WELCOME TO THE SIXTH ANNUAL POLITICAL TURKEY OF THE YEAR! 

WHO WILL THIS PRESTIGIOUS PRIZE IN 2011?

 

Turkey of the Year: President Barack Obama

 

 

- The United States’ credit rating set by Standard & Poor’s was downgraded from the once perfect AAA rating to AA+ on August  5, 2011, the very first time this has happened in the history of the United States, causing us to pay slightly higher interest on borrowing costs, something that will only detriment our economic situation.

 

- When Obama took office the national deficit was $10.626 trillion.  It hit $15 trillion last week.   It took 200 years for the national deficit to reach $10.626 trillion, but it took the president only 3 years to increase it by $4 trillion.  China, a county with a budget surplus of wealth as opposed to a deficit, called the United States a “ticking debt bomb” a mere day ago at the time of this posting.  As one of our most avid investors (they hold $1.1 trillion of US bonds, which finances our deficit), this was a hard hit.

 

- President Barack Obama damaged the United States’ relationship with Israel, making it strained.  Israel is a small nation surrounded by Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.  Syria and Egypt have mounted attacks on Israel, which has always shut them down swiftly due to top notch education, communication, and defense.  They get their weaponry from us, and if the Obama continues to let this relationship deteriorate, they will get their weapons elsewhere, and do we really want them becoming, say, China or Russia’s ally?

 

- Obama denying he ever raised taxes is false.  He approved taxes on tobacco, cigarettes, and tanning shortly after taking office.  Obama was true to his word in decreasing taxes for the middle class, however, this ballooned our national deficit.  His goal was to have 40% of the stimulus package be for tax cuts, but White House auditors determined only 22% of it is actually used for that purpose.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/02/01/GR2009020100154.html

 

- The unemployment rate has hovered around 9% for the president’s whole term despite his extensive  stimulus package and the lucky break of having the lowest interest rates in every area that usually promote borrowing and spending.   Despite all this he has not been able to lower the 9% statistic. 

 

- His reaction to the Gulf oil spill has been deemed insufficient, slow, and poor by both Republicans and Democrats alike. 

 

- President Obama made a very notorious comment in Brazil this past spring at the CEO Business Summit.   He stated, “We want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”  Then, shortly after, he called for the United States to decrease its dependency on foreign oil imports by 1/3 in the next decade.  Recently, he’s been pushing drilling in the Gulf and Alaska, aggravating both politicians and environmentalists alike. 

                - http://naturalresources.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=230096

                - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/30/obama-energy-security-strategy/

                - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45210622/ns/us_news-environment/t/obama-  expand-oil-gas-drilling-alaska-gulf/

 

 - He has very, very, very little experience for a president.  Yes, he was elected a senator (key word elected).   He spent his two year term campaigning for the presidency, was rarely present in the Senate, and when he did vote he usually selected “present” (neither yes nor no) or voted in accordance with the Democratic party. 

 

- Played more rounds of golf than any other president.  As of August 21, 2011 he has played 78 rounds of golf, spending roughly 321 hours on the game.   

 

-Deirdre O'Leary

 

  

 

http://www.dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Michele_Bachmann

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/tamara-scott-michele-bachmann-eiffel-tower_n_1106425.html

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michele_Bachmann

Michele Bachmann definitely deserves the turkey of the year award.  Bachmann likes to talk to get attention from the media rather than using the media to her advantage by spreading her ‘ideas’ around.  It is embarrassing how more than half the things she says does not even make sense.  One of the most ridiculous things she has said so far was that HPV vaccinations cause retardation. Even with proof from scientists that the HPV vaccines are completely safe and are in no way of causing retardation, Bachmann stubbornly refused to admit she was wrong. Bachmann who opposed same-sex marriage, believe that the Disney movie, The Lion King, encourage kids to be gay.  She also believes her lesbian step-sister is related to Satan. Bachmann have discussed if same-sex marriage came to be legal in more states, it will cause people to get out of control and will lead people to marry object next, like the Eiffel Tower.  Have no fear; Bachmann says gayness can be ‘cure’ through her husband’s counseling clinic, Bachmann & Associates. Here some quotes by Michele Bachmann that will sure help her win turkey of the year:

 

1. "I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Florida, after the debate.  She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental    retardation thereafter."
2. "Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that     shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas."
3. ''I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?''
4. "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on president Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
5. "The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. Its all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax."

 

-Diana

 

 

TURKEY OF THE YEAR: Anthony Weiner 

 

My vote for the POLITICAL TURKEY for the year 2011 hands down goes to Anthony Weiner, the former Democratic U.S. Congressman from New York. This past summer, Weiner was linked to sending “sexually suggestive pictures” to various different women via the social networking site, Twitter. When the pictures were first released, Weiner denied any connection to them stating that his Facebook and Twitter accounts were “hacked.” However, after several days of denying the allegations, Weiner admitted in a New York press conference that he had sent numerous sexually explicit pictures and messages to various women, both before and during his marriage. He also stated that he did not plan on resigning from his seat in the Congress but the House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, called for an ethics investigation of the case which showed the Democratic’ concern with Weiner’s actions. However, because the scandal was viewed by many as immoral and corrupt, Weiner officially resigned from Congress on June 16^th. I believe that the Anthony Weiner “Sexting” Scandal proved to be one of the most shocking and most publically examined issues of the year.

-Hayley Hanuscin

 

Turkey of the Year: Leon Panetta

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/us/dover-mortuary-burned-and-dumped-troop-remains-in-landfill.html

      The turkey of the year goes to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, because of his poor response to the Dover Air Force Base mortuary scandal. The Dover Air Force Base mortuary has practiced from 2003 to 2008, the disposal of some body limbs of the military's K.I.A. by burning them and then dumping them into a landfill in Virginia. Although the system has now changed and the K.I.A. are burned, the ashes are put into urns, and they are then buried at sea. The Dover base, which houses the largest mortuary in the nation and is the primary base that handles the nation's dead, has only been charged with gross mismanagement and scandal. There has been reports by workers, where they were ordered by their supervisors to cut off a soldier's body limb, to fit the uniform on the body. The former commander of the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center, Colonel Robert Edmondson, has only been sent a letter of reprimand, which prohibits him from being promoted to a higher rank. The Colonel's deputy, Trevor Dean, and the former director of the mortuary, Quinton Keel, who are both civilians, were demoted to lesser jobs, not in the mortuary at the Dover Air Force Base. Yet when a private investigation was done by the Office of Special Counsel, they put out a statement saying that Dean and Keel should have been fired. This is why the Secretary of Defense is the turkey of the year, because he should of made sure that the men responsible be fired, for the disregard of the military's dead. These are the men that protect the safety of this country and the protect the freedom of each and every citizen of the nation, and this is how they are treat for putting the lives at risk on the battlefield. I find this a disgrace on our military and our nation, that they let this system last for five years and let the nation's dead be remember at the bottom of some landfill. I thought the military was about honor?

- Anthony Nicolo

 

Turkey of the Year: Obama 

Christie McLaughlin 

I feel as if Obama is the political turkey of this year, because no other politician has been in the position to do more but has done less. He came into office with a national debt of 10.7 trillion dollars, which was 74% of the GDP, and an unemployment rate of 7.3%. His .8 trillion dollar stimulus bill in 2009 was supposed to fix this, but here we are today with a national debt of 14.34 trillion dollars, 95.6% of the GDP, and an unemployment rate of 9%. Clearly, it has not made an improvement. His new stimulus plan, his 447 billion dollar Jobs Bill can’t even get passed in Congress because Republicans and Democrats are refusing to pass it. Even when Obama had his party control the presidency, the House, and the Senate up until November of 2010, he couldn’t lead them efficiently to achieve something productive, and now, with a Republican majority in the House, it will be even harder to get something passed. Proof of this failure is the last time Congress passed a budget was April 27, 2009. This is ridiculous. In a time of an economic recession we need a leader who is able to take control of their party and guide them towards successful goals that will improve the state of America.

 

Turkey of the Year 2011: Herman Cain

            Herman Cain should be nominated for the prestigious honor and title of Political Turkey of the Year for 2011. The Republican candidate is hopeful of winning support, but needs to learn how to deal with problems in order to fix his damaged reputation. It is in times of crisis that we see who is strong and who is weak. As difficult as a situation may be, a leader must be able to maintain his or her composure while trying to fix the problem and restoring order to the chaotic confusion. Unfortunately, when he was accused by women of sexual harassment, Cain failed to “hang a lantern on his problem” or face the problem upfront. Cain’s way of handling the situation didn’t go over so well with people, especially a group of reporters and journalists that were hounding him for answers. In his defense, reporters can seem a bit persistent and come across as pestering nuisances. However, Cain lost patience with the group and got a bit snippy when they began asking questions. He was uncomfortable with their questions and therefore chose to ignore them. If he is having trouble now as a candidate with reporters constantly following him, what’s he going to be like if he does get elected as president? Curt Anderson had said, in reference to Cain’s struggle, that it was like he was “kind of grasping at straws and fishing around trying to figure out what to do, how to get out of this." It may be viewed as the candidate’s lack of luck. Even so, he definitely could have gone about the problem differently. That is why Herman Cain is so deserving of such an honorable nomination.

 

Video of Cain and reporters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqDEkUkZOeA

 

 

 

 

FRED PHELPS, LEADER OF THE WBC: TURKEY OF THE YEAR 

 

 

I can go on and on about how Fred Phelps and the rest of the Westboro Baptist Church hates gays (just look at the website, godhatesfags.com) and how much they disgrace the word of God, however, that is not why I am naming Phelps the political turkey of the year. How dare he protest a soldier's funeral and manipulate American rights. For one, why would you protest a soldier's funeral after everything they have done to protect the nation? Without them, the WBC would not have the protected rights to continue what they are doing (in my opinion, their freedoms should be locked in a safe for all eternity.) Next, when viewing their Website, the first icon you see on the tab is an upside down American Flag. How Fred Phelps is not shot dead is a mystery to me. How on earth can they call themselves Americans with guaranteed rights if they do not respect where those rights come from? Regardless of how well Phelps knows the law or how clever the WBC thinks they are, one day they're all going to have to answer to a greater power than just the courts. 

- Sarah Hammer

 

  

TURKEY OF THE YEAR - Karen Brown

This year's Turkey of the Year without a doubt goes to Karen Brown.  Not just in Philadelphia, but in the rest of the country as well.  Her race against the now reelected Mayor Michael Nutter was pathetic.  It was a pointless race, in which she did nothing.  She did not bother even trying, and if she did try, she had a horrible way of showing it.  She disgraced the values of America, and the term democracy, which we are supposed to be.  There pretty much was no choice, so she lost in a land slide.  Having lost by a lot however is not the only reason as to why she is Turkey of the Year.  It was the way she handled herself and her comments during the so called race/competition.  For example, she once said "Philly already had a black mayor.  That coins been done."  Being a good mayor has nothing to do with race, gender, or anything other than knowing how to run a city, and by the sound of her rude comment, she has yet to realize that.

     ~ Michelle Deacon

 

 

 

Obama is the turkey of the year due to his temporary attempts to fix the government debt. His numerous stimulus plans only prolonged the problems of the economy without actually attempting to fix anything, which also may inflict the future of the economy negatively. Also, Obamacare also has been a bust also. The anticipated fix for health care in America to match other countries who have successfully granted heath care to all has been deemed a failure as it has only raised healthcare premiums and plunged the middle class further into debt than it already was in the recession. 

-Mary Radziszewski

 

  

 

 

Turkey of the Year: Karen Brown

 

I’ve chosen Karen Brown as my Turkey of the Year. On a whole, she has been the most outlandish, unprepared candidate to run for public office, at least in the last year. Not only did she run for a position that she would never get, she barely put forward a campaign. So, if there was a chance of Brown getting elected, she blew it through a horrible campaign. If you’re going to run for public office you do it for one of two reasons: you want the power or you want the power to do good and spur on change. Brown had none of these aspirations and so she ran for no reason. That makes her a terrible candidate in my eyes and my Turkey f the Year.

~Marygrace Urmson

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey of the year: Karen Brown

 

  

 

 

Turkey of the year easily goes to Karen Brown. This coincides with my earlier hacking of her. She ran basically no campaign and showed no effort at all in the Philadelphia mayoral election. It wasn’t even a race between her and Mayor Nutter. Therefore she abused the democratic system and handed Nutter the victory. She had plenty of time to campaign and did not. Although it is not easy running as a Republican in Philadelphia the Mayoral races have been close, but not this one. She failed to even get passed 40,000 votes. Nutter more than tripled her total. For that she is my Turkey of the year.

-Michael Fiore

 

 

I declare Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church to be the Political Turkey of 2011...and for the rest of the
century. The infamous Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) interprets scripture literally and believes their God curses and
 blesses. They believe themselves to have devine communication with God and that they have the ultimate power to discern who their
God curses and blesses. They protested in New York in July against marriage equality for gays. They protested at Betty
Ford's funeral, wife of former president Gerald Ford because Betty divorced her first husband to marry Ford. In Westboro's
 eyes, that makes Ford an adulterer who "loved to sit with tawdry reporters and blather about sex." They tweeted from an
iPhone to announce the protesting of Steve Jobs funeral. They proclaim "Thank God for dead soldiers". The WBC protested
 about the movie"Red State", calling director Kevin Smith "a God-hating clown." They said, "God hates fags, God hates
fag enablers, therefore God hates Kevin Smith." Basically, everything they do makes no sense and they don't have valid
facts to back up what they say.They are a bunch of attention seeking backwards southernors.  

-Alexandria McNamara

POLITICAL TURKEY OF THE YEAR: THE SUPER COMMITTEE 

 

The turkey of the year for 2011 has to go to the Super Committee for their "super failure." It is no surprise to anyone that the super committee, consisting of 12 members boths democrats and republicans, failed to make a agree on the $1.2 trillion in savings. If they can't even make an agreement on a budget, how can Americans expect them to make decisions on serious political issues? In trying to make a deal on the budget both parties chose their own electoral livlihood rather what would best benefit the United States as a whole. An article in CNN said "this might be the most self-serving, mediocre and uncaring set of legislators in Congress in the last fifty years."

Taylor Howard

 

Political Turkey of the Year: The GOP as exemplified by Mitt Romney

 

The problems with bipartisan hostilities in Congress and the resulting inability to enact legislation providing jobs and health care reforms has the Republicans to blame. Plain and simple. This is exemplified by Mitt Romney and the issue of health care reforms. The President's plan for health care, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, legislation to provide reform of private insurance companies and their policies and create a patient-centered industry, is being turned down by the very people who would believe in and even cheer at a debate for letting an uninsured person be left to die.... how surprising. The problem lies in the fact that many of their own are supporting similar legislation. Want proof? Mitt Romney is your guy. Recently, an MIT Professor who heavily advised both President Obama on "Obamacare" and Romney on his legislation in Massachusetts has confirmed that as much as Romney would want you to believe there are vast differences, they are actually the "same f***ing bill." Clearly, the less partisan among us have some problems with the lies Romney is telling. Bipartisan hostilities are going to be the reason that health care reform, among other issues, remain unsolved. How can the GOP honestly decline Obama's attempts at legislation if their own people are pushing the same bill? Our countries issues are being left to worsen as potentially helpful legislation is turned down purely for political reasons. For this reason, the Republican party, as exemplified by presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, is the 2011 Political Turkey of The Year.

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TURKEY OF THE YEAR: KAREN BROWN 

It goes without saying that Karen Brown is the Turkey of the Year...at least in Philadelphia. Her lack of action in this years election has proved that Republicans made it even harder on themselves to be elected to mayor. Obviously Philadelphia is a Democratic city but to not even campaign or show a sign of effort to win proves that Karen Brown is the biggest turkey of 2011. She should be an example to all politicians of what not to do. Even if we all knew Michael Nutter would be reelected, she should've at least showed the slightest effort in campaigning. In the past years Republicans have created tight races with their Democratic counterparts, but this year no effort was put forward by the Republicans and Brown's committee to even make it a close race. For that reason, Karen Brown is my political turkey for 2011.

- Dan Nucero

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RON PAUL......Political Turkey of the YEAR 

Ron Paul....what else needs to be said. I believe that Paul deserves the prestigious award of Political Turkey of the year because he wants to eliminate the TSA (Transportation and Security Administration). The employees of the TSA are the "government" employees in the bright blue shirts asking you to take off your shoes. Paul wants to eliminate the TSA as apart of his budget cuts if he became president. This makes no sense to me because the number of TSA officers that only have high school educations. Paul did not think this all the way through because he would cause the unemployment percentage to rise. In the end, he will not be helping the government or the economy. There is a huge hole in his plan to eliminate the TSA. Yes, the TSA does have many issues and problems, but they can be solved. Ron Paul has been promoting the elimination of the TSA since 2009 and continues in his campaign for president. Paul needs to reconsider his campaign to eliminate the TSA. 

--Maddie Clifford 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ron-paul-calls-tsa-jack-booted-thugs-in-response-to-highway-checkpoints/

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/188271-ron-paul-proposes-abolishing-the-tsa-in-plan-to-restore-america-

    

 

 

 

 

TURKEY OF 2011: THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT

 

 

We have hacked this movement multiple times since the beggining of the school year but I am claiming this movement the official TURKEY OF 2011. We've discussed this multiple times in class. The Occupy movement has began with a purpose but is now just an obnoxious way for people to act out. Nothing is being accomplished. It has now been going on for over month and the leaders of Occupy wallstreet seem to be everchanging. I do not think that the police should be acting with such rigorous force but I do think it is time for the people of the movement to either stand for something concrete or wrap up their tents and go home.

-Emily Gumpper

  

  

 

 

 Hands down the political turkey of the year is Herman Cain. Those sex abuse scandals rocked his popularity down tremendously. He might not ever be able to actually be considered a legitimate Republican candidate again. All his jumbling of stories and words did not help him at all. His mishaps with numerous women really killed his legitimacy, possibly, for the rest of his life.

 

Jessica Phares 

 

     I would consider Michele Bachmann to be the Turkey of the Year. Throughout her presidential campaign, she has consistently made false statements about certain issues, and was prejudiced against certain groups of people, such as homosexuals. Certain claims she made were just downright incorrect, such as her statement that it wasn’t a coincidence that the swine flu swept through the nation not only during Carter’s presidency, but also Obama’s, and both these presidents were Democrats. In actuality, the last swine flu epidemic occurred in 1976 during Ford’s term, a Republican, which makes her statement invalid. But there have been other more serious statements that have been incorrect, such as her comment that the HPV vaccine can cause mental retardation. She is neither a scientist nor a doctor, yet she made these bold claims with nothing to back it up. She had also consistently promoted anti-gay political action throughout America, and is against such things as same-sex marriage. However reasonable this claim may be, she has gone to the extremes, stating that anti-gay bullying is not a federal issue, even though for the past two years there have been a multitude of suicides of gay men highlighted in the media, which isn’t even counting the thousands of other LGBT youth that take their life because of daily bullying. With a nation that is progressively becoming more accepting of homosexuals, she became an image of hatred for the community and for humanity itself. If she were to become president, who knows what other pieces of information she could distort, and if she’s so unstable now, I don’t even want to think of what that could do for our nation. She is the Turkey of the Year because of her false facts, and she has become an almost comical figure in current politics.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20107604-503544.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1705773/top_5_hilarious_michele_bachmann_factual.html?cat=9

 

 

 

Charles Unruh

 

Now, I realize Christine O’Donnell wasn’t exactly this year, but I found it hard to ignore such a plump turkey. O’Donnell was a tea-party republican who managed to pull off a win against Castle in the Delaware republican primaries, but what most of us won’t forget about her were the stories plastered all over the news. She was a witch, and she fully admitted to it:

 

I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar and I didn't know it. I mean, there was a little blood there and stuff like that.

We went to a movie and then had a little picnic on a satanic altar.

 

A republican being a witch? Unheard of. A witch-republican winning an election? Astounding. Religion is a key factor in republican politics, something that can be seen in the current presidential primaries where Romney’s Mormon faith has seen criticism and affected his popular support (though those who would not support him because of this, would support him over Obama, should he win primaries (results of a poll I heard about this morning))

 

Like I said though, I know she’s not 2011 news, but I feel that all of the good turkeys have been covered, and O’Donnell can easily be related to the current elections.

 

http://gawker.com/5641653/christine-odonnell-was-a-teen-witch