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Call it what you will, but I call it the ‘Obama Effect.’

During his SOTU address President Obama publicly recognized eBay, as he highlighted the strength of the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, less than 24 hours later the company announced it will be cutting 2,400 jobs.

Ouch! I really feel bad for those people.

John Donahoe, eBay’s president and CEO gave thousands to Obama’s 2012 campaign. He’s also donated more than $90,000 to other Democrats since 2006.

But all is okay — the company’s stock jumped more than four-percent after the announcement — so now he can give even more to the Democratic Party.

President Obama wants everyone to have two “free” years of junior college. In his recent “State of the Union,” address he laid out new tax packages that includes a $320 billion hike to help pay for this plan.

Under current law, 529-Plans work like Roth IRAs — you put money in, and the money grows tax-free for college. Distributions are tax-free provided they are to pay for college.

But here’s what Obama didn’t say in plain, understandable language…

Under the Obama plan, earnings from a 529-Plan will no longer be tax-free. Instead, earnings would be taxed upon withdrawal, even if the withdrawal is to pay for college.

In addition to taxing college savings plans, Obama is calling for a hike in capital gains taxes, an increase in the death tax, a bank tax and an increase in retirement plan taxes. Each of his proposals will affect the middle class either directly or somewhere down the road.

This is nothing more than a ‘redistribution of wealth’ plan as those who’ve been saving and planning ahead for college will foot the bill for those who didn’t.

A rededication ceremony of Galaxy Grove took place at the Wilbur D. May Arboretum and Botanical Garden inside Rancho San Rafael Regional Park.  In late 2013, thieves stole the original bronze plaque from the memorial.

Three decades after Reno’s worst aviation disaster, Washoe County unveiled a new memorial plaque in tribute to the victims of Galaxy Airlines Flight 203. The plane crashed January 21, 1985, minutes after taking off from what was then Reno-Cannon International Airport.

Of the 71 passengers and crew, only 17-year-old George Lamson Jr. survived. Most of the passengers were from Minnesota and had taken the charter flight for Super Bowl weekend.

The new plaque mistakenly names the stricken flight as ‘Galaxy 205.’

About 50 veterans protested a speaking engagement by Jane Fonda at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Maryland. Fonda drew the anger of many Americans when she visited North Vietnam in 1972, leading some to call her “Hanoi Jane.”

Fonda told the audience she made a “huge mistake” and it’s something that she’ll take to her grave.  Unfortunately, Fonda failed to make it clear whether she was sorry for supporting the Communists or for getting caught supporting the Communists.

Either way, she escaped punishment for ‘aiding and abetting the enemy,’ in my opinion.

Living in Nevada and having worked in the casinos in my younger years, I learned somebody who ‘encourages’ others to spend their hard-earned money, is a shill. Well, the U.S. met a professional shill during the President’s ‘State of the Union’ address.

The woman whose story of economic recovery Obama introduced during his latest SOTU is a former Democratic campaign staffer.  Rebekah Erler is a former Democratic campaign field organizer for Washington state’s Senator Patty Murray.

In fact, Erler’s been used by Obama for political events in the past. Last June, Obama spent a “day in the life” of Erler so he could have “an opportunity to communicate directly with the people he’s working for every day.”

What a fraud!

Authored by Texas Congressman Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, H.R. 399 (the Secure Our Borders First Act of 2015) is jus’ another ‘Trojan Horse,’ designed to make us thing the ‘new congress’ is doing something about border security. Why?

The bill requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to provide “a comprehensive operational plan” for gaining and maintaining control of “high traffic areas” within two-years, and “operational control along the southwest border” within five.  It also outsources congressional authority to a border commission, appointed in part by the president, to decide whether the border’s secure.

Although this bill does tighten up the trigger for implementation after the submission of a plan, it fails to eliminate base salaries for political appointees who fail to make and construct the enforcement measures while it blocks bonuses and travel on official government airplanes for those officials.  And it has only one clear deadline –18 months to build the required fencing and two-years to meet operational control over “high traffic areas.”

Finally, while bill has lots of technology to help secure the border, the only real construction is an additional 27 miles of the effective double-layered fence. Unfortunately, the bill weakens the 2006 law requiring the construction of a 700-mile double-layered fence.

Republican leaders recently passed a series of proposals to scale back several actions taken by President Obama, but beyond this, Congress on both sides of the aisle still plan to pass comprehensive immigration reform. In its strict definition, “reform” means to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses.

Yet don’t expect anything to ‘change’ or ‘improve,’ instead watch for more ‘faults’ and ‘abuses,’ to increase.

It was a difficult hour-and-a-half to sit through as I listened to the little man talking on the television. It was President Obama’s sixth “State of the Union” address, and like the five before he took credit for things he didn’t do.

“At this moment — with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry and booming energy production — we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth,” Obama said

The problem is — the economy still hasn’t recovered.

According to the Associated Press, lower-paying jobs are fueling job growth; part-time jobs also remain higher with 1.7 million fewer people holding down full-time jobs than when the recession began in December 2007.

“And the faster hiring hasn’t pushed up wages much,” the AP continues. “They have been growing at a tepid pace of about 2 percent a year since the recession ended 5 1/2 years ago. That’s barely ahead of inflation and below the annual pace of about 3.5 percent to 4 percent that is typical of a fully healthy economy.”

And their assessment only gets worse.

“That has left the income of the typical household below its pre-recession level. Inflation-adjusted median household income reached $53,880 in November 2014, according to an analysis of government data by Sentier Research,” they continue. “That is about 4 percent higher than when it bottomed out in 2011. But it is still 4.5 percent lower than the $56,447 median income in December 2007, the month the recession began.”

As for any credit took about “booming energy production,” you and I know that he’s done everything in his power to drive down both the oil and coal industries. Increases in oil production needs to be credited to ‘wild-caters’ fracking on private lands.

Obama also took a shot at supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline, saying, “Let’s set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let’s pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than 30 times as many jobs per year.”

Adding to his claims on increased energy production, Obama also spoke of ‘climate-change/global warming,’ warning of rising ocean levels, more intense heat waves, and perilous droughts and floods, vowing, “I will not let this Congress endanger that health of our children by turning back the clock on our efforts.”

There is so much more, but for now, I need a couple of aspirin — my head is about to explode.

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen is preparing for possible evacuation, after somebody fired on an embassy staff-car. Fortunately, there were no one injuries.

But…but…but…

In September 2014, President Obama cited Yemen as a positive example for counter terror planners around the globe.  That same month, radical Islamists overran the country’s capital, Sana’a after moving out of their northern Yemen stronghold.

The “Yemen Model” was first put in place before 2011’s Arab Spring, creating more chaos across the region and leaving the government paralyzed. The deal dictated redistribution of power among competing political parties.

Compared to Syria and Egypt, the relative ease of the transition in Yemen inspired glowing rhetoric from Obama. However his “Yemen Model” has been helpless to prevent al-Qaeda attacks despite being notified of their specifics days and weeks before.

Since then, radical Islamists associated with Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the leader of an anti-American Shia, have increased their attacks against the central government.  Then overnight, they took the country’s presidential palace.

President Abd Rabbuh Manṣūr Hadi was not at the palace, but another residence of his another part of the city, is also under attack. It’s unknown if he’s at that location.

Meanwhile, this evening Obama will speak, telling us how and way he wants to raise our taxes — but don’t expect him to mention “radical Islam,” or his failed “Yemen Model.”

It had been on display for nearly four-months. But now a U.S. Army recruiting station in Phoenix, Arizona, has been ordered by higher-ups to remove a sign on display outside of its office that read, “On a mission for both God and country.”

A spokesperson for the Army’s Recruiting Command said signboard was created by local staff and that headquarters would have never permitted it. The removal came a few hours after it was brought to the attention of a commanding officer.

According the DOD, there are 47 approved taglines in the Accessions Support Brigade catalog for recruiting posters. Some of them include ‘Army Strong,’ ‘Soldier’s Creed,’ ‘Warrior Ethos,’ and ‘It’s Not For Everyone.’

“Pro aris et focis,” a Latin phrase literally meaning “for our altars and our hearths,” or, for God and country, has been used by military regiments for centuries. Sadly, neither history nor tradition means anything anymore.

Fearfully, as the American military leadership and the Obama Administration turn from God – God is likely to do the same in return.

As President Obama is busy telling Europe that it needs to do a better job of assimilating foreign Muslims, he’s releasing terrorists willy-nilly.  Recently, he freed five jihadists, all from Yemen, from Guantanamo and sent to Estonia and Oman for resettlement.

All five were captured in Pakistan and detained as al-Qaida fighters. Each were cleared for release since at least 2009 but congress has balked at repatriating them back to Yemen, where that government is supposedly battling an al-Qaida insurgency.

There are now 122 prisoners at Gitmo, including 54 who have been approved for transfer. Of those cleared, 47 are Yemeni and will have to be resettled in other countries, given the security situation in their homeland.

So what is Obama’s end-game?

Let’s put it this way — Al Qaeda in Yemen has taken responsibility for the planning, financing and carrying out the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo and it claims responsibility for a recent bomb that killed 30 in a crowded Nigerian market place. Meanwhile, the Whitehouse refuses to admit the attacks were committed by ‘radical Islamists.’

You’re intelligent enough to figure out the rest.