‘Study puts total price tag for Iraq, Afghanistan wars at more than $4 trillion’

‘The final cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be between $4 and $6 trillion — and most of those costs have yet to be paid, according to a new study out of Harvard University’.

‘The study says that the United States has already spent nearly $2 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that bill is only “a fraction” of the total war costs, Bilmes wrote’.

“The single largest accrued liability of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to war veterans,” she said. “Historically, the bill for these costs has come due many decades later.”
From : http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/operations/290981-study-iraq-afghanistan-wars-will-cost-more-than-4t

 

One Man’s Trash – ‘Fox Interviews Man Who Showed Up At Gun Safety Rally With Loaded Assault Rifle — Doesn’t Mention Or Show Gun’

The ‘We report – You decide’ network. Just don’t question what they report…..You might start thinking for yourself.

And FOX only wants you to decide they are right.

All ‘news’ agencies slant their reporting. ‘News’ is for profit so they are playing to a selected market.

But this is the purest example of selective editing to play to your market and how you want that market to ‘decide’ FOX is right.

‘On Thursday, several men with assault rifles and hand guns crashed a Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns National Day to Demand Action event in Indianapolis, Indiana and stood silently as the state chapter of Moms Demand Action held a rally in favor of limiting the availability of military style weapons and universal background checks’.

‘WTHR, the local NBC affiliate, covered the story extensively, featuring an interview with one of the armed men and footage of a heated exchange between gun safety advocates and gun proponents. “To me, it’s normal,” one of the men told WTHR, before admitting that he was carrying a loaded weapon. “Any weapon that’s not loaded is just a rock or a club,” he said’.

‘But surprisingly, Indianapolis’ Fox affiliate, WXIN, omitted any mention of the loaded firearms, focusing instead on the demands of the gun advocates. The station even spoke to one of the men carrying a weapon but framed the shot from the neck up so as to avoid showing the gun dangling from his chest’.

‘Watch the two stories’:

FOX –

And NBC –

From : http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/03/29/1794121/fox-interviews-man-who-showed-up-at-gun-safety-rally-with-loaded-assault-rifle-doesnt-mention-or-show-gun/?mobile=nc

But it’s NOT Republican Obstructionism – ‘GOP seeks to curb early voting’

“I think Sundays just should be – some things you just shouldn’t do on Sundays, so I am just opposed to voting on Sunday,” Starnes said’.

Think about that.

This Republican thinks you just shouldn’t vote on Sunday.

So America is only open 6 days a week.

Raleigh, N.C. — ‘Two bills filed by Republican lawmakers seek to cut back early voting and eliminate same-day registration in North Carolina’.

‘Senate Bill 428, filed by Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, would cut the early voting period from two weeks to one and would eliminate same-day voter registration’.

‘House Bill 451, filed by Rep. Edgar Starnes, R-Caldwell, goes even further. In addition to cutting early voting and same-day registration, it would also outlaw early voting on Sunday and straight-ticket voting’.

“I just think that we will put some balance into the election process,” Starnes said’.

‘Democrats say such bills are intended to make it harder to vote and will disproportionately affect low-income, working and minority voters – groups that traditionally favor Democrats’.

‘The Sunday ban, in particular, would affect popular “Souls to the Polls” voting drives at African-American churches’.

From : http://www.wral.com/gop-seeks-to-curb-early-voting/12280309/

What is wrong with the Republican Party – Sarah ‘Pay Attention To Me’ Palin – ‘Palin’s SarahPAC Embarrassment: Consultants Are Cashing In’

“Seen through the lens of the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics, Palin’s PAC spent $5.1 million in the last election cycle (more than it raised in that time period, raising some questions about Palin’s claims of fiscal responsibility). But the real news comes when you look at how donors’ money was actually doled out: just $298,500 to candidates. The bulk of the rest of it, more than $4.8 million, went to–you guessed it–consultants.”
From : http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/03/29/consultants_cash_in_on_palin.html

Lies, Damn Lies and the Republican Lies – ‘John Boehner Quote Of Lincoln Edits Out Lincoln’s Call For Higher Taxes’

‘House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) quotes Abraham Lincoln in a memo released Thursday as warning of debt, but ignores the former president’s call for a tax or tariff’.

Speaker Boehner :

“The book Congressman Lincoln by Chris DeRose, which I recently read, includes a chapter focused on Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to help craft a new national agenda”.

“At one point in the book, young Lincoln warns that government debt is “growing with a rapidity fearful to contemplate.”

“[Government debt] is a system not only ruinous while it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us destitute,” Lincoln warns his countrymen in Congressman Lincoln. “An individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from –- so must it be with a government.”

“Lincoln’s words ring true today, perhaps to a degree greater than ever before”.

‘Lincoln, however, while warning of debt, also said that the debt had been created by the unwillingness to consider new revenue’.

“By this means a new national debt has been created, and is still growing on us with a rapidity fearful to contemplate — a rapidity only reasonably to be expected in time of war. This state of things has been produced by a prevailing unwillingness either to increase the tariff or resort to direct taxation. But the one or the other must come,” Lincoln wrote in the Whig Circular in 1843′.
From : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/28/john-boehner-lincoln_n_2972725.html

Why it’s called the ‘Stupid Party’ – ‘McCrory eliminates Latino outreach office’

WASHINGTON – ‘North Carolina’s Latino advocates are voicing alarm following the governor’s decision to eliminate the state’s office for Latino affairs’.

‘The closing of the Office of Hispanic/Latino affairs was sudden and caught many by surprise. The move appears to have exacerbated the already tense relationship between Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the Latino community, including criticism over a driver’s license plan for young immigrants’.

‘Advocates say it sends a message that McCrory and Raleigh conservatives are less concerned with the needs of the Latino community’.

‘Paradoxically, it comes at a time when issues of deep concern, such as immigration, are at the political forefront’.

‘But the relationship began to sour as McCrory took a more aggressive approach with illegal immigrants in the years leading up to his gubernatorial bid’.

‘In 2006, he criticized the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s practice of not asking crime victims their legal status’.

‘In his unsuccessful 2008 bid for governor, he opposed allowing illegal immigrants to attend community colleges’.

‘And he promised to expand a federal program that allows local law enforcement agencies to detain illegal immigrants and begin deportation’.

‘In his 2012 campaign, McCrory didn’t emphasize the issue, saying in a debate that he didn’t think any state measures were needed to address illegal immigration’.
From : http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/03/29/3946743/mccrory-eliminates-latino-outreach.html