS IT WORKED TO RETURN ECONOMIC GROWTH?

I don't think so. So, what exactly did the Republicans' Bush Tax Cuts caused with the USA economy? Growth? No. Deficit. Deficit that has caused national debt and caused a diminished credit rating of our country.

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

Published: October 28, 2009

IF you make more than $200,000, or $250,000 as a married couple, (click here) your income tax rates will almost certainly go up in 14 months. But there are some steps you can take to ease that burden, and if you act in the next two months you could save twice as much.
That’s because the tax cuts sponsored by President George W. Bush lapse at the end of next year. Those cuts will have saved individuals, and cost the government, $2.34 trillion, according to calculations the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research institute, made for The New York Times. The Bush and Obama administrations have called the center’s past calculations reliable. Interest on the money borrowed to finance those tax cuts equals a month worth of income taxes paid to the government by individuals....

Now, the Republican Plan to grow the USA economy, was to cater to Wall Street and the wealthy and HAS IT CAUSED ROBUST ECONOMIC GROWTH?

NO. It has not caused robust economic growth. It has caused huge huge deficits in our national budget and increased in huge amounts our National Debt. The Republican demands for Tax Cuts for the wealthy has FAILED to cause robust economic growth in the USA.

Now, why is that? And where has economic growth occurred and why? The reason the Republican plans have caused hardship on the USA economy is because the wealthy did not invest in the USA. They bankrolled their monies and sought other places in the world to invest. Offshore accounts and risk taking causing Morgan billions in equity.

When is the American electorate going to call this irresponsible policy and hold responsible the Republicans for the lack of robust growth? When is that going to happen? Their legislative agenda has not returned robust growth to the USA economy in over a decade since President Clinton finished his second term. 

Hello? 

What have others stated would be best for the country, both morally and economically? What has Warren Buffet stated? What has George Soros stated? Economic growth requires reinvestment by the government to spawn a re-vitalized economy in a new paradigm that will work for Americans and the generations to come.

How long are Americans going to be lead down a path of no return and further hardship?

Wall Street is not optimistic lately. Well, how much of the USA have they invested in to spawn growth of the USA populous purchasing power?

Example: The car industry. They are seeing record sales this year, one might wonder why. Is it because there are actually very gainfully employed citizens of the USA purchasing new cars that have work within this industry? It certainly looks that way. And do those well employed Americans spend their money on real estate, pay property taxes, purchase items in their local economies, spawn growth in their spending, growth that employs more Americans THAT BUY NEW CARS, TOO?

Auto Sales Seen Near Peak On Economy, Boomers, Price (click here)

By JASON MA, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

 Posted 10/19/2012 05:52 PM ET

...Car sales should top 14 million vehicles in 2012, a leap of nearly 4 million from the 2009 trough. But weak economic fundamentals, demographics, regulations and generational differences could limit remaining growth....

All the naysayers want to predict this is the end of the climb. It sure doesn't look that way.

The only place in the auto industry lacking in sale is on USED CAR LOTS. The stocks of used cars are swelling and it is becoming more difficult to sell them. The difference in fuel efficiency and the future of CAFE standards predicts the best outcomes for new cars.

When is the rest of Wall Street going to catch up with what the Auto Industry already knows, that if they employ Americans they get returns on their investment.

September 11 2012 8:00 AM
The Opening of the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant.

The low growth in the USA economy is due to the crash and the degree President Obama has provided a direction of rescue for Americans and their future. Wall Street and the wealthy never did anything. Not to say there are no business owners in the USA that would like to expand their capacity, but, they aren't Wall Street. 

Wall Street is going to have to get used to their own sluggish reality as Americans seek control through local economies with ethical and moral priorities. Good paying jobs with reasonable hours, that provide for a happy family life well educated and loved children when parents are home after work and good health care benefits or state exchanges soon to be in place. 

If Wall Street is not happy, then it is their own fault. Americans are waiting for them to catch up with the auto industry, which is forging ahead as best they can. Sooner or later, Wall Street will learn what it is to abandon Americans and they will change their priorities, but, until then Americans are moving forward.

It is time for the Bush Tax Cuts to expire and pay our debts so our Treasury Bonds are still the best in the world. Economic growth will follow but it won't be because the wealthy invested as promised by Republicans. It will because Americans have set their own path and forged a better future under a President with high ethical and moral standards.

That is the truth. It is time Every American lives with it.

The Republicans have baseless claims to their demands for further tax cuts for the wealthy. They have no sound proof any of that strategy has worked at all for over 12 years. 12 years of mistakes. It needs to end.

Still cleaning up after Wall Street.

Rajat Gupta (c) with his attorneys walks to Federal Court for sentencing on insider trading charges. (click here)

It really is a shame for the loss of ethics within some of the professions.

The Wall Street fat cat who fed inside information to the infamous “Hedge Hog” is going to prison — not Rwanda.

Rajat Gupta, who had pleaded to be allowed to pay for his crimes by doing charity work in the African country, was sentenced Wednesday to two years behind bars.

The ex-Goldman Sachs director was also hit with a $5 million fine in the biggest insider trading case in U.S. history.

U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff said he wanted to send a message to other would-be insider traders that “when you get caught, you will go to jail.”...

Goldman Sachs always seems to have the best gossip.

When I look at the demoralization of the professions it really does point to ethics. In North Carolina when one stops to realize the very little power lawyers have to represent their clients, the criticism belongs to ethics.

A person nearly has be be near death in order for courts to rule favorably in a victims favor. There is dearly little negligence in North Carolina for medical professionals or legal practitioners.

The moral standards by which ethics of a profession is defined as been eliminated in NC. It really is a same. Now, morality is all about church, nothing more.

It is corruption that did that to NC and the nation. This is another example of it.

The big thrust with demoralizing a profession is the promise it will make things less expensive. In the case of the medical profession, the Republicans always want to see Tort Reform. Supposedly, Tort Reform will eliminate some lawsuits that are nuisance (which I don't believe there is such a thing) and lower the cost of malpractice insurance. Supposedly, lowering the cost of malpractice insurance will bring down and keep down the cost of health care. 

Really?

In North Carolina the professions have been so demoralized of their ethical responsibilities they don't need malpractice insurance in emergencies anymore. I would think that would be one of the most expensive areas of the hospital for malpractice insurance. Yet, in North Carolina even being exempt from responsibility in the ER hasn't move the needle one inch on lowering the cost of health care.

Instead what is occurring in North Carolina is a demoralizing of the professions, permitting victims to be out of the reach of acting against those that have harmed them and caused a great deal of corruption within the professions.  There is dearly no time when anyone is responsible financially for the poor outcome of a victim and auto insurance companies literally get away with paying next to nothing to victims of reckless accidents.

Following Republican precedent in seeking ways to bend down the curve on the cost of health care never worked and will never work. This November it is important to re-evaluate where the country is headed ethically and return morality to our professions. Including the return of ethical conduct to banking, the financial sector and political campaigns. There is nothing ethical about run away spending in elections to purchase a seat of power. Nothing. When ethical standards are dismissed as important, the professions do not have any basis of self-monitoring and they lose their moral core. That is what has happened under Republican leadership and it is why Americans don't recognize the country they once lived in only a decade ago.