Thursday, February 21, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for February 22, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for February 22, 2013
Robert A. Hall

A lot of great links today. Don’t miss it. ~Bob

Advice for my Granddaughter: For When I'm Gone
https://www.createspace.com/3792897All royalties go to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (which gets a larger royalty if you order directly through Create Space.).

Worth Reading: Guest Post: Leading By Crisis

Worth Reading: Integrity - A Sanity Check in South Carolina. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: For Marines, integrity is one of the core traits around which all else revolves. It goes to honesty and trustworthiness and dependability and so much more - all of the time (from training fields to battlefields to bars), not some of the time. There is no such thing as integrity being applied as convenient. One cannot sort of have integrity.

Worth Reading: Gilded Class Warriors: Liberal grandees attack the rich while enjoying their lifestyle. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: Obama never quite squared his accusations that “millionaires and billionaires” had not paid their fair share with his own obvious enjoyment of the perks of “corporate jet owners,” “fat cat bankers,” and Las Vegas junketeers. Now, that paradox has continued right off the bat in the second term. 

Stocks tumbling across the globe
http://investmentwatchblog.com/stocks-are-tumbling-across-the-world-wal-mart-sees-flat-u-s-sales-euro-area-manufacturing-services-contraction-worsens-g20-imf-push-for-global-fed-global-currency-is-the-collapse-about-to-beg/
The financial news has been horrible for years, but stock prices kept climbing as people saw the worth(lessness) of sovereign bonds and other indices. Now finally, stocks are getting hammered as well. It was inevitable. --Don Hank

Talk Of Limiting 'Obamacare' Tees Off Oakton Teachers
Excerpt: Now, Oakton and union officials say college administrators have a plan in place to "cap" the number of credit hours adjunct professors work, to avoid providing health care next year that could be required under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called "Obamacare" by some after President Barack Obama's initiative. Students and adjunct faculty members filled an Oakton College Board of Trustees meeting last night (Tuesday) standing room only, opposed to planned caps. (I feel sorry for those who didn't vote for Obama, if there are any. The rest deserve what they voted for. No, money doesn't grow on trees for "free healthcare." ~Bob.)

Texas Dad Accused of Murdering Drunk Driver Who Killed Kids
Excerpt: A Texas father, who watched a drunk driver strike and kill his two young sons, has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting the driver in the head moments after the accident. (If I were on the jury, wouldn't be hard to sell me on a "not guilty by reason of temporary insanity" plea. ~Bob.

2 charged for allegedly torturing, burning alive woman for witchcraft in Papua New Guinea
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/18/2-charged-for-allegedly-torturing-burning-alive-woman-for-witchcraft-in-papua/#ixzz2LUqEAsmK
Excerpt: Papua New Guinea police charged two people on Monday with the grisly killing of a woman who was burned alive in front of hundreds of people, including young children, after being accused of witchcraft. (Trivia question: how many witches were burned at Salem, Massachusetts? Answer: none. They were all hanged except one man who wouldn't confess, who was crushed by stones. ~Bob.)

Prominent American Scientists Call For Eco-Dictatorship Under UN Rule
Excerpt: Upcoming Scientific Publication: “(…) governments can and even should move beyond existent levels of public permission in order to shift norms, allowing public sentiment to later catch up with the regulation.” ("Necessity" is always the rational of tyrants. your tax dollars fund most of the UN. ~Bob.)

Obama Is Not A Keynesian, He’s An American!
Excerpt: After hundreds of thousands of conservatives gathered for a rally in Washington, DC in August 2010, there was a ‘counter rally’ for liberals a few days later. A reporter was on scene holding up his own sign “OBAMA = KEYNESIAN?” so that attending libs would approach him. No doubt he was hoping for some good video clips. This one is absolutely classic, with excerpts highlighting these low information voters.

Source for gun manuals

Federal Reserve: markets fall as rift emerges over Bernanke stimulus
Excerpt: A split is emerging in the Federal Reserve as officials worry that chairman Ben Bernanke's $85bn-a-month efforts to bring down unemployment may backfire. (They may fire Robert Mugabe as a financial and currency advisor. ~Bob.)

MSNBC boldly moves to plug its one remaining hole: By hiring long-time Obama spokesmen Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod, the cable news network clarifies its function. By Glenn Greenwald
Excerpt: Last month, MSNBC's Al Sharpton conducted a spirited debate about whether Obama belongs on Mount Rushmore or instead deserves a separate monument to his greatness (just weeks before replacing frequent Obama critic Cenk Uygur as MSNBC host, Sharpton publicly vowed never to criticize Barack Obama under any circumstances: a vow he has faithfully maintained). Earlier that day on the same network, a solemn discussion was held, in response to complaints from MSNBC viewers, about whether it is permissible to ever allow Barack Obama's name to pass through one's lips without prefacing it with an honorific such as "President" or "the Honorable" or perhaps "His Excellency" (that really did happen).

Kindle Book: Panic 2012: The Sublime and Terrifying Inside Story of Obama's Final Campaign. By Michael Hastings 
Amazon Review: The dust has now settled on one of the most fiercely fought political battles of our time, and with it comes the first substantial piece of narrative journalism reflecting on the 2012 Presidential Election. With access to the Obama re-election machine, Michael Hastings reports the behind-the-scenes story of the campaign trail: from Obama’s self-destructive performance at the first debate to the harrowing days of Hurricane Sandy, all culminating in his triumphant victory late in the evening on November 6th. Along the way, Hastings gives a first hand account of the excitement and madness traveling with the White House press corps, bringing to life a series of unforgettably strange moments from the trail. From one of the sharpest, funniest, and most controversial young American journalists writing today comes Panic: 2012 – the definitive account of how President Obama almost blew it.

For Jesse Jackson Jr., the rules do apply. By Dana Milbank
Excerpt: Jesse Jackson Jr. arrived in court wearing a leather bracelet, not the gold-plated Rolex watch he bought with $43,350 in federal campaign cash. The former congressman’s head was bare, unadorned by the Michael Jackson fedora, purchased with $4,600 from the campaign kitty. His wife, at his side, eschewed the reversible mink parka, procured with $1,200 in campaign money from Edwards-Lowell furrier of Beverly Hills.

The Texas Growth Machine: The data show that the Lone Star State’s prosperity is no mirage. By Wendell Cox
Excerpt: One bright spot in the general gloom, however, is Texas, which began shining long before 2008. Not only has Texas created jobs at a stunning rate; it has also—pace critics like the New York Times’s Paul Krugman—created lots of good jobs. Indeed, the rest of the nation could turn to the Lone Star State as a model for dynamic growth, as a close look at employment data shows.

Soaking the Rich: Sorry, Warren Buffett, but extracting cash from the wealthy won’t solve our problems. By Veronique de Rugy
Excerpt: On the other hand, you have the work of economists such as Nobel Prize winner Edward Prescott. Using aggregate labor supply data, such as the differences in hours worked among countries with different levels of taxes, Prescott finds that people work more hours when marginal income tax rates are lower, in particular when they are just starting out and when they are nearing retirement.

Official Time: Taxpayers paying for union work is officially a scam. By Trey Kovacs
Summary: Few Americans are aware that, through their tax dollars, they finance labor unions through a practice known as “official time” or “release time.” The cost to taxpayers is skyrocketing, while—thanks to Obama administration stonewalling—accountability is declining. Fortunately, reformers are working to rein in this costly, corrupt practice. 

The Obama Sequester: He Was For It, Before He Was Against It

Twitter pressure forces NPR to correct claim that Obama’s sequester is a ‘Republican invention’
National Progressive Radio. ~Bob.

Mr. President, here's an idea for something that deserves a "draconian cut" in the sequester...

The GOP’s astonishingly bad message on sequester cuts. By Byron York
Excerpt: In addition, Boehner calls the cuts “deep,” when most conservatives emphasize that for the next year they amount to about $85 billion out of a $3,600 billion budget. Which leads to another question: Why would Boehner adopt the Democratic description of the cuts as “deep” when they would touch such a relatively small part of federal spending?

Excerpt: Here's the 3-by-5 index-card version of what the GOP's message on sequestration ought to be: Our current level of spending is unsustainable. Spending must go down. Period. This is a 2 percent cut. Sure, if we in the Republican party had complete control of the government, we would be implementing the cuts differently. But we don't. Congress can only appropriate funds; it doesn't run the departments and agencies that spend the money. That's the power and responsibility of the executive branch. If the Obama administration's response to a 2 percent cut is really to let all the criminals out of the jails and end food-safety inspections, then it is no longer disputable that he's a Stuttering Cluster-you-know-what of a Miserable Failure.

Excerpt: The Unfair Campaign is designed to teach young people that “systems and institutions are set up for us [whites]” and as such are “unfair.” Typical of these kinds of programs, it was promoted by a tax-payer funded college. Now what’s fair about taking our money and using it to teach kids that it’s unfair to be white? It doesn’t seem to be a problem for these hypocrites to take the white man’s cash.

Breaking: Obama campaign caught in major NC vote fraud scheme
Excerpt: February 19, 2013 North Carolina's Civitas Institute has revealed that the North Carolina State Board of Elections and the Obama campaign conspired to register at least 11,000 people via the internet in violation of state law. This has been confirmed through records requests filed with all of North Carolina's 100 counties. The counting is not yet complete.

New NRA Ad Slams Clinton, Obama As DC Elites Who Mock Gun Owners

Special new practice targets for Homeland Security
This could be the public relations blunder of the year. Look carefully at these "nontraditional" targets. Notice first what race they all show, and then the particular condition of each person. This is more than a little scary. Just imagine if we had our military practicing on targets that all showed Arabs, including women in burkhas and teenage boys. Imagine what the media would do with that. But this is OK? –Del

Drop Coverage? Cut Hours? Big Firms Grapple With Obamacare. By Bertha Coombs 
Excerpt: That lower full-time threshold is one of the big issues business groups are trying to negotiate with the Obama administration as the rules are being finalized. Large chains like Dunkin’ Donuts parent firm Dunkin’ Brands argue that full-time status should remain based on the traditional 40-hour work week. (As long as the elites can get their Starbucks, who cares what happens to workers at common-folk places like Dunkin? ~Bob.)

Excerpt: We can assume that our new Secretary of State is not a science whiz. Nevertheless, Mr. Kerry is apparently certain that anthropogenic global warming is a great danger to the human race and should be the object of a major international effort. … What I am trying to do is underscore what a dangerous moment we are at in our society when politicians attempt to make policy based on technological and scientific issues for which they have no discernible preparation or understanding. 

Muslim beheads Coptic Christians
Gosh, now why would a member of the Religion of Peace murder two Christians and then behead them and cut off their hands in New Jersey? It's a mystery. I have never heard of a member of the Religion of Peace ever harming anyone. Anyone have any ideas? ABC news is baffled too. (I forwarded this story before but not with the clip of the bewildered ABC news anchor's comments. Obviously he too has never heard of Muslims harming Christians in any way) –Don Hank

Muslim who beheaded two men arraigned in New Jersey
Excerpt: A man described as a lone-wolf, radical Islamist was arraigned yesterday with two counts of murder and two counts of desecration of human remains, according to a New Jersey law enforcement official....

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe: Chinese need for conflict is ‘deeply ingrained’
Excerpt: China has a “deeply ingrained” need to spar with Japan and other Asian neighbors over territory, because the ruling Communist Party uses the disputes to maintain strong domestic support, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in an interview.

Kenya: Gunmen open fire at mosque near Somalia border
Didn’t get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: Seven people have been shot dead in an attack on a mosque in a village in north-eastern Kenya near the border with Somalia, officials have said.

Human Rights Watch Faults Mexico Over Disappearances
Excerpt: Nearly 150 people and possibly hundreds more have disappeared at the hands of Mexico’s police and military during the drug war with little or no investigation of the cases, a human rights group said Wednesday, as it called on the new government to account for the country’s missing.

The Collapse of Iran's Rial. By Steven Plaut
Excerpt: The Iranian banking system is rife with corruption and embezzlement. Of loans to public entities, over 90% are non-performing. The Ayatollahs seem to understand that the real threat to their hold on power comes from Iranians on the street and in the bazaar – people who understand that the government, not sanctions, has ruined the country's economy.

Denzel Washington: “I don’t have actor friends”
Excerpt: As the interview went on, Washington's seem to clarify that his attitude had less to do with his opinions of his fellow thespians and more with the current culture of celebrity in America. "I'm a working actor!" he declared. "What's a celebrity anyway? Paris Hilton's a celebrity. I'm just a working actor." While Washington didn't go into deep detail about his private life in the interview, the well-grounded and publicity-shy actor alluded to his religious scruples and the role they play in his life and his work. 

Majority of U.S. citizens say illegal immigrants should be deported
Excerpt: More than half of U.S. citizens believe that most or all of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants should be deported, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday that highlights the difficulties facing lawmakers trying to reform the U.S. immigration system. The online survey shows resistance to easing immigration laws despite the biggest push for reform in Congress since 2007. Thirty percent of those polled think that most illegal immigrants, with some exceptions, should be deported, while 23 percent believe all illegal immigrants should be deported.

North Korean Propaganda Video Shows ObamaUS Troops In Flames
North Korea has released a new propaganda video called “Thanks to the Americans.” It blames the US for their need to become a nuclear power and shows President Obama and United States troops behind a wall of flames. (Don’t read Korean but hair stood up on my neck…Barb.)

Excerpt: The video, first reported by NK News, brags about North Korea's latest successful nuclear test and includes computer-generated simulations of the test. "North Korea’s third underground nuclear test! Let it be known once more that this is strictly our practical counter-measure for North’s safety and to protect its sovereignty from the aggressors. It is also a solemn warning that time is no longer on the side of the United States," the video says in a translation provided by NK News.

Excerpt: Sources close to both the Pope and the Vatican have informed LIGNET that Benedict's decision was brought on by his declining health in the context of a major power struggle within the Holy See….A key source suggests that four cardinals, including two from Latin America, are the leading contenders. LIGNET identifies the front-runner to become the next pope, a cardinal who was close to John Paul II, trusted by Benedict, skilled in Vatican maneuvering, and who has been in the front lines dealing with the rise of radical Islam.

Benghazi Survivors Remain Gagged By Federal Law
Excerpt: Since Breitbart News first broke in December that the Obama administration was hiding Benghazi attack survivors, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) began demanding the FBI hand over to Congress the interviews the agency conducted with individuals who survived the deadly attack. … Clinton testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January that there were about 25 to 30 survivors and she only spoke to one. Many of the individuals who worked at the U.S. compound were either CIA or State Department employees.

Excerpt: Just days after President Barack Obama vowed to hunt down and bring to justice those responsible for the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound here, Ahmed Abu Khattala — one of those considered a ringleader — spent two leisurely hours Thursday evening at a luxury hotel full of journalists, relaxed in a red fez and sandals, sipping mango juice on a patio overlooking the Mediterranean and scoffing at the threats coming from both the American and Libyan governments…. All of the above countries have or will soon have regimes that hate America, and all except Turkey and Tunisia have at their highest levels people who openly advocated or engaged in anti-American terrorism and the killing of Americans. 

AAA reports largest increase in gasoline prices in three years
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/284081-aaa-four-week-gas-price-increase-largest-in-over-three-years#ixzz2LWBPvjfa
The national average has increased for 33 consecutive days, rising 46 cents or nearly 14 percent during this stretch. This is the longest streak since the price increased 44 cents over 44 days March 22-May 5, 2011. This year’s run-up is not only larger and faster than recent years but is beginning earlier. (Remember when gas prices were George Bush’s fault? Good times. ~Bob.)

GAO Report: Obama’s Policies ‘Not Sustainable’
For two months, reporters and lawmakers have ignored a devastating report from the federal government itself, which warns that the nation's current fiscal policy will lead to economic collapse. The Government Accountability Office (GAO)—the personal auditor of President Obama and the federal government—released its assessment of the federal government on January 17, 2013. …The findings of the paper include these excerpts (emphasis added): “The projections in this Report indicate that current policy is not sustainable... (Ah, yes, play golf with those $1000/hr pros. Per article: “The most devastating part of the report is the fact that the federal government must run surpluses over the next century to keep the same debt-to-GDP ratio it has today.” –Barb. Not sustainable? Who could have guessed? ~Bob.)

Found! Iran's Secret Ballistic Missile Base: Weapons in silos armed with microbial warheads
Excerpt: WND has learned of the existence of a secret ballistic missile base in Iran’s Semnan Province to which the Islamic regime has moved missiles armed with microbial warheads. The Badr base, a center for air defense which has about 50 underground missile silos housing Iran’s Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, serves as Iran’s second-largest missile-launching site, and is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards. (WND always has their hair on fire. I treat as interesting but unverified until I see a second source. But maybe we should bomb the site on spec. ~Bob.)

Diplomats: Iran Installing High-Tech Machines at Natanz: Tehran has started to install machines at its main uranium enrichment site that are capable of accelerating production of reactor fuel.
Excerpt: Tehran has started to install high-tech machines at its main uranium enrichment site in Natanz that are capable of accelerating production of reactor fuel and the core of nuclear warheads, diplomats said on Wednesday….Diplomats told news outlets on Wednesday that installation was now well on its way, with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seeing close to 100 or more machines mounted when they toured the site a few days ago. The new-generation centrifuges can enrich uranium three to five times faster than Iran's present working model, they said.

Worth Reading: Jon Corzine Trading Ban Considered By Trade Group, Citing Government Inaction
Will not Barack Obama go to bat for his “Wall Street Guy,” a Democrat former Governor and US Senator? It’s not like Democrats think ill of folks for losing other people’s money. ~Bob. Excerpt: A private regulatory body will consider on Wednesday whether it should ban former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine from putting other's people money at risk by trading in the commodities market. The highly unorthodox move is being contemplated by the National Futures Association in response to a perceived lack of action by the government against Corzine, according to one of the people who is pushing the action forward.

Flashback: President Obama Calls Jon Corzine "Our Wall Street Guy"
http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-corzine-is-helping-president-obama-fundraise-2011-7#ixzz2LYqK0bXu

Flashback: VP Biden says he called Jon Corzine for advice

Flashback: Jon Corzine and Barack Obama Ad

Blackballed: the NFL’s Borking of Tim Tebow. By John Kirkwood
Excerpt: The Jets were a mess this year and if Tim Tebow was on another team’s roster, Mark Sanchez would have been replaced after the fourth game for just about anyone with a single digit jersey and a pulse. Sanchez was tolerated only because Tebow was despised. (I could hardly believe my eyes when I read an earlier article on this where Tebow's keepers were quoted saying Tebow was "a mess." And yet no one had allowed him to play. This was obviously a setup. I would go so far as to say that in a court of law, it could be proven that they had deliberately sabotaged his career. They are treating Tebow exactly the way the science industry treats profs who even dare to mention intelligent design. It is nothing short of criminal. But they got what was coming to them. Failure on the field! --Don Hank

Low Information Voters Say “Blame Republicans” For Spending Cuts
Excerpt: Following RI’s update on the sequestration issue yesterday I awaited the inevitable poll on the issue was well – polling that will no doubt be used by Democrats to spook enough hapless/spineless Republicans (including the leadership) to cave and once again give the big spending liberals what they demand.

Tilting Our Melting Pot. By Esther Cepeda
Excerpt: A Pew Research Center report -- "Second-Generation Americans: A Portrait of the Adult Children of Immigrants" -- recently verified something that has been the case throughout most of the nation's history: Children who grow up in this country become proud Americans. Prepare for that to change.

The gun distraction Behind the empty gestures. By Michael A. Walsh
Excerpt: The economy shrank last quarter, gas prices just hit a record high for February, unemployment’s still near 8 percent and the sequester’s about to take a meat cleaver to the Pentagon’s budget — but according to President Obama and his Democratic allies, the most urgent issue facing the nation right now is gun control.

Win an AR-15

A Hard Reckoning. By Shoshana Bryen
Excerpt: The reckoning that comes from understanding that your key ally, Iran, has interests in your country other than you, and regional interests bigger than you.

Quote
“Presidents Day was described by historians Monday as a day to think like Roosevelt, pray like Washington and act like Lincoln. Unfortunately it's a day off. That's when most Americans prefer to drink like Grant, behave like Clinton and eat like William Howard Taft.” ~Argus Hamilton

The Disarming of Our Vets! Veterans Receive Letters from Dept. of Vet. Affairs Prohibiting Possession of Firearms or Ammunition
http://MinuteMenNews.com/2013/02/the-disarming-of-our-vets-veterans-receive-letters-from-dept-of-vet-affairs-prohibiting-firearms-or-ammunition/
Excerpt: How would you feel if you received a letter from the U.S. Government informing you that because of a physical or mental condition that the government says you have it is proposing to rule that you are incompetent to handle your own financial affairs? Suppose that letter also stated that the government is going to appoint a stranger to handle your affairs for you at your expense? That would certainly be scary enough but it gets worse.

The GOP star you've never heard of
Excerpt: But while attracting scant national attention and eschewing the camera-friendly approach of most up-and-coming Republican governors, Bill Haslam has amassed one of the most extensive conservative governing records in the country.
He is, in short, the most important Republican governor you’ve never heard of.

Supreme Court refuses to block legal immigrant's deportation: The decision highlights the stark consequences for noncitizens of having a criminal record.
Excerpt: The U.S. Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block the deportation of a Chicago woman and thousands of other immigrants who before 2010 were not warned by their lawyers when they pleaded guilty to serious crimes and were targeted for removal.

End of the Coolidge Joke. By Emmett Tyrrell 
Excerpt: I am indebted to Amity Shlaes for gently correcting a joke of mine that dates back to July 8, 1972. … She has written a very impressive biography titled simply "Coolidge," wherein she never mentions Cal's naps but rather what made him the most successful president of the 1920s. He reversed the economic insolvency of President Woodrow Wilson, and set the economy on the road to growth, a road made rocky by Cal's successor, President Herbert Hoover, and rockier still by Hoover's successor, Franklin Roosevelt.

Jane Fonda
This is on the level: Apparently Jane Fonda is scheduled to add her handprints and footprints to the sidewalk at what used to be called Grauman's Chinese Theatre. I predict that shortly thereafter a long line of veterans will form, taking turns to, shall we say, defile the spot. They'll probably have to install a special sewer drain to handle the overflow. –Geoff

The Affordable Care Act Nobody Can Afford. By Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh 
Excerpt: I was just handed the Phreesia computer tablet by the receptionist under the guise of updating my medical and insurance information. I had seen this orange notebook in another doctor’s office and I became suspicious. Is this really meant to verify, as the website claims, my insurance eligibility automatically and help doctors collect on their insurance while easing the load of paperwork? Or is it forced electronic data compliance to Obamacare?

Worth Reading: After Afghanistan. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: The defeat in Afghanistan crept up silently on the national consciousness and even though we are negotiating with the Taliban, the “D” word is hardly used by anyone. According to Obama, there really isn’t a war, just a mission, and the old mission is now becoming a new mission, and the missions, all of them, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, have been successful which is why we are wrapping them up, except that we aren’t really. And that’s about as clear as the message from the big white building with the neatly mowed lawn out front gets, except for the part about how its occupant singlehandedly parachuted into Pakistan, killed Bin Laden, and then stopped off for some curry and a humanitarian award.

Not fighting back Vs. China’s cyber-attacks. By Ralph Peters
Excerpt: This week, a cutting-edge security firm in Virginia, Mandiant, reported that it had traced major cyber-attacks on 140 US and other Western targets back not merely to China but to a specific Shanghai high-rise belonging to Chinese military intelligence. Mandiant did splendid detective work at the unclassified level. But the situation’s even worse. Exasperated government workers tell me we should be terrified at what the Chinese already have done to us.

Why Are We Not Talking About America’s $123 Trillion In Unfunded Liabilities?
Excerpt: While $16.5 trillion of debt is clearly unsustainable, what is even more alarming is what we are not talking about: The fact that, in addition to the $16.5 trillion of debt we currently have, every man, woman, and child in America also is on the hook for nearly $400,000 in unfunded liabilities–or, over $1 million for every household. (Well, I did in The Coming Collapse of the American Republic, published in 2011. ~Bob.)

Worrisome: 20 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is Heading For Big Trouble In The Months Ahead. By Michael Snyder
Excerpt: Hopefully the economy will remain stable for as long as possible, but right now things do not look particularly promising. The following are 20 signs that the U.S. economy is heading for big trouble in the months ahead…

John Baer: Cell earnings: Prison inmates collect unemployment
Excerpt: DID YOU KNOW that Philadelphia prison inmates collected unemployment benefits while sitting in their cells? They did: 1,162 of them got an average of $344 a week for, on average, 18 weeks. That's more than $7 million.

GOP Senators Urge White House to Withdraw Hagel Nomination. By Mike Flynn
Excerpt: The acrimony surrounding Chuck Hagel's confirmation to lead the Defense Department has caused a handful of Senators to formally ask the White House to withdraw his nomination. The almost unprecedented step has capped weeks of debate over Hagel's fitness for the job. In an effort led by TX Sen. John Cornyn, 11 GOP Senators have signed a letter asking the White House to drop Hagel's nomination.

Heinz and Buffett: Big government for thick ketchup. By Timothy P. Carney
Excerpt: Buffett champions the inheritance tax, which drives family businesses to sell out to his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett also backs President Obama, whose green energy agenda subsidizes Buffett's expanding wind and solar portfolio. (There are other brands than Heinz. ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: Jesse Jackson Jr. didn't read his own book: 'It's About the Money!' By John Kass
Excerpt: There's no way America can fully understand the odd expenditures of guilty former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — like those $7,058 stuffed elk heads — without reading a special book. It's called "It's About the Money!" by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. and Jesse L. Jackson Jr., billed as a guide in "How to Build Wealth, Get Access to Capital, and Achieve Your Financial Dreams." The message? Don't live beyond your means. Don't waste your money on fancy baubles. Be prudent. Pay your own way.

Excerpt: Since being sued by fantasy Nobel Laureate and global warm-monger Michael E Mann for mocking his hockey stick, I’ve taken a greater than usual interest in the conformity enforcers of the settled-science crowd. So I was interested to read this tidbit from Roger Pielke, Jr, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. He’s no climate “denier”, merely a little bit too independent-minded for the movement’s tastes. 

Obama Tells Al Sharpton: ” It’s The Worst Of Times” for Blacks in America
Worse than 1850? 1870? ~Bob.

More Depressing News About Gas, Wages, Bush and Obama. By Chris Kelly
Excerpt: Gas prices have just gone up for the 33rd day in a row. This would be terrible news for the recovery, but luckily in last week's State of the Union address, President Obama discovered the power to bend time with words, and used it to increase everyone's mileage. In case you missed it, he announced: "We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas." (applause) So problem solved, right? (The new MPG rates will be achieved just as Obama cut the deficit in half in his first four years. That is, it’s political, not reality. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: You couldn’t make this up: The Palestinian Authority is furious that Israel and Hamas are reportedly holding indirect talks in Cairo to firm up their cease-fire, because “only the PLO was authorized to conduct such negotiations in its capacity as the ‘sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.’” Never mind that the PLO, aka the PA (both are headed by the same man, Mahmoud Abbas, and dominated by the same party, Fatah) has refused to hold talks with Israel for four years now; …

1 comment:

  1. It would appear that the Cninese have also successfully hacked the computers at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. On a visit in January I observed that every item of clothing in the Museum gift shop bore a Made in China label.
    Semper Fi,
    Larry Mullane
    3rd Recon Bn. 67-69

    ReplyDelete