Med Linked to Rare Meningitis Outbreak Reached 23 States Read more on Newsmax.com: Medication Tied to Rare Meningitis Outbreak May Have Reached 23 States Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

A steroid medication linked to the death of at least five people from rare fungal meningitis may have been administered to patients in 23 states, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said on Thursday, raising fears the rare outbreak could spread.
In a briefing for reporters, the CDC said five people had died so far and 35 had fallen sick from fungal meningitis in six states. The outbreak was first reported in Tennessee, where three people have died and 25 of the cases have been reported.
The other confirmed deaths were in Virginia and Maryland.
"We do know there were over 700 patients in Tennessee who were exposed," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, who said the number was provided to him by Tennessee state health officials.
The CDC said it had not yet determined the rate of infection among those patients who received the potentially tainted steroid. The rate of infection is an important barometer of the potential for the outbreak to spread.
"At the moment, fortunately, the attack rate looks pretty low - less than 1 percent -- but we are still in the early days of defining this thing," Schaffner said.
The steroid is administered to patients, usually by injection, primarily to control back pain.
All the cases have so far been traced to three lots of Methylprednisolene Acetate from a pharmaceutical compounding plant in Massachusetts, according to the briefing.
The company, New England Compounding Center Inc, or NECC, in Framingham, Massachusetts, prepared the medication, which has been voluntarily recalled. The company has also voluntarily surrendered its license.
Attempts to view the NECC website prompted a "temporarily unavailable" message, and company officials could not be reached by phone for comment.
"We are encouraging all health facilities to immediately cease use of any product produced by NECC," Dr. Madeleine Biondolillo, Massachusetts public health director of safety, told reporters in a conference call from Boston.
A fungus linked to the steroid medication has been identified in specimens from five patients, according to the CDC's Dr. Benjamin Park.

'FAIRLY LONG INCUBATION PERIOD'
The Massachusetts Health Department said there were 17,676 vials of medication in each of the three lots under investigation. They were sent out July through September and have a shelf life of 180 days.
The CDC said the fungal contamination was detected in the examination of one of the sealed vials taken at that company.
Patients who received the injections were at risk of developing fungal meningitis for at least a month after their last exposure, Schaffner said.
"There is a fairly long incubation period. ... That hasn't run out yet for many patients," Schaffner said.
"Over the next few weeks, we are going to see a progressive accumulation of cases," he said.
Fungal meningitis is rare and life-threatening, but is not contagious from person to person. Meningitis can be passed to humans from steroid medications that weaken the immune system. Symptoms include a sudden onset of fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, and vomiting, according to the CDC web site.
In addition to the 25 cases so far in Tennessee, one has been reported in North Carolina, two in Florida, four in Virginia, two in Maryland and one in Indiana, according to CDC's Park.
About 75 facilities could have received the steroid in the 23 states. They are California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas and West Virginia, according to Park.
One facility in Indiana, St. Mary's Health, said on Thursday that 560 patients had received the recalled medication. They received the steroid at the Surgicare Cross Pointe clinic in Evansville, said St. Mary's spokeswoman Laura Forbes.
She said one of the 560 patients had been diagnosed with meningitis and was in the hospital and 10 to 15 others had been advised to seek further medical care.
In Tennessee, the worst-hit state, some patients are "really critically ill" and in intensive care units, said Dr. Marion Kainer of the state health department. She declined to say how many were critical.
A compounding pharmacy takes medications from pharmaceuticals manufacturers and makes them into specific dosages and strengths for use by doctors.
The drug ingredients are regulated by the FDA, but compounders are regulated by state agencies, the industry's trade association said.
The Massachusetts Health Department said there had been several complaints against NECC. Complaints in 2002 and 2003 about the processing of medication resulted in an agreement with government agencies in 2006 to correct deficiencies
In 2011, there was another inspection of the facility and no deficiencies were found. In March 2012, another complaint was made about the potency of a product used in eye surgery procedures. That investigation is continuing, the state health department said.




Read more on Newsmax.com: Medication Tied to Rare Meningitis Outbreak May Have Reached 23 States
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

Obama And Wife Conjoined Racists by Mychal Massie

The Daily Caller has released a video they obtained of then-presidential candidate Obama faking his best black voice, telling an audience of black ministers, including Jeremiah Wright, “that the U.S. government shortchanged Hurricane Katrina victims because of racism.”

Not long ago I wrote a Daily Rant entitled, “Michelle Obama: More Evidence That Proves She Is A Bigot.” I pointed out that during her final year at Harvard Law School, she wrote an article for the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), accusing Harvard and its student body of perpetuating “racist and sexist stereotypes” because Harvard would not hire law professors based exclusively on the color of their skin and their sex. As if more proof were necessary, The Daily Caller article conjunctive with mine proves Obama and Michelle are conjoined racists.

A few thoughts about The Daily Caller article. My first thought is that even though there is no ambiguity pursuant to the message Obama was intentionally conveying, it will mean absolutely nothing to those in the media and his toxic message of “it’s because you’re black,” will resonate with blacks.

The only way most blacks will not support Obama is if he were to suddenly renounce the Democrat and Communist Party of America and become a conservative Tea Party member and–since we all know what the chances of that happening are–we know what the chances of the majority of blacks recognizing their personal bigotry are.

Blacks, regardless of the price it costs them, and how it affects the areas where the highest concentrations of them live, are drawn to skin color like moths to a flame. The sad thing is that only a few are willing to admit it. Blacks use excuses and fallacious rationales for not supporting candidates who, in their heart of hearts, really do want to help them, and the singular reason is because the person is a white conservative. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The depth of ignorance pursuant to historical fact is mind-numbing. What makes it more egregious is that Obama knows the truth, unlike Michael Dawson (mik661@hotmail.com; hydro-tech irrigation co.) who wrote me yesterday attempting to portray himself as being wise and knowledgeable about Romney and the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. Who predictably resorted to insult when he was advised his conclusions were wrong because they were based on flawed suppositions from his misunderstanding what written articles were actually saying. But again I digress.

Even as Obama was attempting to do his insulting mimic of a black pulpiteer, he was, at best, being misleading. Whether or not he knew that he was lying can be debated based upon one’s interpretation of “dissociative fugue” relative to time and place. That notwithstanding, a question that should be asked is–was his goal to give those assembled truth or to show them that he was black enough and that he had his black bonafides in place? I submit it was the latter.

Obama knew, just as I and everyone else in the media knew, and as those of us “inside the beltway” knew: it was the failure of Democrat Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin the black Democrat Mayor of New Orleans that was responsible for the high death tolls and stranding of people. Obama knew that Blanco and Nagin had failed to respond to George Bush’s warning 24-48 hours prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans that they start evacuating the residents.

As Tucker Carlson and Vince Coglianese of the Daily Caller wrote:
The people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!” Obama shouts in the video, which was shot in June of 2007 at Hampton University in Virginia. By contrast, survivors of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Andrew received generous amounts of aid, Obama explains. The reason? Unlike residents of majority-black New Orleans, the federal government considers those victims “part of the American family.

The racially charged and at times angry speech undermines Obama’s carefully-crafted image as a leader eager to build bridges between ethnic groups. For nearly 40 minutes, using an accent he almost never adopts in public, Obama describes a racist, zero-sum society, in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America. The mostly black audience shouts in agreement. The effect is closer to an Al Sharpton rally than a conventional campaign event. (Read more:http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/02/obama-speech-jeremiah-wright-new-orleans/#ixzz28GIaODio)

In truth, those responsible for the slow response were found in the very body Obama himself belonged to, i.e., the U.S. Senate. Among the chief complaints, i.e., specific criticisms, about the Stafford Act is that the Act didn’t give enough latitude to FEMA pursuant to how it responds to disasters. But the greatest criticism is reserved for obstruction of the expedient dispersion of aid due to bureaucratic red tape. And it is worth pointing out that the criticisms I reference are those made on the liberal PBS program Frontline. (SEE:http://www.webcitation.org/5xnNWzQCJ; The Stafford Act; 1/6/09)

The bottom line is that we are presented with empirical proof of Obama fomenting racial discord and racial alienation for personal gain. But even now we see that it will not change the minds of those blinded by color of skin.

The Obama campaign calls it a “desperate attack.” Fascinating that pointing out the transpicuous racial prejudice fomented to a group already predisposed to those feelings is viewed as a “desperate attack.” Apparently, birds found floating on ponds and going quack-quack aren’t ducks either.

Rachel Maddow who when not chasing after women, is trying to figure how to sit down without hurting her neck because of where her head is positioned, accused conservatives of trying to make people think Obama is “Way more black than he seems to [people] now.” The problem with her trivial idiocy is that it was Joe Biden and Harry Reid who made it their duty to point out that Obama was “clean” and that Obama’s “race was a plus because he didn’t have a negro dialect.”

Blacks betray their own interests, not only through self-segregation, but by giving their loyalty to a man and party who have done nothing to help them as Americans. Promising them help as a hyphenated people is humiliating and exclusionary. It uses the color of their skin as a currency that has no helpful value. But that won’t stand in the way of blacks who fawn over color and it won’t encourage the media to do their job fairly and truthfully.

For your additional reading, I’ve included the following key points that those like Obama prefer to omit when they bring up Katrina:

POINT 1: New Orleans Evacuation Plan
The municipality even prepared its own “City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.”

The plan makes it evident that New Orleans knew that evacuation of the civilian population was the primary responsibility of the city – not the federal government.

The city plan acknowledges its responsibility in the document:

As established by the City of New Orleans Charter, the government has jurisdiction and responsibility in disaster response. City government shall coordinate its efforts through the Office of Emergency Preparedness.

The city document also makes clear that decisions involving a proper and orderly evacuation lie with the governor, mayor and local authorities. Nowhere is the president or federal government even mentioned:

The authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane is conferred to the Governor by Louisiana Statute. The Governor is granted the power to direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from a stricken or threatened area within the State, if he deems this action necessary for the preservation of life or other disaster mitigation, response or recovery. The same power to order an evacuation conferred upon the Governor is also delegated to each political subdivision of the State by Executive Order. This authority empowers the chief elected official of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans, to order the evacuation of the parish residents threatened by an approaching hurricane.

It is clear the city also recognized that it would need to move large portions of its population, and it would need to prepare for such an eventuality:

The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and feeding facilities as needed. When specific routes of progress are required, evacuees will be directed to those routes. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed. …

Evacuation procedures for small scale and localized evacuations are conducted per the SOPs of the New Orleans Fire Department and the New Orleans Police Department. However, due to the sheer size and number of persons to be evacuated, should a major tropical weather system or other catastrophic event threaten or impact the area, specifically directed long range planning and coordination of resources and responsibilities efforts must be undertaken. [You can read New Orleans' Emergency Plan for hurricanes at its Web site: http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26]

POINT 2: What Delayed Aid After Katrina (FROM: The New New Orleans by Nicholas Lemann; The New York Review of Books; 9/17/12)
In the days after Katrina, state and local authorities were unable to handle the suffering and chaos that enveloped New Orleans. The most significant help the city got was from the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army, under the command of General Russel Honoré (who’s treated as a hero in both Decision Points and If God Is Willing), and the reason Bush took six full days to give the order dispatching the troops was the Posse Comitatus Act. Governor Blanco, according to Bush, repeatedly refused to issue an official request for federal help, which would have been one way around the act. That left him the option of invoking an even older law, the Insurrection Act of 1807, but in that case, Bush wrote:

the world would see a male Republican president usurping the authority of a female Democratic governor by declaring an insurrection in a largely African American city. That would arouse controversy anywhere. To do so in the Deep South, where there had been centuries of states’ rights tension, could unleash holy hell.

Bush finally found another way around the Posse Comitatus Act, which was to dispatch the troops under orders not to engage in law enforcement. That ended the first post-Katrina phase of televised but unabated hell. It’s useful to contrast Bush’s account to that of Bobby Jindal, Blanco’s Republican successor as governor of Louisiana, who was then a congressman. Jindal would have us understand the week after Katrina hit according to an opposition between hapless “politicians and bureaucrats” on the one hand and heroic “private individuals” on the other, and he explains the delay in sending the 82nd Airborne as a failure of organization:

The government needs to establish from the outset a unified chain of command with the power to override the normal process restrictions and get things done.

Evidently Jindal [and Obama], unlike Bush, is unaware that this is illegal, for reasons that have nothing to do with “bureaucracy” and everything to do with the history of race relations, in the country generally and Louisiana specifically.

Israel’s army chief: Terrorists taking root in Syria pose new peril

Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz warned Wednesday:  “Alongside the potential nuclear threat from Iran and spiraling Hizballah war capabilities in Lebanon, we hear that Assad while butchering his people is also losing control of his country and terrorist networks such as international jihadists are moving in.”  He went on to say, “On the Golan we have to contend with the usual military dangers, but now also those terrorists, although we are armed with ample resources for dealing with them.” The IDF later discovered a group of Syrians gathering on the Syrian-Israel border on Mt. Hermon, some of them armed. Israel military patrols are keeping an eye on their movements.  Israel civilians were moved out of range as a precaution.

CHICAGO'S SUSAN CROWN, INFLUENTIAL OBAMA '08 SUPPORTER, CAMPAIGNS FOR ROMNEY '12

Businesswoman and philanthropist Susan Crown, a former Obama supporter and a member of one of Chicago’s most influential families, told an audience of over 300 women and men, “In the midst of the Obama administration, I became profoundly disappointed, disillusioned and actually a little angry.”

Democrats, Republicans and self-described independents recently came together to hear how one of President Obama’s own prominent supporters is now using her considerable talent and energy to get Gov. Mitt Romney elected the next President of the United States. They gathered at a modest complimentary luncheon in the ballroom of a hotel in Naperville, Illinois sponsored by the DuPage Business Council. The event was a “Women in Leadership” forum, where Crown gave a brief introduction, then took questions from the audience. Outside the ballroom, four self-employed women from a neighboring suburb sold red-white-blue elephant earrings, US flag pins, GOP/elephant jewelry, and t-shirts with glittery “Romney” lettering.

“I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and don’t think the government belongs in a lot of those issues,” Crown said.

So how could a woman with this sort of background on “social issues”, who gave money to Obama’s 2008 campaign, and who worked with him on the Annenberg Challenge board support Gov. Romney, who is pro-life and pro-traditional marriage? 

Crown spent nearly one hour answering questions from the audience to fully explain her conversion.

Her reasons and responses were wide-ranging, thoughtful, brutally honest and humorous.

OBAMA’S TREATMENT OF ISRAEL “MADE ME MAD; I’M SO EMBARRASSED BY OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT”

Top on Crown’s list is the way President Obama has been treating Israel.  

“In 2011, when Barack Obama suggested that Israel return to 1967 borders--the country is about the size of Rhode Island--it was hard fought, hard won. And the idea of telling all the people who have who lost loved ones in the 1967 war, that we were going to have a ‘do-over’, really made me mad.”

Crown was referring to President Obama’s speech at the State Department in May 2011. There he called for a Palestinian state using boundary lines before the Six Day War of 1967, where Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria, capturing the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights. As Obama stated last year: “We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” For Crown and other Jewish citizens who are supporting Gov. Romney, that declaration, which came the day before Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to arrive in the US for talks with Obama, was unacceptable.

In an interview with longtime Chicago writer, Carol Felsenthal, Crown told Chicago Magazine “the day that really made a difference for me was the day he suggested that Israel go back to 1967 borders. That infuriated me. That was the day I switched candidates.” 

Fast forward to September 2012, when Netanyahu asked for a meeting with President Obama. Instead of receiving the Israeli Prime Minister, Obama accepted other invitations: to attend a campaign fundraiser hosted by music mogul Jay-Z and his superstar wife Beyonce at a sports club in New York City, where people paid $40,000 to attend; to appear on TV entertainment programs “Late Show with David Letterman"; and to join the hosts of the talk show “The View.” When Letterman asked Obama what the national debt was ($16 trillion and rapidly climbing, according to the National Debt Clock), the President casually responded that he did not know. However, he was able to inform the women on “The View” that he was their “eye candy.” 

"I am so embarrassed that our current President, instead of taking a meeting with Netanyahu, is going to New York and hanging out with Jay-Z and Beyonce.” The audience erupted in applause.

She continued: “Netanyahu is not the most uncomplicated or simple man to deal with and that’s a given. Netanyahu’s angst is about the existential threat to the state of Israel. Iran has declared that destroying Israel is at the top of its list. It’s equipping itself with nuclear arms for ‘energy’ purposes.' And why Jay-Z and Beyonce are your priority? I don’t get it.” 

OBAMA’S DANGEROUS “MIXED MESSAGES” TO ISRAEL; DEBACLE IN MIDDLE EAST POLICY

As for her fellow Jewish voters who support Obama, Crown is mystified.

“I really can’t speak for all members of the tribe—they are all over the place. I don’t really understand anyone who really cares about the survival of the state of Israel or who reallywants things to be smoothed over in the Middle East, how they can vote for a candidate who is sending mixed messages, open to interpretation. Which is to me the worst of all worlds.”

Those mixed messages are key to her disappointment in Obama: “He is sending mixed messages in a volatile and increasingly violent world. And America is being perceived as weaker and weaker. And in a more dangerous place.”

With the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others in our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the uprisings at the U.S. embassy in Cairo and beyond, Crown sees the need for new leadership.

“It is really critical that we have friends in a part of the world that has huge numbers of unemployed poor people, an oppressive religious society, and no access to Internet or basic media. Those are considered the three most important factors in violent eruptions.”

Crown knows of what she speaks. She is Co-Chair of CARE’s national conference on global poverty. She sees Israel being the “Rock of Gibraltar” and playing a role.

“The United States does not have a more important ally in the world. It is our only reliable and capable ally in the Middle East, which, as we can see, is disintegrating, volatile, fractionalized. It is our only partner on the ground there. Not only that, but we share a lot of aspirational goals about democracy, about opportunity.”

The last four years under President Obama have tattered the United States’ reputation on the world stage. Crown related a conversation between Gov. Romney and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. When asked how the US is being perceived around the world, Kissinger responded with one word: weak.

That weakness was on full display at the United Nations when President Obama tried to sell the notion that the attacks were the result of an amateur’s short video, which makes a caricature of Islam’s prophet Mohammed. Shockingly, Obama refused to recognize even the possibility that al-Qaeda was responsible.  

Yet Libya’s own President Mohammed Magarief told NBC’s Ann Curry that it was a “pre-planned act of terrorism” and that the movie had “nothing to do with this attack.”   

THE PHONY “WAR ON WOMEN, WAR ON MIDDLE CLASS, WAR ON DOGS” and  “47% OUTRAGE”

When an audience member asked about the Obama campaign’s attempt to attach the “war on women” label on Romney, Crown’s critique was swift—but it didn’t stop there.

“This idea that there is a ‘war on women’, a ‘war on the middle class’, a ‘war on dogs’ (laughter from the audience) is David Axelrod at work.”

Given the latest emails Obama’s close advisor and campaign director, David Axlerod, has sent out, Crown is spot on. In fact, there has been a tinge of desperation to the daily missives the Obama campaign sends as it tries to navigate a sinking ship through a sea of failed and false narratives.

Recently, Axelrod used examples of Obama’s mother dying of cancer and his own daughter’s epilepsy to elicit donations.  In an an email sent the day before the first Presidential debate, Axelrod actually used "Barack and Michelle's" wedding anniversary to solicit more money. His campaign did something similar during the summer, askingcouples who were getting married (or having an anniversary or birthday) to contribute to the Obama campaign in lieu of giving and getting gifts.  

Crown sees through all the desperation and says Obama’s claim of a GOP “war on women” is contrived.

“It’s a construct,” she says. While the Obama camp would like Americans to believe the GOP has a reproductive “war on women” (see the use of radical activist Sandra Fluke at the Democratic National Convention, where she fabricated the claim that the GOP wants to "control birth control"), Crown sees the “war on women” being an economic one.

“I believe that the war on women is really an economic war. And I would not say it’s being waged by the Romney administration. I think it’s a very convenient catchphrase. When I talk to women their real concern is in putting the pieces together in their lives. The average household since Obama took office has decreased annual income by an average of $4000.”

While Crown is “very much pro choice”, she says “my priorities have been completely rejiggered. They have to be. We’ve got a $16 trillion debt. We don’t know if there’s going to be Medicare there for us. So I think the ‘war on women’ is a construct. I think it’s been effective in that it reaches people who are stuck in sort of the old mold of thinking about what our priorities are.”

She respects the fact that for Romney/Ryan, the economy is the priority.

“Our primary issue is the economy. It’s a double-dip recession and a terrible economy. Companies are afraid to make investments. They are hanging on to cash. They are not quite sure what’s going to drop next. Europe? Greece?

“The middle class issue is front and center of all those. When we have a thriving economy, when people can get loans, when people can get jobs, when people can have the dignity of providing for their family, we have a stronger middle class and a pathway out of poverty."

The businesswoman and Mother of two says she is also troubled by Obama’s aversion to free markets and the “not so benign neglect of the deficit.”

"I do not think Barack Obama has ever taken an accounting class. (laughter and applause from the audience.)

"I believe--like obviously most of you do--that capitalism is an incredibly efficient system. And it works. And it really works in the United States to carry people from a current economic standing to a better economic place. And what we have now is a government that is trying to govern more than 16% of the economy with the new health care law. And it should just stay out of it. My view is that the middle class will be best served by an unencumbered and promoted economy.”

“I don’t think he appreciates the genius of capitalism (applause). And he will do what he can do to interfere rather than let it operate. And I think that is going to hurt a lot of people.”

Part of Gov. Romney’s campaign strategy is to direct this message to Independents and voters who are still undecided, rather than to the roughly 47% who are dependent to some extent on the federal government. While the Obama campaign tried mightily to twist Gov. Romney's comment to insinuate he "doesn't care" about "the 47%", Crown points out the 47% comment referred to a campaign strategy which targets only those in the electorate who are winnable. 

"What the governor was saying--which has been misinterpreted by the press--is...that a certain large percentage--47% or so will vote for Obama. And another large percentage 47% will vote for him. So his point was 5 or 10% of the electorate--one of the narrowest margins anywhere--will be deciding the election. So, independents and people who haven't made up their mind are really the target. It's not that he doesn't care about the 47% of the population, it's that he's not going to target them in his ads and things like that. Because he knows where they stand politically. So there's no disparagement. And that characterization--it strikes me as really strange for a guy who has spent all his life helping others."

THE MILITARY

When a Mother of a soldier stood up and asked how Gov. Romney would handle the Obama administration’s plan to cut military spending, Crown acknowledged she was not an expert. However, Obama’s cuts--cuts his own Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called“dangerous” and that “would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families and our ability to protect the nation”--“blows my mind.”  It would handicap the soldiers who are “performing this extraordinary service—which is as much international development as it is peace keeping.” 

WHY SHE SUPPORTS ROMNEY

By her own admission, Crown has never been directly involved in politics. Her resume reveals that her time has been spent in other endeavors: Vice President of Henry Crown & Company, a Chicago-based investment firm and Chairman/Founder of SCE, a social investment organization that connects talent and innovation with market forces to drive social change. SCE is now working on the development and distribution of digital media to help children learn skills necessary for the 21^st Century workplace and civic life.

Additionally, Crown recently co-chaired CARE’s national conference on global poverty, advocated for legislation on food security programs and global warming, and is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

But when her husband introduced her to Gov. Romney last year, she was sold.

“For the first time in my life I felt: what can we do for this guy? How do we get him in office? This is a quality of human being that doesn’t normally subject themselves to this kind of grueling and brutal political process. And since that time, I have been working as hard as I can for Mitt.”

Crown respects Romney’s record as a leader in both the public and private sectors: as Governor of Massachusetts and as CEO of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, which he successfully turned around after it was sullied by scandal. Romney refused to take a salary if the Olympics did not make a profit. It did. They gave him the $250,000 designated salary. He then gave it to charity.

Perhaps Romney’s ability and plans for turning around the current Obama-soured economy is what further cements Crown's solid endorsement. She noted that Romney’s guiding principle for the economy is “a rising tide lifts all boats", a classic free market outcome.

On a personal level, she recounted several instances where Romney dropped what was on his own plate in life to help those around him. One case in point: a colleague at Bain Capital whose child was missing. Romney shut down the office and formed a team of investigators to find her.

“I have been blessed in my life to work with some of the most capable mentors and leaders. And I think I can spot them at this point. He is extraordinary. He is smart. Capable. Focused. Driven. Principled. Humane. Clear. He’s a gentleman. And to have a person of his quality? We ought to jump on this opportunity to get someone of his quality elected."  

The audience again erupted in applause.

OBAMA ADVISER ADMITS: ‘WE NEED DEATH PANELS.’ Makes shock comments about Obamacare, rationing for elderly

by Aaron Klein

A top Democrat strategist and donor who served as President Obama’s lead auto-industry adviser recently conceded that the rationing of health services under Obamacare is “inevitable.”

Steven Rattner advocated that such rationing should target elderly patients, while stating, “We need death panels.”

Rattner serves on the board the New America Foundation, or NAF, a George Soros-funded think tank that was instrumental in supporting Obamacare in 2010. Soros’ son, financier Jonathan Soros, is also a member of the foundation’s board.

Rattner was the so-called “car czar,” the lead auto adviser to the Treasury Department under Obama.

Last month, Rattner penned an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Beyond Obamacare” in which he proclaimed “We need death panels” and argued rationing must be instructed to sustain Obama’s health-care plan. His comments have been virtually ignored by traditional media as the president campaign’s for a second term.

“We need death panels,” began Rattner. “Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health-care resources more prudently – rationing, by its proper name – the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.”

Continued Rattner: “But in the pantheon of toxic issues – the famous ‘third rail’ of American politics – none stands taller than overtly acknowledging that elderly Americans are not entitled to every conceivable medical procedure or pharmaceutical.”

Rattner lamented how Obama’s Affordable Care Act “regrettably includes severe restrictions on any reduction in Medicare services or increase in fees to beneficiaries.”

Rattner said the numbers don’t add up unless Obamacare utilizes rationing.

“If his Independent Payment Advisory Board comes up with savings, Congress must accept either them or vote for an equivalent package,” stated Rattner. “The problem is, the advisory board can’t propose reducing benefits (a k a rationing) or raising fees (another form of rationing), without which the spending target looms impossibly large.”

Rattner singled out elderly patients for benefit cuts.

He wrote: “No one wants to lose an aging parent. And with price out of the equation, it’s natural for patients and their families to try every treatment, regardless of expense or efficacy. But that imposes an enormous societal cost that few other nations have been willing to bear. Many countries whose health care systems are regularly extolled – including Canada, Australia and New Zealand – have systems for rationing care.”

He concluded, “At the least, the Independent Payment Advisory Board should be allowed to offer changes in services and costs.”

“We may shrink from such stomach-wrenching choices, but they are inescapable.”

Rattner serves on the NAF’s 22-person board of directors alongside Jonathan Soros, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria and Google’s Eric Schmidt.

Soros’ Open Society Foundation is a primary donor to the NAF.

Other major donors include the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google Inc. and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Another donor is Free Press, a group that advocates for more government control of the airwaves and Internet.

Free Press is also funded by Soros. Free Press was founded by Robert W. McChesney, an avowed Marxist who has recommended capitalism be dismantled “brick by brick.”

The NAF, meanwhile, bills itself as bipartisan and “the radical center.”

NAF fellow Michael Lind wrote, “Our goal [is] not to repeal the New Deal [of Franklin Roosevelt] but to adapt it to the circumstances of the 21st century.”

Discover The Networks notes how the NAF approved of Obamacare because it would “offer a new image” of how Americans view dying; and it would help “patients and their families to recognize” that, “[S]ometimes ‘doing everything’ results in more burden than benefit. High-tech medicine can prolong life, but for some patients, it merely draws out the process of dying.”

With research by Brenda J. Elliott.

The Devious and Treacherous Left – by Dan Bubalo

The devious and treacherous Left in the United States recognizes no limits, and if we’re really going to drop the gloves this time and duke it out, a strong case will be made that the Leftist Movement poses a greater threat than Al Qaeda, for it involves the gross violation of a nation’s historic essence from within and not an invasion of its borders.

We have a president who would need four consecutive quarters of unbelievable economic growth to raise his overall performance to abysmal, and if he were to move even moderately close to the middle from the anarchistic far left wing of the Democrat Party, he would remain a foreign-sounding tyrant with an unwavering anti-American attitude

We have a president who would need four consecutive quarters of unbelievable economic growth to raise his overall performance to abysmal, and if he were to move even moderately close to the middle from the anarchistic far left wing of the Democrat Party, he would remain a foreign-sounding tyrant with an unwavering anti-American attitude, nothwithstanding his vice president, who should know better yet supports his every deranged move. What a pair. Moreover, Obama is the leader of the Democrat party, and the positions he advocates and it embraces erode personal liberties, demonize Christian beliefs, hard work, and successful people.

It is a disgraceful party platform, but it is just another day at the office for a Muslim steeped in teachings to hate the infidel and raised in a “religion” where deception and incongruous rationalizations go hand and hand. Those teachings are ingrained so deeply that one can no more quit being a Muslim than they can quit Scientology, and it produced someone so ingrained with reflexive propaganda responses that he instantaneously brands anyone who opposes him as biased and bigoted. Maybe somebody ought to tell him he’s not in a land where everyone’s supposed to kiss his ring.

Directly below the president’s immediate operatives exists a radical apparatus that receives cues from the top with the express intent of dissembling facts and creating confusion. For example, three different mayors from huge Democrat strongholds suddenly launch into an assault on Chick Fil-A. Do you believe for a minute that Boston’s Menino actually cares what happens in Chicago or San Francisco? Of course not, and it was no coincidence that they came out in unison and swallowed an inordinate amount of news coverage for ten days because it was done with the express intent of keeping the heat off the Big Cheese, with a de facto benefit of simultaneously limiting coverage of his opponent as well. The same goes for Rahm Emmanuel and the teacher’s strike in Chicago. Did he really need two weeks to reach a settlement? Absolutely not. If Emmanuel wasn’t given a direct order to keep the fray alive he would not even have to make a phone call to bring a resolution; he could have merely sent a text message.

Instead, his assignment as a member of this warped coterie and former lieutenant in the poser-in-chief’s army was to create a diversion.

The worst perpetrator of all, however, is the Slime Ball of the Senate, who not coincidentally is the Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid. He got tons of unjustifiable political mileage out of the apocryphal and revolting suggestion that Romney paid no taxes, and just doubled down with another red herring that Romney sullied the Mormon religion, a religion to which Reid himself belongs but has concealed carefully since discovering that outright lying was a way into Congress 40 years ago. Facts have never mattered to Reid, and it’s never been more apparent as he slithers toward the end of his career.

It is utterly meaningless what celebrity shills think, yet they are extended an absurd amount of credibility and news coverage no matter how insipidly stupid and uninformed the remarks, and every time the president gets in deep kimchi, the more the media apparatus becomes involved. Oh no? When Roseanne is absurdly given news time for talking about a run for the presidency, it is not only inane, it is redundant, for we already have another one-named, self-anointed goddess named Michelle providing that noise. Though he is somehow glorified it is abundantly clear that every time George Clooney holds another fundraiser for Obama there areTWO empty chairs in the room, and it is well-documented that the name of Madonna and the word “intellectual” have never been used in the same sentence, none of which matters to the press.

Jay Z, a successful man monetarily, supposedly resides on Mt. Olympus while it’s conveniently overlooked that he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars selling two generations of people variations on rhythmic and mysogynistic chanting. No list of the vapid and meaningless distractions would be complete, of course, unless we include Mr. Ed’s daughter, Sarah Jessica Parker, and the harpies on The View. When it became evident that Mr. Obama was outright lying about a well planned Islamic terrorist attack in Libya he inexplicably avoids a meeting with major ally, Benjamin Netanyahu, to go sit on Whoopie Goldberg’s lap. What a wussie. Or, could it be that Muslim indoctrination grabs him by the throat every time he must make a statement against radical Islam, which precludes him from remembering his oath to protect and defend the United States of America?

Once again, these are more than just fundraisers per se; they were created to remain smoke-filled divergences, coordinated and planned to deflect the spotlight of any substantive analysis of the most corrupt and inept man to ever serve our country as president. Don’t forget that when Mr. Romney immediately called the Libyan assault an act of terror, all the aforementioned lemmings went into attack mode. And if I’m wrong on the premise of media-selective cordiality, name me the last significant individual that hosted a Romney fundraiser. Don’t worry. I couldn’t name one, either.

Apparently, if you kill people and you’re Muslim it constitutes to this president a “work-place issue”

Obama has blatantly and without remorse supported Islamic terrorism, occasionally through what he thought were subtle means on his first apology tour but more often through an arrogance that challenges impeachment and flips it the bird, for enough footage exists which shows Obama yet to meet an enemy of our country with whom he doesn’t enjoy walking with a hand in their front pocket. He hasn’t merely used Air Force One, he’s abused the convenience for which it was intended. He obviously can get anywhere he wants at any time, but couldn’t make it to Fort Hood after a Muslim insurgent in our own armed forces conducts his version of jihad by slaughtering our soldiers. Apparently, if you kill people and you’re Muslim it constitutes to this president a “work-place issue”, very much like the humiliating and largely enabled attack that claimed the lives at our consulate in Libya was dismissed as being caused by a video nobody has seen.

I’m surprised he has yet to lay blame at the feet of Mychal Massie’s blog, but there’s still time for that.

Ross Perot: No 2012 endorsement

Ross Perot, the billionaire who shook up the 1992 presidential campaign, has largely remained silent since his emergence on the nation’s political stage nearly two decades ago and as he emerges from the shadows (in part to drum up interest in his forthcoming autobiography) he’s remaining silent about one more thing: The current top candidates running for office.

Pressed by USA Today’s Richard Wolf to endorse a candidate, Perot declined, despite the fact that “members of his family have donated almost exclusively to Republicans in recent years.”

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Perot is an equal-opportunity critic, unimpressed with both President Barack Obama and Romney when it comes to addressing the nation’s red ink.

“We’re on the edge of the cliff, and we have got to start fixing it now. Otherwise, we’re leaving a disaster to our children’s and our grandchildren’s future,” he said.

Wolf spoke with Perot as part of an interview for C-SPAN, where additional clips have been posted (the full interview is set to air Monday night).

In it, Perot talks about his fear of the United States being taken over.

“If we are that weak, just think of who wants to come here first and take us over and the last thing I ever want to see is to see this country, our country taken over because we’re so financially weak we can’t do anything and we’re moving in that direct. … We could even lose our country if we don’t get this fixed and straightened out and nobody that’s running really talks about it, about what we have to do and why we have to do it. They would prefer not to have it discussed.

Perot chimed in on some other topics, including:

The prosperous Clinton years: “We were just lucky, going through a period where we had the money flowing. … It was just good luck that made it happened. Right now we’re going through a period of bad luck.”

The Tea Party: “It’s had an interesting impact. … It’s not the solution but I think it was a healthy thing to happen. … It wakes up everybody running for office.”

Perot says his three wishes for the country would be to have a “strong, moral ethical base,” a “strong family unit in every home” and a better public school system.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/81850.html#ixzz28316rqH9