BLACK FRIDAY/WEEKEND SALES WAY UP, BUT WILL IT LAST???

ONLINE SALES FOR BLACK FRIDAY WERE UP 26%.

AND TOTAL SALES FOR THE 3.5 DAY WEEKEND WERE UP TOO - BUT IT MIGHT NOT PORTEND A GOOD SEASON:

Spurred by aggressive promotions from retailers, American consumers opened their wallets over the holiday weekend in a way they had not since before the recession, setting records in sales and traffic.

The National Retail Federation said Sunday that spending per shopper surged 9.1 percent over last year — the biggest increase since 2006 — to an average of almost $400 a customer. In all, 6.6 percent more shoppers visited stores on the Thanksgiving weekend than last year.

“American consumers have been taking a deep breath and making a decision that it’s O.K. to go shopping again,” despite the high unemployment rate and other signs of caution, said Ellen Davis, vice president at the National Retail Federation.

Numbers from ShopperTrak, a consumer research service, showed equally strong results, with in-store sales on Friday rising by 6.6 percent over last year’s Thanksgiving Friday to $11.4 billion.

Yet there were signs the gains might not last. Analysts said that traffic to stores seemed to slow through the weekend, suggesting that the big start to the holiday season might peter out over time.

RETAILERS WERE AGGRESSIVELY AND COMPETITIVELY GOING AFTER THE CONSUMER AND DID SO WITH MORE SALES AND MORE SELLING TIME.

CONSUMERS MIGHT NOT HAVE MORE TO SPEND; THEY MIGHT'VE JUST BEEN TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE EARLY SALES.

IN THE OLD DAYS, THE LAST-MINUTE SHOPPERS GOT THE SALES.

NOW, THE BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPER GETS THEM - AND THIS FRONT-LOAD THE RETAIL NUMBERS.

TO DEFEAT THE LEFT WE HAVE TO DEMOLISH THE LEGACY MEDIA AND THE TEACHERS UNIONS

LEFTISM WILL ONLY LAST AS LONG S LEFTIST PROPAGANDISTS HAVE PREFERRED ACCESS TO OUR NATION'S YOUNG MINDS IN SCHOOLS AND TV.

THE FIRST STEP IN DEPROGRAMMING PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN BRAINWASHED BY THE LEGACY MEDIA AND THE TEACHER'S UNIONS IS TO GET THEM TO USE ALTERNATE NEW MEDIA AND TO ACCEPT THAT TEACHERS AND TEACHERS UNIONS ARE NOT TEACHING THEIR KIDS TO BE CRITICAL THINKERS, BUT ARE INDOCTRINATING THEM - AND AT A HUGE COST.

WHEN THE KIDS ARE DEPROGRAMMED, THEY VOLUNTARILY WILL TUNE OUT THE LEGACY MEDIA. AND WITH FEWER VIEWERS THY WILL WITHER CHANGE THEIR PROGRAMMING OR GO UNDER.

WE NEED TO ELECT CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS AND A NEW POTUS WHO WILL PROMOTE SCHOOL VOUCHERS, END TENURE AT ALL SCHOOLS AT EVERY LEVEL AND GET PENSIONS AND HEALTHCARE GIVE-BACKS FROM THE TEACHERS UNIONS - AND OTHER GOVERNMENT UNIONS.

OBAMA'S LOSING 2012 PLATFORM: CLASS WARFARE; REDISTRIBUTIONISM; AND LIMP UNICORNS

DESPITE THE UTOPIANIST DREAMS AND RHETORIC of 2008 ...

OBAMA'S CHIEF LEGACY WILL BE TWO-FOLD:

• A GREATLY ENLARGED CALIPHATE THAT EXPANDED TO INCLUDE ALL OF NORTH AFRICA AND EXTENDED TO PAKISTAN

• AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE US ECONOMY AND FEDERAL DEBT

THANK G-D THE MAJORITY AMERICAN PUBLIC REJECTS OBAMA'S CHIEF ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND THAT'S WHY HE IS HEADED FOR DEFEAT IN 2012!

EGYPT COULD DEPLOY ITS ARMY IN SINAI AND RETURN TO WAR WITH ISRAEL

MK Aryeh Eldad has warned that Israel will have to be ready if Egypt declares war post-election:

MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) warned Sunday that Israel must prepare for the possibility that Egypt will deploy its military in the Sinai peninsula – and respond to that act as a declaration of war.

Eldad, who is a member of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, said Israel "must prepare for the annulment" of the treaty, or its abrogation without a formal annulment.

Israel could face a situation in which "the Sinai will no longer be just a place for storing arms and training, and military forces beyond what was agreed upon in the peace treaty will enter it," he said. "World public opinion should be prepared for the fact that this would be a casus belli," he said.

If the Muslim Brotherhood wins the election, it's definitely possible that Israel will have to be ready to deal with them.

POSTER: DEPICTING DEMOCRAT DECAY

THE DESCENT INTO MADNESS:


FROM HAWKS AND DONKEYS TO JACKASSES AND UNICORNS.

EXPOSING THE LEFT'S LATEST BIG LIE ABOUT WALL STREET BANKS

THE LEFT WOULD LIKE FOLKS TO BELIEVE THAT THE WALL STREET BIGGIES GOT BAILED OUT BY TARP AND HAVE LEFT THE TAXPAYER HOLDING THE BAG.

NOT TRUE:

ACCORDING TO THE US TREASURY AND THE SIGTARP, THE BIG WALL STREET BANKS HAVE ALL REPAID THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT - WITH INTEREST, AND THE ONLY OUTSTANDING TARP FUNDS OWED THE TAXPAYER ARE OWED BY SMALLER BANKS AND BY GM AND GMAC AND FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC.

THE OCCUPY WALL STREET SCUM OUGHT TO BE HASSLING THEM, AND NOT ER, UM... WALL STREET.

TODAY'S GUARANTEED NOT PHOTOSHOPPED: MR. AND MRS. OBAMA

GQ DISSES OBAMA

From NewsBusters:

President Barack Obama and MSNBC's Ed Schultz have been named to GQ magazine's annual list of "The 25 Least Influential People Alive."

[...]

...Obama came in 25th....

The December issue of GQ will hit the newsstands soon, so let's see if the rating makes it to the final hard copy.

In any case, this dissing is a huge contrast from this November 2008 and even November 2010.

On to 2012! May enough voters diss Obama at the ballot box to put an end to this sorry administration!

EFFORT TO GET A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE FOR POTUS GAINS MOMENTUM

The restless political middle — emboldened by the recent inability of a special congressional committee to agree on a debt-reduction deal — is staking out a controversial plan to insert itself into the 2012 election.

A bipartisan group of political strategists and donors known as Americans Elect has raised $22 million and is likely to place a third presidential candidate on the ballot in every state next year.

The goal is to provide an alternative to President Obama and the GOP nominee and break the tradition of a Democrat-vs.-Republican lineup.
The effort could represent a promising new chapter for political moderates, who see a wide-open middle in the political landscape as congressional gridlock and bitter partisan fights have driven down favorability ratings for both parties.

“Voters are saddened by the inability of people in Washington to deal with the issues that are important to them,” said the group’s chief executive, Kahlil Byrd, a Republican strategist who once worked for Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D).

Americans Elect has ballot slots in Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio and five other states, with certification pending in several others.

The group is relying on an ambitious plan to hold a political convention on the Internet that would treat registered voters like fans of “American Idol,” giving everyone a shot at picking a favorite candidate.

THIS IS A STEALTH EFFORT TO RE-ELECT OBAMA BY TAKING VOTES AWAY FROM THE GOP IN KEY STATES.

WHY ELSE START THE EFFORT BEFORE THE GOP NOMINEE IS EVEN SELECTED?!

NO DOUBT IT IS REALLY FINANCED BY SOROS AND THE CHICAGO MACHINE SCUM.

I HAVE POSTED NUMEROUS TIMES THAT EVER SINCE THE NY CD 26 ELECTION - WHICH WAS WON BY A DEM IN A 3-WAY RACE - THAT THE LEFT HAD REALIZED THAT THIS WAS THE ONLY WAY TO RE-ELECT OBAMA.

STAY TUNED...

41% OF MEXICAN STUDENTS IN NYC FAIL TO GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL

In the past two decades, the Mexican population in New York City has grown more than fivefold, with immigrants settling across the five boroughs. Many adults have demonstrated remarkable success at finding work, filling restaurant kitchens and construction sites, and opening hundreds of businesses.

But their children, in one crucial respect, have fared far differently.

About 41 percent of all Mexicans between ages 16 and 19 in the city have dropped out of school, according to census data.

THIS IS IMMIGRATION WITHOUT ASSIMILATION AND IT IS DESTROYING THE FABRIC OF OUR SOCIETY AND DUMBING DOWN OUR CULTURE.

WE HAVE TO END SANCTUARY CITIES AND END ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND WE HAVE TO DEMAND IMMIGRANTS ASSIMILATE.

The Death of the Individual

A very important essay from David Solway at PJM:

The displacement of the “individual” as a primary category of social and political thought — a distinctly observable trend in the contemporary West — is an infallible sign of civilizational despair.

The nexus of causes and factors accounting for this undeniable phenomenon has been analyzed in many different ways and from many different perspectives: the draining of confidence in the “Western enterprise” after two world wars and the devastation of the generations; the natural tendency of a successful civilization to grow tired and lazy in the course of aeonian time, as Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee argued in their major works; the loss of religious conviction and its attendant moral armature, leading to rootless insecurity and lack of transcendent purpose; the attenuation of historical memory — what I have elsewhere called the chronosectomy — owing to a dumbed-down education paradigm and the consequent onset of a present-oriented hedonism.

Perhaps all of these factors are coterminous and work together against the sense of individual responsibility for self, family, and nation. But whatever may explain our predicament, there can be little doubt that, despite all our technical advances, we are experiencing something like the advent of a new Dark Age.

Erich Fromm has furnished the definitive study of the process of self-abdication in his Escape from Freedom, which convincingly accounts for the dynamic of moral and individual surrender to the collective mind. According to Fromm, the identification with authoritarianism is a “mechanism of escape” from a feeling of personal insecurity and weakness. The “severed” personality attempts to overcome so crippling a condition by choosing to “give up his freedom” as a way of “eliminating the gap” between his individual self and the world he cannot come to terms with or enter as a productive participant.

The lamentable result is “the more or less complete surrender of individuality and the integrity of the self.” And the choice is paid for “by a kind of life that often consists only of automatic or compulsive activities,” another way of describing the totalitarian nightmare.

Fromm focuses on the psychology of Nazism to better clarify the structure of the totalitarian personality. It is typified by a deep intuition of lack, of insignificance and deficiency. Two of the factors that tend to predominate are a slavish admiration of power and the accusation of the Jews as a “race” that desires mastery over others. The contradiction is rarely noticed: power is to be sought as a good on the one hand, condemned as an evil on the other.

 RTWT.

AMERICAN-EGYPTIAN WRITER SEXUALLY ASSAULTED BY EGYPTIAN POLICE

As the situation in Egypt continues to deteriorate, women continue to find it an extremely dangerous place to go. Here's the latest victim:

CAIRO (AP) — A prominent Egyptian-born U.S. columnist says she was sexually assaulted, beaten and blindfolded during a 12-hour detention by police.

Mona Eltahawy posted on Twitter Thursday that she was arrested near Egypt's Interior Ministry around Tahrir Square, where clashes between protesters and police have raged since Saturday. After her release, she posted pictures of both her arms in casts.

She says she was sexually assaulted by regular police, surrounded by half a dozen who "groped, prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area," while others tried to get their hands in her pants.

She says she was later handed over to military police, who kept her blindfolded for two hours. She was released with an apology and a promise of an investigation.

Which is virtually guaranteed never to take place. Even under Mubarak, it's unlikely any justice would ever have been found in a horrific case like this.

THE PILGRIMS: OCCUPY AMERICA 1620

They escaped persecution.

Crossing a dangerous ocean in tiny vessels - risking their lives.

They landed in an unknown land and had to fend for themselves.

They had to organize themselves and raise their own food and build their own shelters.

The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of their determination and self-reliance.

And what they began became the greatest nation and greatest economy in the history of the world.

If the OWS scum had landed here in 1620, then they'd have ended up dead by the first Spring.

FORMER MOSSAD CHIEF: A NUCLEAR IRAN IS WORSE THAN A WAR WITH A NON-NUCLEAR IRAN

The outcome of a strike on Iran's nuclear sites, no matter how destructive, can never be as bad for Israel as an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, former Mossad chief Danny Yatom said on Wednesday at a security conference at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

Yatom took up a position that is diametrically opposed to that of former Mossad head Meir Dagan, who sparked significant controversy by stating earlier this year that an attack on Iran would be a foolish move that would lead to a war with an unknown outcome.

THIS IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE FACT THAT ADVICE DOESN'T COME IN BOXES MARKED "GOOD ADVICE" AND "BAD ADVICE".

THIS IS WHY NATIONS NEED PRINCIPLED LEADERS WITH DEEP VALUES AND COURAGE TO MAKE THE BEST POSSIBLE DECISIONS.

DECISIONS LIKE THIS ONE - WHETHER OR NOT TO ATTACK IRAN PREEMPTIVELY, AND WHEN TO DO IT - ARE NOT IQ TESTS.

THEY ARE MORAL TESTS.

AND THIS IS WHY I PREFER A PRESIDENT TO HAVE DEEP MORAL CONVICTIONS BASED ON SOLID TRADITIONAL AMERICAN AND JUDEO-CHRISTIAN VALUES THAN AN IVY LEAGUE DEGREE.

BIBI HAS THESE VALUES AND PRINCIPLES.

OBAMA DOESN'T.

AND THIS IS WHY ISRAEL CANNOT TRUST THE USA ON THIS ISSUE AND SHOULD ATTACK AS SOON AS IT DEEMS NECESSARY.

SHOULD THE USA LEAD OR JOIN THE ATTACK, THEN I WILL COMMEND OBAMA FOR IT - THOUGH I SUSPECT THAT IF HE DOES ATTACK IRAN IT WOULD BE TO SAVE HIS REELECTION CAMPAIGN.

SIGH.

RON PAUL WOULDN'T AID ISRAEL IN RAID ON IRAN

Why thank you, Herr Doktor, we'd be much better off without your so-called help. Here's what the demagogue had to say in the latest GOP debate, and it's this particular line that's telling:

Paul stated that if Israel wanted to attack Iran “that’s their business, but they should suffer the consequences.” He added that Israel has hundreds of nuclear missiles and thus, “can take care of themselves.”

So does that mean that he'd impose sanctions and other horrid stuff like that upon Israel that he wouldn't use on Iran? And what nuclear missiles does Israel actually have? Not sure I follow him there.

Of course Israel shouldn't be asking for American financial aid, if anything, since we shouldn't be reliant just on foreign aid. But that aside, Paul has once again left a bad aftertaste in his wake and set a most terrible example for his cult-like followers.

Breitbart has a roundup of videos highlighting some of the horrific moonbat's most disturbing declarations at the debate, which include attacking the Patriot Act, claiming that "US meddling" led to al Qaeda's attacks, and even calling for stopping the war on drugs! The latter is all you need to know that his domestic policy outlook is just as unreliable as for foreign.

JIHADISTS INDICTED FOR MURDER OF PALMER FATHER AND SON

Some jihadists were arrested for their leading to the death of a father and son, and are now being indicted:

An indictment for murder was filed Sunday against members of a terrorist gang who threw a large stone into the windshield of 25 year old Asher Palmer's car as they drove past him on the road in the opposite direction.

The stone smashed through the windshield and struck Palmer in the face, causing him to lose control of his vehicle and roll off the road. Both Palmer and his infant son, Yonatan, were killed.

According to the indictment, those facing charges are members of a band of terrorists who have carried out a long list of such attacks in the region. The remand for the accused was extended until the end of their trial.

More charges are pending for the terrorist cell for similar attacks on other Israeli vehicles, whose results were - blessedly - less severe. At least 18 Israeli drivers reported similar attacks in the month following Palmer's death alone.

Also indicted was a member of the terror gang who looted Palmer's body and stole his weapon following the attack.

The indictment is seen as something of a victory by residents in Judea and Samaria, as immediately after the attack that killed Palmer and his son, police told local residents and reporters that the deaths were the result of 'driver error'. They said they were treating the incident as a 'traffic accident.'

The police owe an apology for attempting to cover up a heinous crime. As for the terrorists themselves, they should be locked away in solitary and not allowed to see the outside world ever again for their savagery.

OBAMACARE DEATH PANELS ARE REAL

AUDIO.

UH-OH: GERMAN BOND AUCTION FAILS TO SELLOUT

THIS IS HORRIBLE NEWS: German bond auction ‘nothing short of a disaster’

LEFT-WING DOMINATED LOWER HOUSE OF OZ PARLIAMENT CONTINUES ECONOMIC SUICIDE

THE OZ LEFT WANTS TO SLAP A 30% TAX ON THEIR COAL MINING COMPANIES.

THIS IS BASED ON THE LEFT'S 2 FAVORITE CAUSES: GOVERNMENT DIRECTED REDISTRIBUTIONISM AND CO2PHOBIA.

THEY'RE IDIOTS - ON BOTH COUNTS. IF THE LAW PASSES THEY WILL CAUSE AN ECONOMIC DISASTER.

UH-OH: CHINA'S MANUFACTURING SEGMENT IS CRASHING TOO!

WITH MANUFACTURING HEADED FOR THE DUMPS, THE CHINESE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF LEARNING 2 IMPORTANT LESSONS:

1. A CAPITALIST FREE-MARKET IS A NOT A PROFIT SYSTEM; IT'S A PROFIT AND LOSS SYSTEM.
2. AND SOCIALISM SUCKS.

EXCERPT:

The HSBC flash manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI), the earliest indicator of China's industrial activity, slumped in November to 48, a low not seen since March 2009.

MARCH 2009 WAS THE DEPTH OF THE CRASH ...

OBAMA: "I CANNOT TELL A LIE: IT'S STILL BUSHES FAULT!"

(SHAMELESSLY ADAPTED FROM THIS.)

SOLDIER ON THE FRONTLINES PROVES 60 IS THE NEW 30

AWESOME.