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On January 24, 2012, President Barrack Obama delivered his final State of the Union address of his first term in office. Throughout his speech he focused on decreasing spending, creating jobs and lowering taxes. He began his speech by focusing on the previous year and the achievements he brought forth. He discussed the death of Osama Bin Laden along with the ending of the Iraq war. President Obama then discussed looking ahead into the future to ending the war in Afghanistan. He used the platform of ending the wars to step into his first theme of discussing how to end excessive government spending.

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                President Obama, last night throughout his speech discussed various ways to decrease spending to help get rid of the budget deficit. He initially discussed that spending on foreign wars needs to decrease in order to cut the excessive defense budget that our nation now has. However, In order to be more bipartisan he touched on the fact that programs like Social security, Medicare, and Medicade need to be reformed. President Obama admitted that these programs need to be reformed the most not only to cut spending of tax dollars but also to guarantee that the disabled and elderly will have a secure future where these programs are guaranteed. After discussing cuts to spending, President Obama went on to talk about the creation of jobs and taxes.

                President Obama, on addressing his second issue, began with a story about how the company seimans. After shutting down a factory of theirs, the company offered for the laid off workers to go to school. The company paid for the education of their previous employees, and thus created more skilled workers to work in the new laboratories the company build after shutting down their factory. President Obama used this as an example for how other companies should run and what kind of companies the U.S. government should support. He talked about how the U.S. needs to have more skilled workers and that in order for the U.S. to create more jobs we need to use incentives to have multinational corporations return to the states. He used that subject as a vault into discussing the issue of immigration. He talked about how we must not just deport illegal immigrants that get a higher education for two reasons: First, it benefits our society by having more highly educated individuals, Secondly he discussed how much of the scientific community in the United States is made up of immigrants. The president discussed the issue of immigration and also combined it with the discussion of education reform in the United States. President Obama suggested that taxes should be cut in both loans for education along with corporate taxes for multinationals that return factories and jobs to the states. President Obama then touched on the point that the pricing of higher education and the system of student loans needs to be reformed and fixed, and the only way that can happen is through the participation of congress.

                President Obamas last main point of what needs to be done this coming year referred to the fact that a greater amount of bipartisanship needs to happen. He openly talked about the fact that he knows the government is very inefficient at this point in time. As for how to fix it, President Obama talked about how he plans on congregating six separate departments, though he did not specify which ones, in order to many the government run much more quickly and effectively.  The President finished his speech by discussing about the future of our nation and the investments our nation must take. Obama used the example of the $2 million dollar investment the United States made in the 1960’s that became what in now the internet. The president then discussed that we must invest in our future even though some of our investments may not pay off as much as we would like.

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                I though the President’s speech was very good. I think that he did very well in to passing over any large issues. I think that he honed in his goals and the goals of the entire nation for this year and into the future. By talking about votes that were going on in congress in the next few months the effect of his speech and the effectiveness of it will be able to be clearly seen in the near future. I think that overall the republican reaction to his speech was mostly positive. President Obama made it very clear that he is willing to work for both the democrats and the republicans into the next year and beyond to best represent the people of the country and once again make the United States the strongest country in the world.

AT&T Inc. (September 1, 2011)  is pledging to bring 5,000 wireless call center jobs, currently based abroad, back to the U.S. if it is allowed to proceed with its proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA.  So what does the Obama Administration do?  They SUE them to stop them citing that it would “reduce competition and cause prices to rise.” Riiiight.  Unemployment is WAY better. 

Gibson Guitar (September 2, 2011) is being told it needs to send some of its jobs to India because of an Obama Administration interpretation of INDIAN Laws.

The documents noted that Indian law “prohibits the export of sawn wood,” which can be used for fingerboards — but does not prohibit the export of “veneers,” which are sheets of woods that have already been worked on.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the Obama Administration could concern itself with the laws in America?  Like shipping guns to Drug Cartels and voter intimidation laws and campaign finance laws?

Under Barack Obama, America has more unemployed people than at any other time  since employment records were started in 1948.   The million dollar question seems to be— Is it that Obama is ignorant about the economy or is he deliberately doing this to the American people?

Some may try to argue that technically, 2009 was Bush’s budget, but I would then be forced to point out that if we are going to get that technical, they need to remember that the unemployment numbers began to soar in October of 2007 because the Democrat Controlled Congress raised the minimum wage against prevailing wisdom.  My figures were calculated to keep the general topic simple.

The Destruction of Car Dealerships

Car dealership closings were highly partisan and these were the first job losses caused directly by Obama decisions.  Hundred of thousands of them!  Obama’s Czar, Steven Rattner who presided over the automotive task force, is married to Maureen White, the former national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It should also be noted that Steven Rattner was a big mover and shaker in New York, who rubbed elbows with Wallstreet big wigs and wrote for the New York Times.  Like so many of Obama’s associates, Steven Rattner also seems to have trouble with the law.  He was allegedly paid undisclosed kickbacks in order to obtain $150 million in investments in Quadrangle (which he co-founded) from the New York State Common Retirement Fun.  By the time it was all settled, the “innocent” Mr. Rattner ended up paying a $10 million settlement and was barred from appearing in any capacity before a public pension fund within the state for five years.  This was the guy who worked for Obama and ruined the lives and businesses of average American families across the country: GM closed 661 Dealerships and Chrysler closed 789. That means family run businesses, many of which were generational.  That means all the salesmen, auto repair staff, clerical help and of course all the vendors and local merchants that relied on the business and revenue generated by these dealerships. Just like that Obama policies destroyed 1,450 small businesses and the communities they supported.

Obama’s Destruction of Oil Jobs and Revenue
 Obama’s ban on drilling in the Gulf was also destructive to jobs and our economy. 

“Much of the suffering and loss from the spill was made worse by poor decisions of administration officials,” said Issa, the panel chairman. “When the administration did act, its major accomplishment was a hasty bureaucratic reorganization” and an offshore drilling shutdown that has caused “a paralyzing loss of jobs.”
Estimates of job losses in the Gulf are from 8,000 to 12,000 workers, and does not include the loss of jobs and services within the communities that will no longer have the business these workers brought in.
Obama says he did it for safety reasons. It’s just more clueless talk meant to distract environmental reactionaries from facts.  He never ever mentioned that there have been over 31,000 wells drilled in the Gulf.  Obama himself should have such a good record!  31,000 successes to one mistake!  Even though the ban was technically lifted in October of 2010, the Obama administration has approved only 10 of the 103 plans submitted to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.  Shallow water permits are also taking a direct hit and they weren’t even part of the ban.

By December of 2010 Obama had imposed a ban on drilling a second time.  When it is considered that 25% of domestic oil production comes from the Gulf, 220,000 barrels a day at a royalty rate of 18.75%, it amounts to a conservative estimate of 3.7 million dollars of revenue PER DAY!

He keeps his Promise to Shut Down Coal Mines

Obama shuts down coal mines by revoking permits and refusing to issue new ones.  The Environmental Protection Agency has revoked the coal mining permit for Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine No. 1 in West Virginia’s Logan County. The permit was issued four years ago and since then Arch Coal, which provides 16% of America’s coal supply, has followed every jot and tittle of the rules it was to operate under.West Virginia is the second-largest coal producer in the U.S., which itself is the Saudi Arabia of coal. The maligned fossil fuel provides $26 billion for the West Virginia economy annually, supports 60,000 jobs and pays $1.2 billion in wages for West Virginia families. All this, and much more nationally, is in jeopardy since coal provides half of America’s electricity.

But coal is not the only thing.  As of February, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued a statement directing

“all regional directors of the Mines and Geo-sciences Bureau to refrain from accepting and processing new mining applications nationwide.”

REFINERIES:

The Obama Administration’s War On Oil: Refinery Permits Are Being Pulled.
The Environmental Protection Agency  rejected the air quality permits for 122 industrial facilities in Texas, including the BP and Valero refineries in Texas City.
South Dakota residents approved the construction of a new Hyperion Refinery in their state in 2006 and the Federal Government has been blocking it ever since with vague regulations, ever changing requirements and political rings to jump through at every turn.  This will be the first new refinery in 35 years.
While the Obama administration insists on imposing unrealistic standards on the few refineries around the country (Wyoming, Kansas, Texas) it is killing the industry, discouraging job growth and losing much needed revenue to deal with all the other problems they have created.  Not to mention the fact that the Greenhouse Gas emission theories have been summarily debunked by scientists around the world. (That’s another discussion)

Las Vegas Jobs -  “Obama is a wet blanket to business.”  There are a host of opportunities for expansion in Las Vegas, a host of opportunities to create tens of thousands of jobs in Las Vegas. I know that I could do 10,000 more myself and according to the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Convention Bureau, if we hired 10,000 employees, it would create another 20,000 additional jobs for a grand total of 30,000. I believe in Las Vegas.  Read more. . . .

 NASA Jobs

It all began with Obama’s proposed 2011 budget,  forcing NASA to take a back seat to private ventures and it cancelled NASA’s most recent program, “Constellation”.  The goals of the program were to gain significant experience in operating away from Earth’s environment, develop technologies needed for opening the space frontier, and conduct fundamental science.

End of Shuttle program estimated to cost Florida 9,000 jobs When most people read headlines like this they just think about all the high paying, high technology jobs that people lose and that surely such well trained people can move on and find other jobs elsewhere.  They don’t think about people like Rob Summers and his T-shirt design shop that will lose 50% of his business when all these jobs are gone.  They don’t think about restaurant owners like Laurilee Thompson whose business was already suffering from the cost of gas and other problems in the economy.  They don’t think about the employees of the businesses who depend on these industries to stay in business being the the same people who lose their homes.  Many unemployed people pack up and move away, leaving behind empty shops, empty restaurants, empty churches, empty houses; essentially the town becomes a Ghost Town. 
There are more job losses than just the ones announced and Titusville, Florida is a good example of what types of local businesses are decimated by chopping an industry off at the knees that is the heart’s blood of a community.  It wasn’t just NASA employees who lost their jobs.  It will be a domino effect down to the local teenage girls who used to babysit for the people who have moved out of town to other jobs.  And this happens every time the Obama Administration decides to crush an entire industry; it happens in towns all across America. Video of interviews

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More of Obama’s Failures:
Obama Denies FEMA Aid to Texas
While it’s true that Texas did receive some aid from  FMAG, the Fire Management Assistance Grant for wildfires in Texas, Obama denied FEMA aid to Texas twice— Once for tropical storm Hermine in 2010 and again in 2011 for Texas Wildfires.  Six members of the U.S. House – five Republicans and a Democrat – also petitioned Obama to approve federal aid.  FEMA is a different type of program than FMAG and has as its mission  “to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.”
Tropical Storm Hermine killed eight people, including seven in Texas, and destroyed nearly 200 homes statewide, according to the governor’s request letter.  FEMA Request denied.
“When nearly 7,000 individual wildfires burn through more than 2.2. million acres, result in loss of life, and destroy homes, businesses, farms and ranches across the state, it’s hard to understand how these conditions don’t spell “disaster” for this administration,” Representative Cornyn

Even as several states along the Mississippi River that experienced flooding and the tornado ravaged southern states were getting their FEMA funds, Obama did not even deign to respond to the governor of Texas one way or the other.  Some say it was political; because it was a red state or because it’s a state the Obama does not perceive as having a significant enough black populace to warrant any kind of individual aid— ever.  Perhaps Obama just doesn’t favor Texas because it’s where President Bush is from.  Whatever the reason, none of them are very “presidential” or even mature.

Iranian Missile Bases in Venezuela
Iran is building intermediate-range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in February.
The clandestine agreement between Venezuela and Iran would mean the Chavez government would fire rocket at Iran’s enemies should the Islamic Republic face military strikes. Read more. . .

(click on the map and zoom out, to see how close this is to America)

 U.S. scraps missile defense shield plans

The US missile defense complex in Poland, also called the European Interceptor Site (EIS) was part of the Ballistic Missile Defense European Capability of the US.  The system was intended to intercept missiles from Iran.  Russian Leader Putin had a fit about it and threatened another cold war if construction was not halted immediately.  Obama obeyed Putin, even as Iran builds missile bases in Venezuela. (see above)  It seems there are those who believe Iran when they say they are not building missiles so there is no need to worry about Europe, because Ahmadinejad and Putin are such stand up guys— they would never LIE about such intentions!  Would they?  Nevermind that Putin has agree to help Chavez with his nuclear technology.Nevermind that Russia has been providing nuclear assistance to Iran for years.  There can’t be any connection between Russia and Iran and even if there is, it certainly couldn’t lead to another Cuban-type Missile Crisis with Venezuela.  So of course Obama would think it was best in the interests of peace to just scrap any kind of defense system for Europe OR for the United States.  And the moon really is made of green cheese. . . Fast and Furious Scandal – The U.S. government intentionally sells assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Those cartels use those weapons to kill, among others, a U.S. law enforcement officer. The White House deflects questions on the subject. The director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), who watched the gun sales on video in his office, stonewalls Congress. So does the Justice Department. The whistleblower that exposed it all is fired. Read more. . . .

As a child he had, what can only be described as, behavioural problems. As a teenager he displayed a quick and violent temper, and early in life had a conviction for murder overturned on appeal. As a young man he worked as a teacher for the United States Army in Utah, and later tried to make ends meet as a professional gambler. In this he failed and returned to teaching, moving to Lawrence, Kansas. It wasn’t long before he was forced to flee the town after being accused of horse-theft and murder. Lawrence was an abolitionist town and Quantrill had no doubt that it was his outspoken pro-slavery views that had led to his being charged. It was something he was not inclined to forget.

Quantrill was violently pro-slavery and he hated free-soilers (those who wanted the border states of Kansas and Missouri to be slave free). At the outbreak of the war he joined the Missouri State Militia but army discipline was not for him. So he left to form his own guerrilla band of Bushwhackers. Though he was a leader of irregular forces he did, in fact, acquire a commission in the Confederate States Army as a Captain of Partisan Rangers.

Whilst recruiting his guerrilla band he claimed to be a native of Maryland so as to bolster his Southern credentials; and what he created was to be the most ruthless and effective guerrilla army of the entire war. He operated mainly in the Kansas-Missouri border region. He perfected standard military tactics and adapted them to guerrilla warfare. He meticulously pre-planned, organised and synchronised his attacks. He adopted the tactic of dispersal of forces, mapped out his routes in advance and established relays of horses for a quick getaway. He also armed his men with long-barrelled revolvers and used concentrated fire for greater effectiveness. He took no prisoners and focused his attacks on mainly civilian targets. He robbed trains and stage coaches, fire-bombed homes and pillaged towns. His intention was to drive all pro-Union supporters from Kansas and Missouri. However, at Baxter Springs, Kansas, in early 1863, he ambushed 100 Union troops killing 65, including those already wounded. He then stripped and mutilated the bodies.

Lawrence

Lawrence was the home of the anti-slavery movement in Kansas. It had become rich on Southern plunder and pro-Union Jayhawkers operated from within its environs. It was also the home of Senator James H Lane, a singular Southern hate figure reviled for his anti-slavery views and support for the burning of Southern farms, the confiscation of their land and other Jayhawker activities. For Southern supporters and Quantrill in particular, who had his own personal beef with Lawrence, the town was a Sodom, a bottomless pit of festering bile.

Earlier in the year a makeshift prison in Kansas City built to house known Confederate women collapsed. A number of these women were killed and maimed including the sisters of Bloody Bill Anderson, at the time a commander in Quantrill’s Raiders. It was believed that the building collapse was a deliberate act of revenge on the part of the Union forces. It wasn’t difficult for Quantrill to whip his men into a frenzy of vengeance; though it is difficult to believe that Quantrill hadn’t already made his plans well in advance of these events. After all, he still had that personal score to settle.

In the early hours of 21 August, 1863, Quantrill led 450 men in a well co-ordinated attack on Lawrence. The defenders were taken completely by surprise and the town was quickly overrun. Any black men found in the town were summarily shot. On the orders of Quantrill all the men and boys in the town were rounded up. He then gave the order for them to be executed, as their womenfolk were forced to look on. In total 183 were killed in cold blood, the youngest being a boy of 7. No women were killed though some may well have been raped and many were beaten as they defended their men folk. The town was then pillaged, the bank robbed, shops and homes looted. The town was then torched, two-thirds of it being razed to the ground. Senator Lane, one of the principal targets of the attack escaped, fleeing in his nightshirt and hiding in a cornfield.

In response to the attack on Lawrence, General Ewing, the local Union Commander, issued General Order No 11, which allowed for the forced deportation of all those living in the 4 border counties. Tens of thousands were forced to abandon their homes which were then burned, their crops were destroyed and their livestock slaughtered. Depriving Quantrill and his men of all their means of sustenance and support they were forced to flee to Texas.

This marked the end of Quantrill’s Raiders as an effective fighting force as they now splintered into smaller groups. He fought on, however; First with Anderson, and then leaving to form another small band of his own. In the Spring of 1865, he led 35 men into western Kentucky where he carried out a number of raids. On 10 May, 1865, he was ambushed just outside Taylorsville. In a fierce fire fight he was wounded in the chest. He never recovered, dying of gunshot wounds on 6 June,1865, he was 27 years of age.

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