Time for a little good news from an industry that is continuously under attack from the slip-and-fall lawyer industry.
Merck & Co. (MRK) on Tuesday reported earnings that more than doubled in its second quarter, and topped analysts’ expectations.
Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 85 cents per share.
Merck shares have increased $7.92, or 16 percent, to $57.97 since the beginning of the year.
The stock has climbed $9.63, or 20 percent, in the last 12 months.
What comes next is the attacks from the anti-capitalist Progressives, accusing Merck of evil doings. What they won’t say is that Merck merely followed the IRS tax code.
PC or “politically correct” is just a mushy term for fascism. It means you shouldn’t, or in this case, can’t say or do anything that these activists don’t agree with. And if you do, then you’ll be made to pay for it. With your job, or worse. It’s as if they have their own version of the 1st Amendment. Politically, this is an invention of Saul Alinsky. Instead of debating the issues, you try to shut the opponent up, if not destroy him personally. This is exactly what happened here.
What Brendan Eich, CEO and creator of the popular web browser Mozilla did, was give $1000 to the Proposition 8 initiative in California, in 2008. That was the proposition that Californians approved by an overwhelming majority that said simply, that marriage is between a man and a woman. It was the same position that President Obama had at the same time. It was also what the 9th Circus Court of Appeals overturned.
But unlike Obama, he didn’t change his mind (for campaign cash). And unlike Obama, he didn’t go public and advocate his position. He merely exercised his right to participate affirmatively in the initiative, made a contribution to the cause, and went about his own business.
It was the little fascist hetero-phobic bigots that searched public records to find, then target for persecution, people who contributed to Prop 8.
The reaction from The White House about this is crickets. Any other President of the United States would be the first to publicly condemn that kind of retribution as being not only intolerant, but as an attack on the free speech guarantee of the 1st Amendment. You know, that document he swore on a stack of bibles to protect and defend.
Jumping at the chance to be offended, the gay activists at GLAAD mobilized to barrage A&E with complaints. They said this kind of discrimination will not be tolerated. What? The only person being discriminated against is Phil Robertson on Duck Dynasty who, thanks to them, has lost his job. Not only that, but they said (they lied) that Phil compared homosexuality to bestiality. He did not. But in typical Liberal fashion, they make up what they have to in order to attack someone who doesn’t think like they do. Phil was not speaking for or representing GLADD’s agenda. He represented himself only, and honestly answered questions he was asked about his personal beliefs. Seems like it is GLADD that has no tolerance for straight people who happen to be religious.
If GLAAD really speaks for all gays, how does it figure that two percent of the population have no tolerance for the other 98 percent?
Does nothing for me. You?
Phil Robertson, patriarch of the family on the TV show, merely responded to a question (from a lefty magazine writer) about what is sinful to him. Knowing he and his whole family don’t hide their religion on the TV show or in person, Drew Magary no doubt knew he would hear something that would be sensational to him and his ilk. And the 67 yr. old Phil Robertson told the truth about his personal belief and experience.
Can’t imagine why the object of homosexual behavior is so vile, as the GLAADites whine. It is what it is. Men don’t have vaginas. They use their (clinical name) anus for sexual penetration. So if that sounds vile to you, maybe you’re not as gay as you think? Or a teeny bit ashamed? I don’t know. Someone please enlighten me on what is offensive or vile about that statement. Aside from it being just one man’s opinion of what sin is. Your mileage may vary. In his story, Magary doesn’t print the question that provoked this response, but it seems clear that it had something to do with homosexual behavior. (A note to Magary on what prompted his response has not been responded to.)
“It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”
“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” Phil says. “Sin becomes fine.”
Question:What, in your mind, is sinful?
“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
This is where the hetero bashers (GLAAD) put words in to Phil’s answer that don’t exist. Answering to “what is sinful” to him, Phil lists a lot, starting with homosexual behavior, and including other sinful acts, bestiality, heterosexual sins, and non-sexual sins.
Now, if Drew Magary wanted a story about the man, he could have done that by simply saying that Phil is a religious man and holds the common beliefs of his faith, that homosexual behavior is a sin. Instead, he prints what seems to be Phil just trying to explain to a lay person (Magary) why he feels the way he does. But obviously, that’s not the message, or mission, Magary wanted or was on.
That A&E succumbed to all the moral and religious intolerance of groups like GLAAD and fired Phil, while at the same time they admit in their own statement that his words had nothing to do with A&E, shows their moral compass, or lack thereof.
Dictators and Communists like Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, don’t like freedom of speech. Some even control the media exclusively. Where private news and commentary are outlawed. That the man who is supposed to embrace, protect, and defend the Constitution and ALL of its amendments will publicly tell Americans what kind of media and speech they should not use is troubling on so many levels.
“Now that the government has reopened and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do, and that’s grow this economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, educate our kids, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul.”
Aside from pure desperation that he can’t, and doesn’t, control the flow of information about his administration, the “Saul Alinsky” in him is showing. Did anyone think he was referring to Media Matters, Huffington Post, Rachel Maddow, Mike Malloy, Mike Papantonio, or the Center for American Progress?
If there ever was an example of someone being un-American, our President of all people, is head and shoulders above all others.
An interesting thing popped up regarding the ballyhooed government shutdown. And it just further corroborates the post Barack Obama, Governing By Tantrum. Where President Obama is getting the most political advantage (or so he thinks) from inflicting the most pain on Americans under the guise of the government shutdown.
My most recent post necessarily included data from some government websites. If you were to revisit the links to where that data once was, you’ll see this. The footer of the page says “Source: U.S. Census Bureau | Last Revised: Sep 30, 2013.” Like putting up barricades to open-air monuments, the government webmasters created links that prevent you from looking at data that was there on September 30, 2013. Not very presidential.
President Obama certainly is enjoying HIS government shutdown. To be sure, it is his and Senate majority leader Harry Reed’s government shutdown.
Beginning with how he despises America so much as to smother it in debt and unaffordable so-called entitlement programs while breaking and selectively enforcing laws, some of which (Obamacare) are of his own making.
And now, in response to Republicans in the House to wanting to put an end to this reckless and lawless administration, to return the country within the bounds of the constitution and fiscal sanity, President Obama is governing by his temper tantrum. Described by one Park Ranger succinctly, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”
No surprise here! It’s what community organizers do.
Things like this is what our childish and vindictive President is responsible for . . .
Blocking access by WWII veterans (and everyone else) to the WWII Memorial.
Blocking access to the parking lots at Mt. Vernon. The home of George Washington, is privately owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. But the parking lots are jointly owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association and the Park Service.
Blocking access and use of the Ocean. 1,100 square miles of Florida Bay. The area between the southern tip of Florida and the Florida Keys is a prime fishing area.
Shutting down the Amber Alert website. During the shutdown, they have a link pointing to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) “to serve in a clearinghouse capacity for the AMBER Alert program and to aid in the dissemination of AMBER Alert information.”
They did not shut down Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move website.
The golf course at Andrews AFB, where Obama plays, remains open.
This is the tyrant you were warned about. This is what you get when a media refuses to vet a presidential candidate. You elected a community organizer. You got a community organizer. Only on a national level.
Bubbling up to the news level now is the lawsuit that Gov. Jesse Ventura is pressing against fellow Navy Seal Chris Kyle.
All over a scenario in Kyle’s book that has Kyle punching Ventura in some public place and knocking Ventura to the floor. Kyle said it was in retaliation for Ventura badmouthing the war, Bush, and America. Ventura says it didn’t happen.
The fact that Chris Kyle is now dead, shot by another veteran suffering from PTSD that he was trying to help, at a shooting range in Texas, and still wants to pursue this ridiculous suit against Kyle’s estate, his wife, makes ‘The Body’ a big baby. No doubt Ventura can take a punch. He had a career in professional wrestling. That he can’t take some words in a book, and wants to take it out on Kyle’s widow? A big “Pussy” comes to mind.
The Obama administration’s first attempt at incrementally limiting the 2nd Amendment went down in bi-partisan defeat in the Senate. Walter and Joe Biden are visibly upset.
To prey on the emotions of victims is standard operating procedure for bleeding-heart liberals. That goes without saying. But what’s interesting to me about this performance yesterday is the audacity and arrogance he displays, and whining, over losing his first attempt at putting limits on the second amendment.
But instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. They claimed that it would create some sort of “big brother” gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite. This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn’t matter. And unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose, because those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners, and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators.
Making the gun lobby the bogeyman is expected. It is the American people who know, and have seen, what can be accomplished by incrementalism when it comes to legislation. This was but the first step. For him to accuse anyone of lying to the American people is the pot calling the kettle black when he says “this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose.” He should know, beginning with the so-called Affordable Health Care Act when he told the American people “I will not sign a bill that adds one dime to the deficit.” On Obama’s part, he knew he was lying. He knew that if it was repeated enough, with the support of the media, that the American people would believe his lies. They bought it. But since the Congress didn’t, states had to be bribed and the bill had to be forced through without a proper vote to get it enacted. Who’s to say he won’t try the same shenanigans with ‘gun’ control?
The only difference here is, gun rights folks know what Obama’s end-game is. It didn’t have to be spelled out in the legislation. Democrats have openly said they want to effectively disarm law-abiding citizens, since they can’t disarm criminals.
Below is the whiner and liar-in-chief from The Rose Garden.
Howard Kurtz, writing in The Daily Beast, is appealing to Mitt Romney to show some compassion for members of the “Democratic Party.”
Romney also noted that in Massachusetts, “with a Democrat legislature, I helped turn my state from deficit to surplus.” (Memo to Mitt: its members prefer that it be called the Democratic Party.) {emphasis added}
As the ‘church lady’ would say, “Isn’t that special?” No problem Howard. From now on, the term to describe Democrats, as members of the Democratic Party, shall be Democratics. It goes something like this. Republicans are of the Republican Party, and Democratics are of the Democratic Party.
Obviously, Mr. Kurtz must not see anything awry with democratics saying that republicans want to poison the water and air, kill senior citizens, and starve children. As if republicans breath different air and drink different water, and use different schools, hospitals and doctors.
So if calling members of the Democratic Party democratics has him all torqued up, then he and democratics should grow some thicker skin.
Always quick to sweat the small stuff and ignore $16 trillion in debt. And if re-elected, $20 trillion by the end of a second term. Then there’s the record high unemployment, socialized medicine in the name of Obamacare, wasteful spending propping up union pensions and paying back campaign contributors. Not to mention selectively enforcing and not enforcing laws from immigration to bankruptcy.
Nothing personal Howard, but republicans don’t ‘prefer’ to accept that.
Belly up to the counter. Politics are on the menu and Ross is on the grill.
