Look Closely In The Ranks Of Rank-In-File Democrats And You Will Find Madame DeFarge

Music to read by:

I drive by the homeless
sleepin' on a cold dark street
like bodies in an open grave
Underneath the broken old neon sign
that used to read "Jesus Saves"

A mile away live the rich folk
and I see how they're living it up
While the poor they eat
from hand to mouth
The rich is drinkin'
from a golden cup
And it just makes me wonder
why so many lose
and so few win, hey

"If they do not have bread, let them eat arugula, lobster, and Wagyu beef!"

By Alex Pappas

It cost taxpayers nearly a half-million dollars for first lady Michelle Obama to travel to Spain in 2010, according to an analysis by Judicial Watch.

The right-leaning watchdog group estimated that the trip cost $467,585. It based its analysis on documents obtained from the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Air Force.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said it took his group “two years and a lawsuit to get these documents out of the Obama administration.”

“It is hypocritical for President Obama to fire GSA officials for wasteful conference spending, while his family went on a luxury vacation in the Costa del Sol Spain that cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars,” Fitton said.

Among the various travel costs, the group estimated — using the Defense Department’s 2010 published hourly rates — that it cost the government $199,323 to fly to Spain and back to the United States.

The New York Times reported that those on the trip included the first lady, one of her daughters and  “two friends and four of their daughters, as well as a couple of aides and a couple of advance staff members.”

Fitton’s group has previously disclosed the cost of sending the first family on overseas trips. Its analysis indicated that it cost $424,142 to fly the first family to South Africa and Botswana in 2011.

By Paul Bedard

Blue collar Democratic voters, stuck taking depressing “staycations” because they can’t afford gas and hotels, are resentful of the first family’s 17 lavish vacations around the world and don’t want their tax dollars paying for the Obamas’ holidays, according to a new analysis of swing voters.

“They view everything through their own personal situation and if they can’t afford to do it, they can’t enjoy it, they don’t like Obama using their tax dollars to benefit himself,” said pollster John McLaughlin. “In this case, they see him as out of touch. While they are struggling he’s not sharing in that struggle and he’s basically doing what they can’t do on their tax dollars,” added the GOP pollster.

He and several other top-tier Republican pollsters, organized by Resurgent Republic, traveled to 11 battleground states to host focus groups of independent and swing voters, mostly Democrats, who voted for President Obama in 2008 but who are now on the fence.

McLaughlin handled blue collar and Catholic voters in Pittsburgh on April 3 and Cleveland on March 20. He found that they are very depressed about the economy and feel that their tax dollars are being sucked up by both the rich and those living on government assistance.

During the focus group discussions about debt and spending cuts, many in his group volunteered criticism of the presidential vacations as something that should be cut. Among the lines McLaughlin wrote down was one from a Democratic woman who said, “Michelle Obama spends $1 million to take the kids to Hawaii,” and another who said, “President Obama was the only president to take so many trips.”

The theme, said McLaughlin, is that the first family “is out of touch” with working class voters.

He added that the president’s attack on the rich and GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney’s wealth is working, but the voters were also lumping in the president’s vacation spending in with the General Services Administration’s Las Vegas scandal and federal spending for those who aren’t looking for work.

“There really wasn’t a real dislike for Romney. It was just that he is too rich. But on the other hand there is a start of resentment of the government,” he said. “What surprised me is that these were Democrats back biting on their own president,” added McLaughlin."

"So I tell people, 'DON'T CRY FOR ME.'"

- Michelle Obama, Zanesville, Ohio, February 2008

 “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth……because one does not eat dog with a spoon. It would have been simply gauche.”
 
- President Barack H. Obama, April 2012

“Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.”

- Senator Barack Obama, 2007

“You’re getting $600 – what can you do with that?  Not to be ungrateful or anything, but maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month. The short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good, and it may even feel good that first month when you get that check, and then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings.”

- Michelle Obama, July 2008 

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Don't Cry For Us, America!
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Tales From The War On Women

 

Something To Believe In lyrics

Well I see him on the TV
preachin' bout the promise land
He tells me to believe in Jesus
and steals the money from my hand
Some say he was a good man
but Lord I think he sinned, yeah

22 years of mental tears
cries a suicidal Vietnam vet
Who fought a losing war
on a foreign shore
to find his country
didn't want him back

Their bullets took his
best friend in Saigon
Our lawyers took his wife
his kids, no regrets
In a time I don't remember
In a war he can't forget

He cries "Forgive me for
what I've done there
Cause I never meant
the things I did"

(chorus)

And give me something to believe in
if there's a Lord above
And give me something to believe in
Oh, Lord arise

Our best friend died a lonely man
In some Palm Springs hotel room
I got the call last Christmas Eve
And they told me the news

I tried all night not
to break down and cry
as the tears rolled down my face
I felt so cold and empty
like a lost soul out of place
And the mirror, mirror on the wall
sees my smile it fades again

Sometimes I wish to God
I didn't know now
The things I didn't know then

Road you gotta take me home

I drive by the homeless
sleepin' on a cold dark street
like bodies in and open grave
Underneath the broken old neon sign
that used to read "Jesus Saves"

A mile away live the rich folk
and I see how they're living it up
While the poor they eat
from hand to mouth
The rich is drinkin'
from a golden cup
And it just makes me wonder
why so many lose
and so few win, hey

(Sung simultaneously with chorus)
You take the high road
and I'll take the low road
You take the high road
and I'll take the low road

Sometime I wish to God
I didn't know now
the things I didn't know then

And give me something to believe in
yeah yeah