Obama, elected to be President has now appointed himself to be the Supreme Court. We all remember a few months back when a Federal District Court Judge, Martin Feldman, Declared the Obama Regime to be in contempt of Court for ignoring the ruling that was supposed to end the Oil Moratorium. Then a little further back Obama took it upon himself to declare “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” unconstitutional and ordered Congress to overturn the Clinton Era Ban. More recently the Rogue Regime decided that the need for Congressional Approval to go to war against Libya did not apply to him and commenced with conflict without so much as a courtesy phone call. Or how about his arrogance he expressed at the mere idea that Obama displayed when he himself decided that the Defense of Marriage Act violated people’s civil rights and ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the cases. Well the man is at it again.
Part of the recent pathetic excuse of a budget “deal” dealt with Obama’s many Czars. Section 2262 completely defunded the controversial positions, effectively eliminating the position. Well Obama has made a SCOTUS decree declaring the budgetary item unconstitutional; stating that he does not and will not obey the law of the land. The Regime issued a statement that stated that in order to bypass this legislation he would “interpret” the law differently than how the authors intended, “the executive branch will construe 2262 not to abrogate these Presidential prerogatives.”
Basically Obama has declared himself to be the sole ruler of these United States, not bound by the constitutionally required balance of powers; rather he alone has the power to rule independently on all issues. Obama has in effect become a dictator. These tyrannical acts must not be taken lightly; we must make our voices heard by not only Obama but by all in Congress, the judiciary, and all who are sworn to defend the Constitution. They must know that we the people will stand beside them as they call Obama out, they must have no doubt that we stand for liberty and not despotism. As we have seen with House Speaker John Boehner, there is uncertainty in whether or not the American People are with him; it’s unclear to him how much we wish for him to abate the President’s Power. If we are to remain a free people we must, just like our founders did nearly three hundred years ago, take a strong stance against authoritarianism; we must crush it in its infancy before this soft tyranny becomes a hard one!
I implore you to contact your elected officials and order them to take a stand, I beseech you to write letters to your editor to educate the public about this atrocity, I plea with you to rally together with your friends at our States’ Capitols as the TEA Party did and shout, “We will take no more!” If we together take this stand our Children and Grandchildren can be assured their security.
GROUPON CAUGHT IN A FIRESTORM
The Independent (London, England) April 12, 2012 | Stephen Foley Worried investors are launching a string of lawsuits against the internet company just days after it was forced to restate its accounts, reports Stephen Foley Well what did you expect, Groupon’s chairman seemed to be saying: “It’s like giving a seven-year-old a Ferrari. You’re going to get a certain amount of chaos.” If Groupon’s $13bn (8bn) flotation last year was one of the most controversial in recent history, then that was as nothing to the firestorm engulfing the company now. go to web site groupon nyc
Just days after the internet sensation was forced to restate its first set of accounts as a public company, when its auditors warned its finance department suffered “material weaknesses”, and as investors began lining up lawsuits, its chairman Eric Lefkofsky stepped on to a Chicago stage to address a chamber of commerce audience.
As well as likening the fast-growing company to a Ferrari – and perhaps his baby-faced chief executive, Andrew Mason, 31, to a seven- year-old – Mr Lefkofsky insisted the company was trying to learn from its mistakes.
“Our main focus is trying to figure out how this model evolves and not consistently falling on our face in public,” he said. “I can only learn by doing something and failing. You can’t tell me to avoid a pothole; I have to drive it.” Mr Lefkofsky is the serial entrepreneur and money man, while Mr Mason is the web designer who dropped out of college to build a company.
It isn’t even four years since the pair turned their initial venture, an anti-corporate activism project, into a “daily deals” business and called it Groupon.
Mr Mason says it could “reshape local commerce”; sceptics say it is a fad that could disappear after local merchants and consumers have tried it a few times.
The company is labour intensive, employing 11,500 people around the world. That’s a lot of people relying on this being a sustainable business.
The investors who bought into the flotation last November, or who acquired stock on the open market since then, knowingly signed up to a certain amount of risk. But did they sign up to “a certain amount of chaos”?
No, said Howard Smith, a Pennsylvania attorney who launched a class action lawsuit against Groupon this week, claiming the flotation prospectus last year was a misleading document, negligently prepared, amounting to securities fraud. The suit is designed to uncover what happened, he says, and to get compensation for investors who have been burned.
Nor is his lawsuit the first. Since the 30 March restatement bombshell, more than half-a-dozen suits have emerged, vying to become the main class action against Groupon, its executives and advisers. Messrs Lefkofsky and Mason are named personally, along with the chief financial officer, Jason Child, who was hired from Amazon, Ernst & Young, Groupon’s auditor, the investment banks who organised the float, led by Morgan Stanley, plus the rest of Groupon’s board.
Last night, Groupon’s shares languished at $13.60, far below the $20 float price. They fell 17 per cent in a single day after the restatement. The company suffered an operating loss in the final quarter of 2011, not the profit analysts had expected and been led to believe.
The restatement was alarming for two reasons. First, an apparently technical adjustment relating to customer refunds set alarm bells ringing. Groupon had underestimated the number of unsatisfied customers who would return their money-off coupons. Mr Child declared that this was because Groupon has moved into new kinds of deals, such as for expensive holidays, which will be more prone to customer dispute. But investors now have to worry that those people who thought Groupon is a fad might be right.
Second, the company confessed that its internal systems were so weak that finance staff were going through paperwork by hand and reconciling accounts manually for weeks after the end of the period. It is hiring more staff and has brought in KPMG to try to build the robust accounting controls mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley law. If they can’t get it right by the end of the year, Groupon could be delisted.
The debate among analysts has now moved to whether Groupon is properly accounting for cashflows, or whether its results are flattered because there is a lag between getting cash from customers who buy coupons and paying the local merchants for the service. It may also have to write down the value of acquisitions in Europe. website groupon nyc
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking into the debacle. The regulator has tussled with Groupon over its controversial accounting policies almost since day one. The first iteration of the flotation prospectus last summer contained a range of unusual accounting metrics, in which Groupon downplayed marketing expenses as if they were one-time investments rather than a perennial cost. The SEC got Groupon to keep to more normal accounting in the end.
The chairman also got himself into trouble with the SEC for predicting that Groupon would be “wildly profitable”.
The prospectus revealed how Mr Lefkofsky and his family had cashed out $382m from Groupon, even before it turned a single penny in profit.
He has used the money to raise his profile in the Chicago business community. This included helping to organise and pay for the inauguration celebrations of the city’s new mayor, former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and last year became a part- owner of one of its most famous skyscrapers, the Wrigley Building.
Recent investors who got caught up in his excitement are staring at losses, but – whatever happens next, and despite “a certain amount of chaos” – Groupon has already been wildly profitable for Mr Lefkofsky.
Stephen Foley
