By HERMAN CAIN - Congratulations or something.
President Obama won the popular vote by 50.6 percent. OK, those of you that voted for him, you won. But you did not win the lottery. Here's what you won.
You won a president who wants unlimited federal spending powers with no federal debt ceiling. Would you give unlimited credit to a person who has maxed out all of their credit cards? If you say yes, then respectfully, you are a fool.
You won a president who is asking Congress to spend an additional $50 billion for unidentified projects. This would of course be the same Congress that has not passed a budget since 2009. Do you run your finances without a budget, or at least some idea of how you are going to make ends met? Well, you probably don't.
You won a president who wants to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion over 10 years, while telling you that it will help reduce the deficit. Do the math folks. That's not true. It would raise minimal revenue and cause a big decrease in employment and the creation of new jobs. All you have to do is to look at the real history of tax increases. But you see, President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi know you don't know the history, and they figure you are too gullible to learn.
Obama voters, you won a president who is still campaigning, so he can keep using the lapdog mainstream media to tell you what he wants you to believe instead of telling you the truth. Strip away your preconceived notions about media channels that Obama told you not to watch, and you just might learn something.Read more:
Monday, December 3, 2012
Obama's Great Gatsby lifestyle - fiddling while Rome burns
By ROBERT LAURIE – Obama parties as we descend into chaos
At the close of business Thursday, Barack Obama crossed an important line. On July 2, 2001 our national was just $5,693,220,327,798.14. When Bush left office, it was up to $10,626,877,048,913.08. Obama’s debt is now over $16,323,083,449,604.98 and climbing rapidly. This means that Obama has now accrued a debt greater than that of every President from George Washing ton’s 1789 inauguration all the way to the fifth month of George W. Bush’s first term – combined.
If any of this worries Obama, you wouldn’t know it from the way he spent his weekend golfing and mingling with Hollywood royalty.
According to the White House website, Obama had no public schedule for Saturday. While the President is always technically “working,” you can assume this was a relaxing day, possibly designed to allow the Commander in Chief to rest up for a grueling Sunday. After all, it takes a lot of energy to hit the links with Bill Clinton.
Obama has now played well over 100 rounds as President, but 55 degree November weekends cannot be allowed to go to waste. The phony specter of catastrophic man-made global warming isn’t just a convenient anti-capitalist boogeyman; it’s also great for your short game. This was the third time he’d managed to play since his November 6th reelection.
Afterward, you might assume he went home to figure out the whole fiscal cliff thing. You’d be wrong. In reality, he grabbed a tux and headed to the Kennedy center where he honored such cultural luminaries as David Letterman, Dustin Hoffman, and Led Zeppelin.
Of the notorious rock band, he said “There was some hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around, so it’s fitting that we’re doing this in a room with windows that are about three inches thick, and with Secret Service all around. So, guys, just settle down.”
Ah, that sparkling Obama wit! Read more:
At the close of business Thursday, Barack Obama crossed an important line. On July 2, 2001 our national was just $5,693,220,327,798.14. When Bush left office, it was up to $10,626,877,048,913.08. Obama’s debt is now over $16,323,083,449,604.98 and climbing rapidly. This means that Obama has now accrued a debt greater than that of every President from George Washing ton’s 1789 inauguration all the way to the fifth month of George W. Bush’s first term – combined.
If any of this worries Obama, you wouldn’t know it from the way he spent his weekend golfing and mingling with Hollywood royalty.
According to the White House website, Obama had no public schedule for Saturday. While the President is always technically “working,” you can assume this was a relaxing day, possibly designed to allow the Commander in Chief to rest up for a grueling Sunday. After all, it takes a lot of energy to hit the links with Bill Clinton.
Obama has now played well over 100 rounds as President, but 55 degree November weekends cannot be allowed to go to waste. The phony specter of catastrophic man-made global warming isn’t just a convenient anti-capitalist boogeyman; it’s also great for your short game. This was the third time he’d managed to play since his November 6th reelection.
Afterward, you might assume he went home to figure out the whole fiscal cliff thing. You’d be wrong. In reality, he grabbed a tux and headed to the Kennedy center where he honored such cultural luminaries as David Letterman, Dustin Hoffman, and Led Zeppelin.
Of the notorious rock band, he said “There was some hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around, so it’s fitting that we’re doing this in a room with windows that are about three inches thick, and with Secret Service all around. So, guys, just settle down.”
Ah, that sparkling Obama wit! Read more:
Sunday, December 2, 2012
The Working Class and the Government Class
- Daniel Greenfield
Forget all the talk about whether we will or won’t go over the fiscal cliff. We ourselves are the fiscal cliff and have been for some time now. The real fiscal cliff is not the point at which we run out of money, our credit rating sinks lower than Enron and or everyone is fighting over jars of cat food at Wal-Mart. The real fiscal cliff is when even the dumbest person in the country is no longer able to deny what the packs of robbers and thieves he appointed to steal for him have perpetrated for their own benefit in his name. And that fiscal cliff may never come.
Soviet leaders used to promise their people that one day they would live under true Communism. Under ourhybrid system, many Americans already live under Communism. And the rest of the country pays for it. As the number of people living under Communism grows and the number of people subsidizing Communism shrinks, the fiscal cliffs begin coming in faster than Wile E. Coyote on jet-powered rocket skates.
Our class warfare is not determined by paycheck size. The United States has only two classes. The working class and the government class.
The working class extends through the lower class, the middle class and the upper class, and everyone of every income level who derives their income from gainful employment. The government class similarly extends from the poor to the middle class to the rich, and consists of those whose chief source of income is the government; whether it’s welfare checks, government jobs or crony capitalism.Not everyone in the working class is a saint and not everyone in the government class is a parasite. There are plenty of corporations who care only about short term profit and create social problems that the rest of the country has to live with. Immigration is a classic example. And there are also plenty of government employees who perform vital and even heroic functions. Your local firefighter and member of the armed services are obvious examples.
The government class is dependent on the working class, deriving its income from their income
The government class is dependent on the working class, deriving its income from their income. The government class turns from the symbiotic to the parasitic to the extent that its demands on the working class become unsustainable and exploitative, that its functions grow bloated, its spending programs reek of corruption and its government contracts emerge out of backdoor deals with friendly politicians.
The government class can never be productive, because it is not a creative force, it only provides secondary non-innovative services to the working class, but it is legitimate to the extent that it performs vital functions on behalf of the working class with their consent and in an economically sustainable fashion. When it violates these principles, then it becomes a parasite sucking the life out of the working class.
Californization of America Read more:
Forget all the talk about whether we will or won’t go over the fiscal cliff. We ourselves are the fiscal cliff and have been for some time now. The real fiscal cliff is not the point at which we run out of money, our credit rating sinks lower than Enron and or everyone is fighting over jars of cat food at Wal-Mart. The real fiscal cliff is when even the dumbest person in the country is no longer able to deny what the packs of robbers and thieves he appointed to steal for him have perpetrated for their own benefit in his name. And that fiscal cliff may never come.
Soviet leaders used to promise their people that one day they would live under true Communism. Under ourhybrid system, many Americans already live under Communism. And the rest of the country pays for it. As the number of people living under Communism grows and the number of people subsidizing Communism shrinks, the fiscal cliffs begin coming in faster than Wile E. Coyote on jet-powered rocket skates.
Our class warfare is not determined by paycheck size. The United States has only two classes. The working class and the government class.
The working class extends through the lower class, the middle class and the upper class, and everyone of every income level who derives their income from gainful employment. The government class similarly extends from the poor to the middle class to the rich, and consists of those whose chief source of income is the government; whether it’s welfare checks, government jobs or crony capitalism.Not everyone in the working class is a saint and not everyone in the government class is a parasite. There are plenty of corporations who care only about short term profit and create social problems that the rest of the country has to live with. Immigration is a classic example. And there are also plenty of government employees who perform vital and even heroic functions. Your local firefighter and member of the armed services are obvious examples.
The government class is dependent on the working class, deriving its income from their income
The government class is dependent on the working class, deriving its income from their income. The government class turns from the symbiotic to the parasitic to the extent that its demands on the working class become unsustainable and exploitative, that its functions grow bloated, its spending programs reek of corruption and its government contracts emerge out of backdoor deals with friendly politicians.
The government class can never be productive, because it is not a creative force, it only provides secondary non-innovative services to the working class, but it is legitimate to the extent that it performs vital functions on behalf of the working class with their consent and in an economically sustainable fashion. When it violates these principles, then it becomes a parasite sucking the life out of the working class.
The welfare class is a subgroup of the government class
It is not just the government employee who is a member of the government class. The welfare class is a subgroup of the government class. And the welfare class is not only parasitic, it is the axis around which an entire parasitic constellation of the government class revolves around.
The classic welfare family has become the income generating center of the government class. They are the “wealth creators” for an entire infrastructure of social services built around them from the government officials who process their aid forms to the social workers who provide them with benefit counseling to the employees of those clinics who provide them with health care, and the extra teachers hired to help raise standards at their perpetually failing schools, the drug counselors who help them get clean and the police officers who break up their fights.
All or almost all of these people are members of unions. Those unions have their own employees. Those union employees have their own politicians. The politicians provide grants to the community social welfare infrastructure and generous benefits for union contracts. All this money and influence spins around the welfare family, but they only benefit from a minute fraction of it.
Around their dungheap, fly community groups and a horde of other private non-profits, “advocating” for them while operating on government grants. The buildings they live in are affordable housing projects built for them by the government, and cleaned, managed and repaired for them by government employees.
When they go to the supermarket, they buy food with money from the government. When they go to the pharmacy, they get free medication from the government. The web of clinics, supermarkets and pharmacies are not part of the working class, they are subsidized by government money and prosper by feeding off that government class.
The seven members of the classic welfare family, Grandma, Ma and her five kids, are the axis around which thousands of government professionals revolve. Their dysfunctional state keeps an entire state of government employees, employed. And it is in the interest of those government employees to seek out and create such dysfunctional families by championing social policies that break up families and keep them down, under the pretense of helping them because those families are the cash cows of the government class.
Communism, at least conceptually, argued for shifting power from those who perform intellectual labor to those who perform manual labor. Modern liberalism exists only to shift wealth from workers to non-workers, taking from the working class on behalf of the non-working class and pocketing the money for the employees of the government class.
In a hybrid economy, the differences between the government class and the working class aren’t always as obvious. There are any number of businesses, large and small, that are members of the government class, and derive the bulk of their income from the government.
The fundamental difference between the government class business and the workingclass business is that the government class business is an instrument of government policy. While its owner may derive value from it, the government class business only exists because it fulfills an objective of government policy. And that makes the government class business indistinguishable from the policy it represents.
As the government class expands, the number of individuals and businesses in the government class grows because joining the government class, whether as a welfare recipient, government employee or crony capitalist company is a better strategy than staying in the working class. Planned economies are easier to profit from in the short term, whether it’s by getting free stuff, early retirement or contracts on generous terms, because their centralization makes them predictable and influence-able. The only problem is that they have no future.
American society has been reshaped to seek short cuts, whether it’s through lottery tickets, credit cards or corporate mergers, at the expense of long-term profits through hard work. Corporations don’t look past the next quarter and many people don’t look past the next interest payment. And joining the government class is the ultimate shortcut. It wrecks families, trashes the economy and robs the country of its future, while providing limited short-term benefits to members of the government class.
It is not just the government employee who is a member of the government class. The welfare class is a subgroup of the government class. And the welfare class is not only parasitic, it is the axis around which an entire parasitic constellation of the government class revolves around.
The classic welfare family has become the income generating center of the government class. They are the “wealth creators” for an entire infrastructure of social services built around them from the government officials who process their aid forms to the social workers who provide them with benefit counseling to the employees of those clinics who provide them with health care, and the extra teachers hired to help raise standards at their perpetually failing schools, the drug counselors who help them get clean and the police officers who break up their fights.
All or almost all of these people are members of unions. Those unions have their own employees. Those union employees have their own politicians. The politicians provide grants to the community social welfare infrastructure and generous benefits for union contracts. All this money and influence spins around the welfare family, but they only benefit from a minute fraction of it.
Around their dungheap, fly community groups and a horde of other private non-profits, “advocating” for them while operating on government grants. The buildings they live in are affordable housing projects built for them by the government, and cleaned, managed and repaired for them by government employees.
When they go to the supermarket, they buy food with money from the government. When they go to the pharmacy, they get free medication from the government. The web of clinics, supermarkets and pharmacies are not part of the working class, they are subsidized by government money and prosper by feeding off that government class.
The seven members of the classic welfare family, Grandma, Ma and her five kids, are the axis around which thousands of government professionals revolve. Their dysfunctional state keeps an entire state of government employees, employed. And it is in the interest of those government employees to seek out and create such dysfunctional families by championing social policies that break up families and keep them down, under the pretense of helping them because those families are the cash cows of the government class.
Communism, at least conceptually, argued for shifting power from those who perform intellectual labor to those who perform manual labor. Modern liberalism exists only to shift wealth from workers to non-workers, taking from the working class on behalf of the non-working class and pocketing the money for the employees of the government class.
In a hybrid economy, the differences between the government class and the working class aren’t always as obvious. There are any number of businesses, large and small, that are members of the government class, and derive the bulk of their income from the government.
The fundamental difference between the government class business and the workingclass business is that the government class business is an instrument of government policy. While its owner may derive value from it, the government class business only exists because it fulfills an objective of government policy. And that makes the government class business indistinguishable from the policy it represents.
As the government class expands, the number of individuals and businesses in the government class grows because joining the government class, whether as a welfare recipient, government employee or crony capitalist company is a better strategy than staying in the working class. Planned economies are easier to profit from in the short term, whether it’s by getting free stuff, early retirement or contracts on generous terms, because their centralization makes them predictable and influence-able. The only problem is that they have no future.
American society has been reshaped to seek short cuts, whether it’s through lottery tickets, credit cards or corporate mergers, at the expense of long-term profits through hard work. Corporations don’t look past the next quarter and many people don’t look past the next interest payment. And joining the government class is the ultimate shortcut. It wrecks families, trashes the economy and robs the country of its future, while providing limited short-term benefits to members of the government class.
Cities and towns are going bankrupt because government class unions asked for and got financially unsustainable benefit packages
Cities and towns are going bankrupt because government class unions asked for and got financially unsustainable benefit packages. Those small implosions are a metaphor for the tremendous harm that the government class is inflicting on the working class, and also, in the long term, on itself. In the long run, parasitism is not sustainable. In the short term, there’s a great party. In the long term, the parasite dies.
The major development of the last decade has been the government’s class disinterest in the economic sustainability of its demands. Call it the Californization of America under a government class that is both determined and doomed.
Cities and towns are going bankrupt because government class unions asked for and got financially unsustainable benefit packages. Those small implosions are a metaphor for the tremendous harm that the government class is inflicting on the working class, and also, in the long term, on itself. In the long run, parasitism is not sustainable. In the short term, there’s a great party. In the long term, the parasite dies.
The major development of the last decade has been the government’s class disinterest in the economic sustainability of its demands. Call it the Californization of America under a government class that is both determined and doomed.
Are Establishment Republicans Ready to Give In to Obama?
- Jerry McConnell
If I’ve said it once in my columns, I’ve said it a dozen or more times; and that is, “in the lexicon of the liberal Socialist-Communist Democrats, the word bipartisanship means, ‘do it our way’.”
As if providing evidence of that one-sided axiom, the head enforcer, Slippery Senate Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV) was quoted by Reuters Money News online November 29, 2012, as saying “A U.S. debt ceiling increase must be part of any deal to resolve the looming ‘fiscal cliff’ of tax increases and spending cuts.”
That is libDem speak for ‘bipartisanship.’ Note carefully the words “must be part of any deal…” Those words shine the spotlight on what Reid and Obama and Pelosi ALL determine is needed if a bi-party agreement is to be accomplished.
Of course Reid and his ‘pressure pals’ know that the chances are probably not terribly far off the table to get the Establishment Republicans, AKA, RINOs to capitulate and give in to the measure that will allow those same ‘budget-bustin’ spendthrift hustlers to continue to send the National Debt Ceiling into even greater and greater as well as insurmountable heights of onerous debt that will destroy not only our country but the rest of the lives of our children and their children for eternity.
These selfish, and utterly stupid and careless Socialist-Communist cretins will not be satisfied until all Americans, including themselves who they mistakenly think will later get their rewards from the corrupt United Nations robbers and frauds. How is it possible that this country can boast of having over sixty million voters who are willing co-conspirators in the demise of what once was the greatest country in the world?
Just fresh off the greatest perpetration of a felonious rip-off by somehow or other rigging nationwide voting machines to return the greatest fraudulent imposter to the highest office of our land and the most incompetent usurper of the presidency ever in the history of this or any other country, these country killers are insanely demanding that they be permitted to accelerate their ruinous destructive actions that they have been carrying on for the past four years.
Somehow we have to dig deep into our pitiful pool of impotent pikers and pluck out aplum who can keep these treasonous traitors at bay for four more years.
And speaking about how out of kilter the libDem country destroyers are in this hour of the sad beginnings to another four years of watching the monument of greatness manufactured by our Founding Fathers being hacked away with glee by the anti-Americans who were, in the main part, nurtured and raised by its goodnesses right here on this land.
As if providing evidence of that one-sided axiom, the head enforcer, Slippery Senate Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV) was quoted by Reuters Money News online November 29, 2012, as saying “A U.S. debt ceiling increase must be part of any deal to resolve the looming ‘fiscal cliff’ of tax increases and spending cuts.”
That is libDem speak for ‘bipartisanship.’ Note carefully the words “must be part of any deal…” Those words shine the spotlight on what Reid and Obama and Pelosi ALL determine is needed if a bi-party agreement is to be accomplished.
Of course Reid and his ‘pressure pals’ know that the chances are probably not terribly far off the table to get the Establishment Republicans, AKA, RINOs to capitulate and give in to the measure that will allow those same ‘budget-bustin’ spendthrift hustlers to continue to send the National Debt Ceiling into even greater and greater as well as insurmountable heights of onerous debt that will destroy not only our country but the rest of the lives of our children and their children for eternity.
These selfish, and utterly stupid and careless Socialist-Communist cretins will not be satisfied until all Americans, including themselves who they mistakenly think will later get their rewards from the corrupt United Nations robbers and frauds. How is it possible that this country can boast of having over sixty million voters who are willing co-conspirators in the demise of what once was the greatest country in the world?
Just fresh off the greatest perpetration of a felonious rip-off by somehow or other rigging nationwide voting machines to return the greatest fraudulent imposter to the highest office of our land and the most incompetent usurper of the presidency ever in the history of this or any other country, these country killers are insanely demanding that they be permitted to accelerate their ruinous destructive actions that they have been carrying on for the past four years.
Somehow we have to dig deep into our pitiful pool of impotent pikers and pluck out aplum who can keep these treasonous traitors at bay for four more years.
And speaking about how out of kilter the libDem country destroyers are in this hour of the sad beginnings to another four years of watching the monument of greatness manufactured by our Founding Fathers being hacked away with glee by the anti-Americans who were, in the main part, nurtured and raised by its goodnesses right here on this land.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/51464
Being Bourgeois
Living in Communist Romania
- Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
Ana and I picked up nine year old Stefan from school one October day, a gorgeous Indian summer day before the winter chill. A musical prodigy, little Stefan is a genius with a penchant for Italian food. Half a block from the art school is a restaurant called Da Vinci’s, always bustling with patrons dining under the grape vine pergola.
I was happy to see so many people out to lunch, able to afford food and particularly restaurant food, previously considered a luxury under communism that only the ruling elite could afford and felt entitled to have and enjoy.
- Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
Ana and I picked up nine year old Stefan from school one October day, a gorgeous Indian summer day before the winter chill. A musical prodigy, little Stefan is a genius with a penchant for Italian food. Half a block from the art school is a restaurant called Da Vinci’s, always bustling with patrons dining under the grape vine pergola.
I was happy to see so many people out to lunch, able to afford food and particularly restaurant food, previously considered a luxury under communism that only the ruling elite could afford and felt entitled to have and enjoy.
Adjacent to Da Vinci’s was an old stately mansion in a terrible state of disrepair. A tall fence covered in vines obscured the full view to the house. I peered through the wooden slats that had separated here and there where the nails broke or the wood decayed. The gate opened with a groan and I stepped inside the yard. Someone forgot to lock the gate. There was neither a trespassing warning nor any sign of habitation. The formerly tended front garden was overcome with tall weeds, growing from the most unlikely places – like the many cracks of the cement garden path.
I walked to the front door and rang the massive lion head door knocker. It made a hollow sound. I waited for a few minutes but nobody answered. I looked through a window – the house was empty and had been empty for quite some time.
The mansion was oozing rust from everywhere but especially the wrought iron front foyer bump-out. The stained glass windows were still beautiful, just as I remembered them. I used to count the squares and name the colors to pass the time. The walls were cracked and peeling and the fancy silk wall paper hung desolate onto the floor stained from water leaks. The Bohemian crystal chandelier was still hanging in the dining room, missing bulbs and electricity. The heavy rosewood furniture with strange carvings was gone. The parquet discolorations bore witness to the place where they stood. Did the owners remove them? Were they sold at auction? Did the communists apparatchiks confiscate them in the 1980s and moved them to their villas?
Aunt Ecaterina’s bedroom bay window that I admired was missing the heavy curtains. Mom used to open them to let fresh air in. Miraculously the dingy glass was not broken. I sat on a pillow in the bay window many Sundays checking out the lush rose garden, now a jungle mess of weeds, or staring mesmerized at the rain. Mom and aunt Ecaterina talked in hushed tones and she cried a lot.
She always wore her finest housecoat and slippers made of rich silk brocade. I did not understand at the time what secrets they shared, why we had to walk so much to her home every weekend. It was a trek I dreaded but I was not old enough to stay home alone.
Her husband had been arrested because he was bourgeois. It must have been a terrible crime, I thought at the time. I asked Grandma several times why her youngest brother was in prison but she always avoided my question and turned her eyes away, waving her hand in the air.
Years later I understood. Grandma’s brother had acquired too much land and a nice home and that was a crime in the new communist regime. He had worked very hard to build a successful store from scratch, built the mansion, bought some land, got married, and had a son whom he sent to the best schools to become a lawyer.
Class envy and re-distribution of wealth sent him to prison for seven years. His wife was devastated! The communist regime confiscated all the land, the store, the bank accounts, and the furnishings. They left Ecaterina’s ornate bed. She became so depressed; she seldom got out of her matrimonial bed. Mom tried to cheer her up with our weekend visits. I only looked forward to her sour cherry preserves on rye bread. It was a real treat.
Nobody knows how uncle Pavel survived seven years in jail – it certainly was not a walk in the park being beaten daily and eating potato soup and bread. He died several years after having served the full sentence. Aunt Ecaterina never recovered from her depression. Not only did she have to suffer the indignity of losing everything, including the love and comfort of her husband, the communist party moved two families of strangers into her home. Nine more people made the large house look suddenly small and crowded. She had to share the kitchen, the hallways, and bathrooms with total strangers. She lived long enough to see her only adult son succumb to lung cancer. I wonder if the grandchildren inherited the mansion and did not have the money to remodel.
It was bittersweet, stepping back in time 40 some years, remembering the misery and abuse of communism. I walked back into the street and to the restaurant. By now, Ana and Stefan had arrived and were looking for me. I glanced back one more time at the rusty tin roof – the sun was shining but the house looked forlorn and leaning.
I smiled when Stefan gave me a hug and threw his back pack on the ground. The day was going to be all right, the fog of the past dissipated. Unpleasant memories still hound me, triggered by unusual circumstances. I went back to Romania to revisit my past but the unplanned encounters with the ghosts of communism were still painful.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/51471
I walked to the front door and rang the massive lion head door knocker. It made a hollow sound. I waited for a few minutes but nobody answered. I looked through a window – the house was empty and had been empty for quite some time.
The mansion was oozing rust from everywhere but especially the wrought iron front foyer bump-out. The stained glass windows were still beautiful, just as I remembered them. I used to count the squares and name the colors to pass the time. The walls were cracked and peeling and the fancy silk wall paper hung desolate onto the floor stained from water leaks. The Bohemian crystal chandelier was still hanging in the dining room, missing bulbs and electricity. The heavy rosewood furniture with strange carvings was gone. The parquet discolorations bore witness to the place where they stood. Did the owners remove them? Were they sold at auction? Did the communists apparatchiks confiscate them in the 1980s and moved them to their villas?
Aunt Ecaterina’s bedroom bay window that I admired was missing the heavy curtains. Mom used to open them to let fresh air in. Miraculously the dingy glass was not broken. I sat on a pillow in the bay window many Sundays checking out the lush rose garden, now a jungle mess of weeds, or staring mesmerized at the rain. Mom and aunt Ecaterina talked in hushed tones and she cried a lot.
She always wore her finest housecoat and slippers made of rich silk brocade. I did not understand at the time what secrets they shared, why we had to walk so much to her home every weekend. It was a trek I dreaded but I was not old enough to stay home alone.
Her husband had been arrested because he was bourgeois. It must have been a terrible crime, I thought at the time. I asked Grandma several times why her youngest brother was in prison but she always avoided my question and turned her eyes away, waving her hand in the air.
Years later I understood. Grandma’s brother had acquired too much land and a nice home and that was a crime in the new communist regime. He had worked very hard to build a successful store from scratch, built the mansion, bought some land, got married, and had a son whom he sent to the best schools to become a lawyer.
Class envy and re-distribution of wealth sent him to prison for seven years. His wife was devastated! The communist regime confiscated all the land, the store, the bank accounts, and the furnishings. They left Ecaterina’s ornate bed. She became so depressed; she seldom got out of her matrimonial bed. Mom tried to cheer her up with our weekend visits. I only looked forward to her sour cherry preserves on rye bread. It was a real treat.
Nobody knows how uncle Pavel survived seven years in jail – it certainly was not a walk in the park being beaten daily and eating potato soup and bread. He died several years after having served the full sentence. Aunt Ecaterina never recovered from her depression. Not only did she have to suffer the indignity of losing everything, including the love and comfort of her husband, the communist party moved two families of strangers into her home. Nine more people made the large house look suddenly small and crowded. She had to share the kitchen, the hallways, and bathrooms with total strangers. She lived long enough to see her only adult son succumb to lung cancer. I wonder if the grandchildren inherited the mansion and did not have the money to remodel.
It was bittersweet, stepping back in time 40 some years, remembering the misery and abuse of communism. I walked back into the street and to the restaurant. By now, Ana and Stefan had arrived and were looking for me. I glanced back one more time at the rusty tin roof – the sun was shining but the house looked forlorn and leaning.
I smiled when Stefan gave me a hug and threw his back pack on the ground. The day was going to be all right, the fog of the past dissipated. Unpleasant memories still hound me, triggered by unusual circumstances. I went back to Romania to revisit my past but the unplanned encounters with the ghosts of communism were still painful.
Muslim Brotherhood ‘paying gangs to go out and rape women and beat men protesting in Egypt’ as thousands of demonstrators fill streets
Egypt’s ruling party is paying gangs of thugs to sexually assault women protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square against President Mohamed Morsi, activists said.
They also said the Muslim Brotherhood is paying gangs to beat up men who are taking part in the latest round of protests, which followed a decree by President Morsi to give himself sweeping new powers.
It comes as the Muslim Brotherhood co-ordinated a demonstration today in support of President Mohamed Morsi, who is rushing through a constitution to try to defuse opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.
Just 24 hours earlier around 200,000 people gathered in Tahrir Square, the heart of last year’s revolution which toppled President Hosni Mubarak, yesterday to protest against a new draft constitution.
Large marches from around Cairo flowed into the square, chanting ‘Constitution: Void!’ and The people want to bring down the regime.’
Full story: Muslim Brotherhood ‘paying gangs to go out and rape women and beat men protesting in Egypt’ as thousands of demonstrators pour on to the streets
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/02/muslim-brotherhood-paying-gangs-to-go-out-and-rape-women-and-beat-men-protesting-in-egypt-as-thousands-of-demonstrators-pour-on-to-the-streets/#ixzz2DwjTTNXn
OBAMA FISCAL PROPOSAL 'CLASSIC BAIT AND SWITCH'
Orrin Hatch: 'These ideas are so radical'
(THE HILL) - The top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee accused President Obama of pulling a "bait and switch" this week with the administration's proposed deal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff."
"What [Obama] proposed this week was a classic bait and switch on the American people—a tax increase double the size of what he campaigned on, billions of dollars in new stimulus spending and an unlimited, unchecked authority to borrow from the Chinese," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said in Saturday's weekly GOP address.
(THE HILL) - The top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee accused President Obama of pulling a "bait and switch" this week with the administration's proposed deal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff."
"What [Obama] proposed this week was a classic bait and switch on the American people—a tax increase double the size of what he campaigned on, billions of dollars in new stimulus spending and an unlimited, unchecked authority to borrow from the Chinese," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said in Saturday's weekly GOP address.
"Maybe I missed it but I don’t recall him asking for any of that during the presidential campaign. These ideas are so radical that they have already been rejected on a bipartisan basis by Congress."
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was dispatched to Capitol Hill to share Obama's plan with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) The deal included $1.6 trillion in tax hikes, $50 billion in economic stimulus spending and $400 billion in spending cuts. Republicans have demanded more severe spending cuts - including entitlement reform - to begin a discussion on raising taxes.
If Congress fails to act within the next 30 days, a bevy of tax increases and severe spending cuts are set to go into effect, potentially unleashing a devastating blow to the precarious U.S. economy.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/270453-hatch-obama-fiscal-proposal-classic-bait-and-switch
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