News of the Week
Election 2012 *************** Virginial judge rules against GOP candidates A federal judge has ruled against four GOP presidential candidates seeking a spot on Virginia's March 6 primary ballot: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. ************** Obama's DNC speech could move to Bank of America stadium President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is considering moving the final day of the Democratic National Convention to Bank of America Stadium to sell more skyboxes to wealthy donors, three Democrats involved in the fundraising told Bloomberg News. ************** Elizabeth Warren’s Sloppy Progressivism The Senate candidate needs a crash course in wealth creation. ************** Meet Vermin Supreme 2012 Presidential Candidate ************** N.H. primary pranks: Paul ambushed by 'Vermin Supreme' Texas Rep. Ron Paul's final full day of campaigning in New Hampshire got off to a bizarre start here Monday when he was met by a bullhorn-toting man with a rubber boot on his head who challenged him and President Obama to a "panty-wrestling match to decide it all." Occupy Wall Street *************** US Communist Leader: OWS ‘a Wake Up Call to All Who Remain Committed to a Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Direction’ You may think the Occupy Wall Street movement is fading away. You may think that colder weather and tougher local authorities will see “Occupy” crumble into nothingness. You may think it was all much ado about nothing. ************** City evicts Occupy Binghamton protesters BINGHAMTON -- The remnants of Occupy Binghamton were evicted Friday from the corner of State and Court streets. ************** #OWS Supporter, David Duke, Explains Zionist Banking Conspiracy ************** Man charged after baby found in McPherson Square tent A man is facing child cruelty charges after his 13-month-old daughter was found alone in a tent in the Occupy DC camp at McPherson Square. ************** Oakland police arrest six Occupy protesters in Saturday night march OAKLAND -- A clash between police and protesters Saturday night ended with six protesters arrested, windows broken in a Starbucks coffee shop and a handful of police cars, and Occupy Oakland organizers promising more action opposed to police violence. "Hide the Decline" *************** $6.5 billion in tax dollars backing some "risky" energy projects ************** Ben Stein Sues: Ad Agency Replaced Me Over My Global-Warming Position Ben Stein claims he's a victim of political discrimination. The conservative pundit and actor -- and former Nixon speechwriter -- alleges that his position on climate change had him kicked off a $300,000 acting gig, only to be replaced by a lookalike. ************** Fill ‘er up with rainbows and unicorn sweat! In 2006, President G.W. Bush rolled out a new energy program in his State of the Union Address. It was not one of his better moments. In only a few years, the United States would start fueling its vehicles with the equivalent of rainbows and unicorn sweat, er, cellulosic ethanol ************** Next ice age not likely before 1,500 years: study High levels of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere mean the next ice age is unlikely to begin for at least 1,500 years, an article in the journal Nature Geoscience said on Monday. War & Terror *************** Some worry 'new' U.S. military focus on Asia is a muddle WASHINGTON — The Obama administration pledge to shift American military strategy toward Asia overlooks a key fact: The United States never really dropped its focus on the region. ************** Navy readies for Chinese power grab on shipping U.S. boosts forces in Western Pacific The Navy’s top officer detailed Tuesday the strategy for making sure the South China Sea and Western Pacific remain open to international shipping, saying an emerging China might try to “limit access in the region.” National *************** Schools ‘spy’ on fat kids Monitors raise privacy fear Big Brother is joining the battle of the bulge. A group of Long Island students will soon be wearing controversial electronic monitors that allow school officials to track their physical activity around the clock. ************** Fracking risk is exaggerated Frack away, there's no reason not to. Two of the main objections to "fracking" for shale gas have been blown out of proportion, according to British geologists. ************** The Stop Online Piracy Act Pits Hollywood Against Tech and the American People The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a nightmarish piece of legislation moving the House Judiciary Committee currently which Hollywood is pushing hard for. The Tinsel Town lobbyists are in full press on Capitol Hill, doing all they can to get the legislation out of committee and up for a vote. The problem is, SOPA in no uncertain terms is a direct assault on a free internet. ************** White House Official Heather Higginbottom Needs to Explain Marxist Connection There has been some speculation that Heather Higginbottom, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, may get the top job, as her boss, Jack Lew leaves to become President Obama’s chief of staff. ************** In ‘Right to Work’ Battle, Narrative Trumps Fact on NPR Some helpful numbers you'll never hear from government-funded radio. ************** Head Start A 50 Year Flop? Say It Ain’t So, Joe "Head Start" has been the poster child of federal aid to education ever since the Lyndon Johnson administration introduced it as part of the Great Society. And for decades liberals have pointed to it as one of the great advances that the federal government has brought to education, and as evidence that creative social engineering by smart professional interventionists can change the world. ************** Party Line Arthur Miller wrote communist theater criticism under the pseudonym Matt Wayne. The discovery may realign views of his life and politics. ************** GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis to retire from House Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, will retire at the end of this term, he announced on Thursday. ************** California Lawmaker: Let Boys Be Girls…And Girls Be Boys. ************** NYC restaurant closed after owner recorded health inspection It’s time for another episode of America’s favorite game Name that Crime. In this episode, a New York restaurant that earned a top grade of “A” barely five months ago was shut down after the owner made a recording on his iPhone of an inspection by the city health department. ************** Kid Pan Alley Encouraging Students to ‘Compose’ Left-Wing Protest Songs WASHINGTON, Va. – If you want to mesmerize small children and make them believe everything you’re saying, just grab a guitar and deliver your philosophy in the form of music. ************** Why 308,127,404 Americans Are Going To Get Hosed Last week, the US government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), an agency of the US Treasury Department, published its 2011 annual report. There are a few numbers that are pretty startling. ************** Liberal totalitarians carve out a niche for marijuana smoke Sometimes you read a news article that perfectly encapsulates a certain mindset. When I read in today’s Marin Independent Journal about the soon-to-be enacted anti-smoking ordinance — one that excludes marijuana and herbal cigarettes — I thought to myself “That’s it! That’s the perfect example of Progressive totalitarianism nicely packaged with the usual dollop of hypocrisy.” ************** Obama Chief of Staff Bill Daley to Step Down William Daley is resigning as White House chief of staff and budget chief Jack Lew will take his place, President Obama will announce Monday, Fox News has learned. ************** UAW Fund, Underfunded By $20 Billion, To Cut Retiree Benefits You may remember how, during the Obama-structured bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler, shareholders were shoved to the side by the UAW’s retiree benefit trust (called a VEBA), which assumed partial ownership of GM and majority ownership of Chrysler. That was in addition to the American taxpayers pumping in billions to the American auto companies. ************** Calif. lawmaker pleads no contest in shoplift case SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California lawmaker pleaded no contest Friday to stealing leather pants and other merchandise from a Neiman Marcus store in an incident her attorney blamed on a benign brain tumor. Economy
& Taxes *************** U.S. Slipping in Economic Freedom The source of America’s prosperity is no secret: our economy has historically been freer than those of almost all rivals. Unfortunately, that advantage–the essence of what America is all about–is being lost. ************** CA Gov. Brown Shuts Down ‘Recovery’ Website as State Faces $21 Billion Budget Deficit, 129 Companies Leave In the face of strong national consumer spending and private sector employment gains, State Controller John Chiang released California’s December financial statement showing the General Fund is running a staggering cash deficit of $21 billion on an $88.5 billion budget. ************** The Real Dark Horse - S&P's Mass Downgrade FAQ May Have Just Hobbled The European Sovereign Debt Market All your questions about the historic European downgrade should be answered after reading the following FAQ. Or so S&P believes. Ironically, it does an admirable job, because the following presentation successfully manages to negate years of endless lies and propaganda by Europe's incompetent and corrupt klepocrarts, and lays out the true terrifying perspective currently splayed out before the eurozone better than most analyses we have seen to date. Namely that the failed experiment is coming to an end. And since the Eurozone's idiotic foundation was laid out by the same breed of central planning academic wizards who thought that Keynesianism was a great idea (and continue to determine the fate of the world out of their small corner office in the Marriner Eccles building), the imminent downfall of Europe will only precipitate the final unraveling of the shaman "economic" religion that has taken the world to the brink of utter financial collapse and, gradually, world war. ************** Chinese company to purchase world’s fourth largest uranium deposit in Namibia Namibia's competition commission said on Wednesday it had cleared a Chinese nuclear company to take over an Australian mining firm with rights to the world's fourth-largest uranium deposit. ************** "Greece Exit Would Provoke European Social Unrest, Hyperinflation, And A Military Coup" And here we are thinking we were bearish. As it turns out, compared to London hedge fund Toscafund we are rank amateurs. Reuters reports: "A Greek exit from the euro zone would be worse than catastrophic and could provoke greater social unrest, Zimbabwe-style inflation and a military coup, said London-based hedge fund firm Toscafund. ************** Most of Apple's $82 billion cash stockpile is 'trapped' overseas Apple may have enough cash on hand to make Scrooge McDuck's money vault look like a kiddie pool by comparison, but according to SeekingAlpha, most of that cash is effectively trapped overseas. US$54 billion of Apple's overall $82 billion in cash is in offshore accounts, and Apple cannot repatriate that money to the States unless it wants to pay a huge 35 percent corporate tax on it. ************** Nearly 1 Million Workers Vanished Under Obama Initial jobless claims unexpectedly jumped by 24,000 last week to 399,000 as more workers lost their jobs, the Labor Department said Thursday. At the same time, the economy continues to lose workers. ************** Now it's Slovenia's turn SLOVENIA was thrown into political turmoil earlier this week after parliamentarians rejected the appointment of Zoran Jankovic (pictured), the mayor of Ljubljana and a former retail tycoon, as the country’s new prime minister, a month after his surprise victory in snap elections. After several parties abstained, Mr Jankovic received just 42 votes out of 47 cast in the 90-strong parliament. ************** S&P to Cut France by One Notch PARIS—Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has notified the French government of its decision to downgrade the country's credit rating, a senior French government official said Friday, a move that marks the long-awaited blow to France's international standing and knocks the country out of the top financial league of the euro zone. ************** 9 Worst Recession Ghost Towns in America ************** U.S. jobless claims rise sharply to 6-week high The number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits rose last week, a report showed on Thursday, reversing a recent decline and suggesting the labor market remains brittle. ************** Dan Walters: California's 'wall of debt' is really a mountain Gov. Jerry Brown's new budget says that the state's shaky finances are "exacerbated by an unprecedented level of debts, deferrals and budgetary obligations," which he describes as "a wall of debt." ************** Missing: California’s $500K Earners Dwindle Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to balance the state budget in part with higher taxes on the wealthy depends on a group of top earners that shrank by one-third from 2007 to 2009. ************** China's Coming Slump? Even China? Could the world's economic juggernaut, having grown an average of 10 percent annually for three decades, face a slowdown or what for China would be a recession? Does it have a real estate "bubble" about to "pop"? What would be the global consequences? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner visits China and Japan this week. These questions form a backdrop. With Europe's slump and America's sluggish economy, a sizable Chinese slowdown would be bad news. ************** The Euro is Already Gone ************** Hyperinflation Comes To Iran Hyperinflation has struck again, this time at ground zero of the most sensitive geopolitical conflict in ages: Iran. ************** Hyperdeflation Vs Hyperinflation: An Exercise In Centrally Planned Chaos Theory One of the recurring analogues we have used in the past to describe the centrally planned farce that capital markets have become and the global economy in general has been one of a increasingly chaotic sine wave with ever greater amplitude and ever higher frequency (shorter wavelength) ************** Greece Bank Run Shows No Sign Of Stopping: Deposit Outflows Continue In November The year is not over yet, and already Greece's banks have lost €36.7 billion of their deposit base in 2011, and a whopping €64.6 billion since the beginning of 2010, which is down from €233 billion to €173 billion in under two years. In October another €3.5 billion was withdrawn from Greek banks and likely either redeposited somewhere deep in the heart of Switzerland, or converted to various inert metals and buried somewhere in the back yard. ************** How to make Leviathan's growth understandable It is hard to fathom the enormity of the federal government. With an annual budget of almost $4 trillion, annual deficits of well over $1 trillion, outstanding debt of over $15 trillion, and unfunded future liabilities of well over $50 trillion, Washington has become by far the largest, most expensive organization in the history of human civilization. *************** International *************** Thawing The Cold War: Russia Found To Be Supplying Syria With Weapons, US Not Amused Remember the cold war: evil Empire, 5 year plans, Lada cars, etc? It may very well be back, this time over the simple matter of a few million barrels of crude per day, after Russia was found to be quietly supplying an embargoed Syria with ammunition, in violation of a weapons embargo. ************** Dominique Strauss-Kahn did not know he was sleeping with prostitutes 'because they were all naked' Dominique Strauss-Kahn had no way of knowing he was sleeping with prostitutes during swinger sessions because "the women were all naked at the time", his lawyer has claimed. ************** Children 'dumped in streets by Greek parents who can't afford to look after them any more' Youngsters abandoned as parents struggle 4-year-old found clutching note: 'I can't afford her' Country also running out of medicine Aspirin stocks low as austerity measures bite ************** China's Debt Maturity Problem Has Arrived We have discussed the seemingly irrepressible demand to lend companies money (for the implicit FX trade) in Dim Sum bond format a number of times and in the last few weeks yields on these bonds have risen further as the reality of a notable contraction in mainland credit conditions (along with a rationalization of the lax restrictions within the bonds themselves) starts to hit investors. ************** No One Wants to Move to Vietnam’s New Cities Planners in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi have been plotting the city’s growth as an urban center. Already the country’s second largest city, Hanoi aspires to spread its urban influence into its rural surroundings. ************** UK police smuggle fake bomb onto Olympic site LONDON (AP) — U.K. police managed to smuggle a fake bomb into Olympic Park in a security test, overshadowing a special U.K. Cabinet meeting held at the park Monday marking 200 days until the Summer Games begin. *************** Opinion *************** The Real Legacy of Margaret Thatcher, Britain's Iron Lady ************** Might President Obama morph into an el Presidente Chávez? President Obama ain’t no el Presidente Chávez. Yet. But what if he gets another four years in office and a compliant Congress? ************** Law & Order, Obama Style ************** Class Warfare and the Buffett Rule Implementing a surtax on 'millionaires' would hurt just about everyone but the super rich like Warren Buffett. ************** The New Authoritarianism A firm hand for a “nation of dodos” “I refuse to take ‘No’ for an answer,” said President Obama this week as he claimed new powers for himself in making recess appointments while Congress wasn’t legally in recess. *************** |
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