CLASSIC NEO CON THINKINGS

[THE KOD]

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) suggested Wednesday that the Obama administration was conducting an "economic boycott" of Israel in order to force an immediate halt to its latest military incursion into the Gaza Strip, which has been marked by escalating death and destruction since it began earlier this month.

In a sharply worded statement released by his office, the conservative firebrand questioned why the Federal Aviation Administration had extended its prohibition on U.S. flights heading to Israel's main airport in Tel Aviv for a second day in a row.

?Given that some 2,000 rockets have been fired into Israel over the last six weeks, many of them at Tel Aviv, it seems curious to choose yesterday at noon to announce a flight ban, especially as the Obama Administration had to be aware of the punitive nature of this action," he said.

The FAA suspended flights Tuesday to Ben Gurion International Airport out of security concerns after a missile fell within a mile of the airport. The European Aviation Safety Agency soon followed suit by issuing a similar recommendation. The concern over the incident comes after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was struck by a surface-to-air missile over Eastern Ukraine last week.

But the Israeli government maintains the airport is safe and that it had decided not to shoot down the missile because it was not endangering the airport. Moreover, critics say the ban threatens Israel's tourism industry and unfairly rewards Hamas.

The decision even drew rebuke from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), who flew to Tel Aviv on Tuesday to demonstrate the safety of the route. ?I?m just trying to show that it?s safe, and a great place to visit, and Israel has a right to defend its people, and they?re doing exactly what they should be doing," he said in a statement.

In his statement on Wednesday, Cruz expressed concern that the ban would deal a "crippling blow" to Israel's economy. He further questioned weather the decision to ground the flights was politically motivated to "punish" Israel for its ground invasion of Gaza.

?Until these serious questions are answered, the facts suggest that President Obama has just used a federal regulatory agency to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign-policy demands," he said.

Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the State Department, told reporters Wednesday that any allegation of economic blackmail was "ridiculous" and "offensive."

Cruz's office soon fired back, claiming the ban empowered Hamas.

"Well, we find the Obama Administration's foreign policy to be ridiculous and offensive," said Cruz press secretary Catherine Frazier. "The American people deserve answers to these questions and Sen. Cruz will continue to press for them."

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Cruz is seriously off his gourd

its a war zone.

stay the fuck out of there until a peace agreement is signed. who wants to be a tourist there now. :facepalm:

If this continues the US will be drawn in and the big war will start with Iran et all.\


Cruz needs to get that US birth cert quickly

damn canucks anyway

 

[THE KOD]

Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema's remarks about gay people may be routine, but a recent comment suggesting homosexuality is perverse and ruining America shows they're no less offensive.

In a Facebook post Friday, the former Michigan state Representative wrote, "Families are the most important element in a nation. Sexual perversion ruins a nation. Political correctness allows it. Silence out of fear by our politicians perpetuates it."

Agema's comment included a link to an article on conservative Rich Swier's site that invokes an Urban Dictionary definition to argue that by advocating for their rights, gay people people are attacking and "stupifying" straight people into going along with their way of thinking.

"Homosexuals love little boys," the article also states.

Agema has often made offensive and discriminatory remarks about LGBT individuals. Liberal group Progress Michigan condemned his most recent comments in light of a possible -- but not particularly likely -- future role as lieutenant governor. Agema has said he's considering running, but faces tension and calls for resignation from his current position within his own party.

?Due to the fact that Dave Agema could be a possible running mate for [Republican Gov. Rick Snyder?s] reelection campaign, the governor should immediately condemn Agema?s comments and call for him to publicly apologize for this most recent comment and the litany of other bigotry he has spewed over the years,? Progress Michigan Executive Director Lonnie Scott said in a statement. ?[Agema's] shameful behavior has no place in politics ? or the entirety of Michigan for that matter.?

Last year, Snyder's camp called Agema's remarks extreme and discriminatory after he suggested that gay people were in favor of public health care because they die earlier in life and that gay individuals at a previous job had defrauded their insurance company to get health care for others dying of AIDS. In January, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called on Agema to resign from his position.

Agema has also made disparaging comments about Muslims and notably compared the "homosexual lifestyle" to alcoholism.

"Homosexuals, the LGBT groups, have war rooms, literally war rooms, when they see anybody try to fight against their lifestyle," he said at an event in February.
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standard for the GOP neo cons way of thinking

 

[theGibber1]

man up and grow a set


there is no way I would have allowed that in front of kids I brought to a bowling ally

one time it happens, and you walk up and say have some respect for my family please.
If they won't listen and understand the public situation, then they deseve to be bullied, chastised, and worse.

If that don't work and they do it again , you pull out the .45 and put it up their nose and have them beg for fucking mercy

it seems simple enough

A strange response from the "tolerant" left... So republicans are homophobic yet you want me to stick a gun in a gay couples face for kissing??? Or you a conservative and don't even know it ?????

And I don't own a gun.

 

[THE KOD]

sfd

 

[THE KOD]

we should think about stopping all war


alot harder

 

[ChrryBlstr]

we should think about stopping all war


alot harder

You've got that right, KOD.

Peace!

 

[THE KOD]

Since I cannot ask Hamas, nor do I purport to understand its way of thinking, I ask the leaders of my own country, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his predecessors:


How could you have wasted the years since the last conflict without initiating dialogue, without even making the slightest gesture toward dialogue with Hamas, without attempting to change our explosive reality? Why, for these past few years, has Israel avoided judicious negotiations with the moderate and more conversable sectors of the Palestinian people?an act that could also have served to pressure Hamas? Why have you ignored, for 12 years, the Arab League initiative that could have enlisted moderate Arab states with the power to impose, perhaps, a compromise on Hamas? In other words: Why is it that Israeli governments have been incapable, for decades, of thinking outside the bubble?
He said pundits on the left are recognizing the depths of hatred toward Israel, which he colorfully calls "the Islamic fundamentalist volcano that threatens the country." Pundits on the right, he said, must realize that nobody will win this war.

There is no military solution to the real anguish of the Palestinian people, and as long as the suffocation felt in Gaza is not alleviated, we in Israel will not be able to breathe freely either.

Israelis have known this for decades, and for decades we have refused to truly comprehend it.

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alot of truth in this

 

[THE KOD]

WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) - U.S. economic growth accelerated more than expected in the second quarter and the decline in output in the prior period was less steep than previously reported, which could bolster views for a stronger performance in the last six months of the year.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 4.0 percent annual rate as activity picked up broadly after shrinking at a revised 2.1 percent pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

That pushed GDP above the economy's potential growth trend, which analysts put somewhere between a 2 percent and 2.5 percent pace. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the economy growing at a 3.0 percent rate in the second quarter after a previously reported 2.9 percent contraction.


The economy grew 0.9 percent in the first half of this year and growth for 2014 as a whole could average above 2 percent. The first quarter contraction, which was mostly weather-related, was the largest in five years.

Employment growth, which has exceeded 200,000 jobs in each of the last five months, and strong readings on the factory and services sectors from the Institute for Supply Management underpin the bullish expectations for the rest of the year.

The government also published revisions to prior GDP data going back to 1999, which showed the economy performing much stronger in the second half of 2013 and for that year as a whole than previously reported.

LITTLE POLICY IMPACT

The GDP data, which was released only hours before Federal Reserve officials conclude a two-day policy meeting, is unlikely to have much sway on monetary policy as the U.S. central bank has already dismissed the first-quarter contraction in output as a weather-related anomaly.

Growth in the second quarter was driven mainly by consumer spending and a swing in business inventories.

Consumer spending growth, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, accelerated at a 2.5 percent pace, as Americans bought long-lasting manufactured goods and spent a bit more on services. Consumer spending had braked to a 1.2 percent pace in the first quarter because of weak healthcare spending.

Despite the pick-up in consumer spending, Americans saved more in the second quarter. The saving rate increased to 5.3 percent from 4.9 percent in the first quarter as incomes rose, which bodes well for future spending.
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just think Romney could have been getting some big credit


if the Mittster could have got elected :mj07:

the neo cons are rolling over in graves all over town. How did he do it ?
He is the worst. He is a muslim. He gots not birth certificate.

 

[THE KOD]

...........

 

[THE KOD]

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia ? The king of Saudi Arabia has warned that extremists could attack Europe and the U.S. if there is not a strong international response to terrorism after the Islamic State group seized a wide territory across Iraq and Syria.
While not mentioning any terrorist groups by name, King Abdullah's statement appeared aimed at drawing Washington and NATO forces into a wider fight against the Islamic State group and its supporters in the region. Saudi Arabia openly backs rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, but is concerned that the breakaway al-Qaida group could also turn those very same weapons on the kingdom.
"If neglected, I am certain that after a month they will reach Europe and, after another month, America," he said at a reception for foreign ambassadors Friday.
Official Saudi media carried the king's comments early Saturday.
"These terrorists do not know the name of humanity and you have witnessed them severing heads and giving them to children to walk with in the street," the king said, urging the ambassadors to relay his message directly to their heads of state.
The Islamic State group has been fighting moderate rebels, other extremists and Assad's forces in Syria for nearly three years. Iraq has faced an onslaught by the Sunni extremists and their supporters since early this year, and the country continues to be roiled by instability.
While providing arms and support to Sunni militants in Syria, Saudi Arabia has denied directly funding or backing the Islamic State group.
British officials raised the country's terror threat level Friday to "severe," its second-highest level, because of developments in Iraq and Syria, but there was no information to suggest an attack was imminent. The White House has said it does not expect the U.S. to bump up its terrorism threat warning level.
Saudi Arabia, a major U.S. ally in the region, has taken an increasingly active role in criticizing the Islamic State group. Earlier this month, the country's top cleric described the Islamic State group and al-Qaida as Islam's No. 1 enemy and said that Muslims have been their first victims. State-backed Saudi clerics who once openly called on citizens to fight in Syria can now face steep punishment and the kingdom has threatened to imprison its citizens who fight in Syria and Iraq.
A decade ago, al-Qaida militants launched a string of attacks in the kingdom aimed at toppling the monarchy. Saudi officials responded with a massive crackdown that saw many flee to neighboring Yemen. In the time since, the kingdom has not seen any massive attacks, though it has imprisoned suspected militants and sentenced others to death
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its amazing how these people with so much money want others to fight their
battles for them.

We need the US to kill ISIS . They could threaten the regime here.

Meanwhile woman have not rights, cant even fucking drive, walk behind men, cant show anything but their face, people get persecuted for bullshit on the street,

really some sick fucks there.

meanwhile they are busy building the tallest skyscrapers in the world, And islands from sand poured in the oceans.

 

[THE KOD]

From: Bruce Levenson
To: Ferry, Danny
CC: Foreman, Todd (ucg.com); Peskowitz, Ed (ucg.com)
Sent: 8/25/2012 11:47:02 PM
Subject: Re: Business/Game ops

1. from day one i have been impressed with the friendliness and professionalism of the arena staff ? food vendors, ushers, ticket takers, etc. in our early years when i would bring folks from dc they were blown away by the contrast between abe pollin?s arena and philips. some of this is attributable to southern hospital and manners but bob and his staff do a good job of training. To this day, I can not get the ushers to call me Bruce yet they insist on me calling them by their first names.

2. the non-premium area food is better than most arenas, though that is not saying much. i think there is room for improvement and creativity. Levy is our food vendor so we don?t have much control but they have been good partners. i have wished we had some inconic offereing like boog?s barbeque at the baseball stadium in balt.

3. our new restaurant, red, just opened so too early for me to give you my thoughts.

4. Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the team, i didn?t much focus on game ops. then one day a light bulb went off. when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can?t get 35-55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league. when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:
? it?s 70 pct black
? the cheerleaders are black
? the music is hip hop
? at the bars it?s 90 pct black
? there are few fathers and sons at the games
? we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.
Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.
Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba?s urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.
My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don?t know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.
I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don?t care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that?s our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.
Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.
This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low.
And many of our black fans don?t have the spendable income which explains why our f&b and merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all).
Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks and sounds empty when the team takes the floor.
In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than any in the league.
We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense. people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard ?$2 off on hot dogs during halftime tonight? just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and make the fans happier.
We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players.
Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not great. Even when we have just returned from winnng four straight on the road, i am one of the few people in the arena standing and cheering when our team takes the floor. Bob has kicked around ideas like having the starters coming down aisles rather than off the bench during intros. Sounds cool but may highlight all the empty seats at the start of games.
Not enough of our fans wear hawks jerseys to games. i have just begun to push for ideas like discount food lines for folks wearing jerseys, special entrances, etc. I think we need a committed and perhaps incentivized fan club. We need to realize atl is simply different than every other city. Just adopting nba best practices is not enough. we have to create our own.
I am rambling and could probably go on forever. If you have any specific areas you would like my thoughts on, let me know.
Best,
Bruce
ps ? I have cc?d todd and ed so they can chime in with additional or different thoughts.
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he wrapped this up about Atl downtown teams

another one bites the dust

 

[THE KOD]

WASHINGTON -- The United States needs to rev up the war in Iraq, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Republicans Tuesday on Capitol Hill -- and most lawmakers seemed to agree with the man perhaps best known as a lead architect of America's ill-fated 2003 intervention there.

Cheney met with the House GOP a day before President Barack Obama is set to address the nation on the threat posed by the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS. Republican lawmakers trickling out of the meeting said Cheney warned that American security is jeopardized around the world and it's time to act.

Obama has been saying for the past year that "we're going to bring all the troops home, and that we're going to basically be out of Iraq and Afghanistan," said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). "Now the president's basically saying, one way or the other, we're going back into Iraq. Dick Cheney was here to support that."


Asked if he saw any irony in Cheney coming to talk to Republicans about next steps in Iraq, King said firmly, "No, because most of us think we did the right thing in Iraq."

Although a growing number of Republicans have expressed doubts in recent years over the United States' aggressive foreign policy actions, and some have criticized Obama for launching military strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq over the past couple of months, they were apparently silent in the meeting with Cheney.

"Really [there was] no controversy over the comments that were made," said Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.). "No one challenged the vice president. I think that his analysis and the information he shared was accepted as pretty accurate."

Cheney's remarks might have sounded familiar to most peoplee
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neo cons love to beat the war drums

how could they even let Cheney in the building. how pathetic to listen to this guy
about another war , bombs, and trillions more down the drains of America

 

[Skipper]

Time for Cheney to fade away

 

[THE KOD]

NEWS MIDDLE EAST
Fate of ?critically wounded? ISIS chief unclear

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, pictured here in a mosque in July 2014 in Mosul, has reportedly been critically injured. (
Saturday, 8 November 2014

The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was ?critically wounded? when a U.S.-led air strike targeted the western Iraqi border town of al-Qaim, tribal sources told Al Arabiya News Channel on Saturday.

U.S. Central Command confirmed in a statement that U.S.-led air strikes targeted ISIS leaders near their northern Iraqi hub of Mosul late Friday, without confirming whether Baghdadi was killed, AFP reported.

?This strike demonstrates the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL [ISIS] terrorist network and the group's increasingly limited freedom to maneuver, communicate and command," U.S. Central Command said.

Anbar province MP Mohammad al-Karbuli told Al Arabiya News Channel that coalition aircraft had targeted a gathering of ISIS leaders in al-Qaim that led to the killing of tens of people and wounded many more.

Karbuli said chaos ensued the air raid with ISIS members scrambling to transport their wounded to al-Qaim hospital which was overwhelmed with the number of patients.

Reuters news agency quoted two witnesses as saying an air strike targeted a house where senior ISIS officers were meeting, near al-Qaim.

The witnesses said ISIS fighters had cleared a hospital so that their wounded could be treated. ISIS fighters used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood, the witnesses said.

The agency also quoted residents as saying there were unconfirmed reports that ISIS? local leader in the western Iraqi province of Anbar and his deputy were killed.
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All I can say is ..............


Alllah Akbar !

 

[THE KOD]

...........


and lets not forget the two caps to the brain for Bin Laden



what a great President


What a great man


:00hour:00hour

 

[THE KOD]

The witnesses said ISIS fighters had cleared a hospital so that their wounded could be treated. ISIS fighters used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood, the witnesses said.

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why didnt they just use all the American blood they would spill the fucking camel jockeys

 

[THE KOD]

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. economy grew even faster in the third quarter than initially thought, posting the strongest six months of growth in more than a decade and pulling further ahead of other big economies of the world.

The gross domestic product, the country's total output of goods and services, expanded at a healthy 3.9 percent annual rate in the July-September period, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. That's a notable jump from its first estimate of 3.5 percent. The revision was propelled higher by more robust consumer and business spending.


Together with a 4.6 percent surge in the spring, the country has recorded its biggest back-to-back quarterly performance since 2003.

"The question of whether the economy is accelerating or will accelerate is no longer a question; we can say somewhat definitively that the economy has already accelerated," said Dan Greenhaus, chief strategist at BTIG, in a research note.

In contrast, other advanced economies are struggling.

The eurozone economy barely grew in the third quarter, and inflation is a mere 0.4 percent, raising concerns of deflation. Japan unexpectedly found itself back in recession in the July-September period. And momentum in emerging economies like China and Brazil is also shaky.

Tuesday's data further pushes the world's biggest economy "onto a different page than Europe and Japan," said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Fueling third-quarter growth was consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. That climbed at a 2.2 percent rate in the three-month period, an improvement from an initial estimate of 1.8 percent. Business investment in equipment shot up at a 10.7 percent rate, revised up from 7.2 percent.
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:00hour:00hour

 

[THE KOD]

...........

 

[ssd]

If you believe the 3rd quarter GDP #'s, you are a bigger idiot than I previously thought.

 

[THE KOD]

The Labor Department reported on Friday that employers added 321,000 jobs in November, a much stronger number than economists had predicted and the 10th consecutive month of net job gains above 200,000.

Even more significant was that the improving job market finally delivered a sharp jump in average hourly earnings for ordinary workers that was double the anticipated 0.2 percent increase.

The jobless rate itself stayed at 5.8 percent.

The pickup in wage growth comes as gasoline prices are plunging, providing a double boon for consumers and retailers with the holiday shopping season underway.


With one month still to go, the total increase in payrolls of 2.65 million is already the best annual figure since the late 1990s.

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wow great job Obama :0008