Indecision 2012 – Floridal Kombat

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina debates using patented dick fu against Mitt Romney, so Romney hits below the belt in Florida.

by Glynn Wilson

Consumer confidence in the United States continues to rise out of the doldrums of the Bush recession, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.

The confidence of Americans in an improving economy is up compared with December, according to Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index, and much improved over the highly negative readings of last fall and late summer, and over the levels found after the recession was announced in 2008 just before President George W. Bush left office.

“Weekly economic confidence remains at its highest level since last spring, showing steadier improvement from October through early January,” Gallup concludes in its analysis of public opinion in the U.S.

Most of the gains in the overall Economic Confidence Index since the summer have occurred in the outlook component, the percentage of Americans who believe the economy is improving minus those saying it is getting worse. Over the same period, consumer perceptions of current economic conditions (the percentage rating them “poor” subtracted from those rating them “excellent” or “good”) have improved by about half as much.

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Glynn Wilson

by Glynn Wilson

ANNISTON, Ala. — Several hundred union workers showed up at a “Save Our Jobs” rally here Monday night in the face of a threat by Republicans in Congress to claim reductions in the federal deficit by slashing up to 1,000 civilian jobs at the Anniston Army Depot. The American Federation of Government Employees and the Alabama AFL-CIO led the rally and are launching a campaign to get the public involved to try to save the jobs.

The Republican plan, which goes far beyond the deficit reduction proposal and military spending cuts put on the table by the Obama administration, could also result in a hiring freeze, furloughs for workers, pay freezes, a drop in the pay of the remainder of the depot’s 4,000 workers and an increase in employee contributions to their pension funds.

Everett Kelley, vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the union leadership are trying to figure out how to combat the “travesty” and the “disaster” such drastic layoffs would have on the community.

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The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

Disgraced former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who managed to get enough dingbat evangelical Christian Republicans to vote for him to win the South Carolina Primary, went down to Florida and launched the biggest moonbat idea of the 2012 presidential race so far: A Lunar colony that could petition to be the 51st state in the United States when it reaches 13,000 residents.

Don’t believe it? What planet have you been living on lately? It’s all over every news channel. Here are a couple of sample videos (science analysis below).

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The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1945 in the Anniston-Jacksonville area of Alabama says about 1,000 U.S. government workers are about to be laid off and their work assigned to contractors in other locations. So they are planning a “Save Our Jobs” rally for Monday, Jan. 30, at the Anniston Meeting Center Monday beginning at 5:30 p.m.

“Union member or not, we are in this fight together,” the union says in a press release announcing the event. “When one employee is cut the entire community is affected. With everyone’s help we can stop this attack on federal employees. We need to fight back and this meeting is the first step.”

Occupy Birmingham held a candle light vigil on Saturday, Jan. 7 at the Ward’s home in Center Point and about 50 people turned out (see video above). The city of Center Point is now reeling from the devastating affects of an F3 tornado that hit on the morning of Monday, Jan. 23, but the Ward home, just a couple of hundred feet from where the storm hit, was spared. Shortly after the vigil, Bank of America agreed to change the foreclosure sale date from the Jan. 26 to the March 29 and to consider a proposal for the Ward’s to obtain a new mortgage, according to Occupy Birmingham. If you want to help, you can sign an online petition here.

ANALYSIS
by Glynn Wilson

Massachusetts Mormon Mitt Romney released his tax returns on Monday, finally, showing he is a billionaire who only paid 13.9 percent in taxes on $42.5 million in income last year, all of it earned not from labor but from paper, interest on investments. At the same time, he was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in Florida making crazy, false statements to get media attention, saying America is in decline and blaming it on President Barack Obama, because he is “a failure.”

A look at the facts below shows otherwise.

Meanwhile, President Obama went on national television to make his annual State of the Union Address before Congress, and made a number of factual statements about the situation and his record. Here is our analysis of some key points.

The key quote?

“Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” the president said, and the facts show he is right on this, not the Republicans.

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ANALYSIS
by Glynn Wilson

Consumer confidence is on the rise in the United States, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject, as President Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union address to the nation on Tuesday night to deliver a strong economic message sympathetic to a middle class that feels squeezed by stagnant wages at a time of record corporate profits.

The President is expected to make the argument for higher taxes on the wealthy, to propose ways to make college more affordable, to offer new steps on tackling the housing crisis and outline ways to help bring back domestic manufacturing and expand hiring.

With unemployment on the way down and good news from the U.S. automobile industry and the retail sector after a successful holiday season, the general public perception is that the overall U.S. economy is getting better, according to Gallup.

“This seems like good news for the nation’s businesses as well as for U.S. economic confidence in the week ending Jan. 22, improved from the prior week and the best since the week ending May 22, 2011,” Gallup concludes in its analysis.

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