News of the Week
*************** Election 2012 *************** Tempers flare at chaotic 'sundown caucus' A Republican caucus event timed to accommodate observant Jews who wouldn't break Sabbath devolved into a fracas about religion and politics and made for a feisty conclusion to Nevada's presidential nominating process. ************** Walker Backers Mount Effort To Write In Governor's Name in Democratic Recall Primary A growing group of Walker supporters hope to spoil Democrats' recall party by writing in the Republican's name in a potential primary. http://portwashington-wi.patch.com/articles/scott-walker-backers-seek-to-write-in-governor-s-name-in-democratic-recall-primarycrat-primary ************** More States Move to GOP in 2011 Seventeen states solidly or leaning Republican, up from 10 in 2010 ************** Indiana Is A Right-to-Work State What does this mean for Michigan? Michigan now has a right-to-work state as a neighbor, as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed legislation Wednesday afternoon making his state the 23rd right-to-work state in the nation and the first in the Manufacturing Belt. Under the legislation, unions and companies cannot negotiate contracts that force employees to financially support a union as a condition of employment. ************** Art Cashin Explains Why Several Hundred Thousand Jobs Are About To "Vaporize" ************** Florida primary might not be a done deal The Newt Gingrich campaign is gearing up to challenge the results of the Florida Republican presidential primary based on the Republican National Committee's own rules which state that no contest can be winner-take-all prior to April 1, 2012. ************** Wisconsin Election Officials Reverse Course, Refuse to Make Recall Petitions Public Here’s an idea from the misnamed Wisconsin Government Accountability Board: Let’s make the attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker even nuttier. ************** Insurance past should sink Lizzy How does U.S. Sen. Scott Brown win re-election in this blue state? Massachusetts Republicans win when the Democrat is damaged, such as U.S. Rep. John Tierney, who had no idea that his wife was filing false tax returns for the family gambling ring. Occupy Wall Street *************** Occupy U.: Roosevelt offers class on social movement The Occupy movement is moving to academia. Thirty-two undergrads are enrolled this semester in “Occupy Everywhere,” a three-credit political science course offered at Roosevelt University that takes a look at the movement and the issue of social inequality in the United States. ************** Mug shots of the 99% In preparation for tonight’s weekly Occupy riot in Oakland, the Oakland Police Department has issued mugshots of 11 protesters whom a judge has ordered to stay away from the protest sites due to their violent behavior at previous events ************** Oakland Police Release Video of Occupiers Breaking in to City Hall Given how things went down you might think protesters would feel some sense of chagrin, but no. They held a press conference today to say that the police were the problem. As for the vandalism “Who cares?” ************** Can we call them treasonous terrorists now? #OccupyWallStreet's uptwinkles to terrorism ************** Jean Quan plans to call national Occupy leaders Faced with ever-increasing violence between police and Occupy protesters, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is seeking help from a new source: Occupy Wall Street. ************** Occupiers Assert Constitutional Right to Commit Crimes The Occupy movement has generally faded away, succumbing in most cities to cold weather and public indifference. But Oakland is different. The Oakland Occupiers include criminals–not just those who commit sexual assault and defecate on police cars, but serious criminals. The criminal element has given the Oakland branch of the movement staying power. ************** #OccupyOakland thug kills his foster parents Oakland couple Susan Poff, Robert Kamin mourned Friends and relatives said Susan Poff and Robert Kamin of Oakland were the perfect pair to adopt a foster child. ************** Adbusters Calls for 50,000 Protesters to Meet at Chicago’s G8/NATO Summits Adbusters, the group credited with inspiring the Occupy Wall Street movement, has once again put out a call for tens of thousands of protesters to flock to Chicago in early May and "set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month," according to the official statement. Obamacare ************** Obama: I Pushed Dodd-Frank And Health Care Reform Because Of Christ At National Prayer Breakfast, Obama grounds his controversial policies in the Bible. Tax hikes for rich “[coincide] with Jesus's teaching.” "Hide The Decline" *************** The Official “Stupid Things Used To Fear Monger About Global Warming” List You have to feel for the people who live in the Denver Area, according to weather reports they are going to get slammed today by a massive snow storm—up to two feet of snow. Despite the fact that Denver is one of the more hearty cities in America, being very used to snow, people are bound to be stuck in their houses for a few days. ************** What Do You Get When You Rub Two Climatologists Together? That’s the droll title of an article by Patrick Michaels at the prize-winning science blog Watts Up With That. Michaels is having fun while making some trenchant observations about the uproar surrounding a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “No Need To Panic About Global Warming.” It’s by sixteen concerned scientists, including the estimable Richard Lindzen of MIT, who were aiming their words, at least in part, at the current presidential candidates (hello, Newt Gingrich). *************** Epic Greenfail: “Rivers of Urine. . .” Students step over ‘rivers of urine’ after green bathrooms plan for waterless urinals turns a high school yellow… and it will cost $500,000 to fix Students at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida, must step over rivers of urine and endure the stench of rancid waste after a plan to bring ‘green’ waterless urinals into bathrooms backfired. ************** Huhne is no loss Today’s resignation of Chris Huhne, the UK Minister for Climate Change, offers the prospect of a belated return to sanity at the former Ministry of Agriculture in Whitehall. H ************** UN panel says retool world economy for sustainability The world can no longer afford to ignore the environmental cost of economic growth and must redefine the very concept of national wealth, a UN panel of heads of state and environment ministers said Monday. ************** Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again) Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years War & Terror *************** Presenting The Russian Naval Base In Tartus, Syria, Or Good Luck UN Security Council UPDATE: Hardly reassuring (from Bloomberg): *U.S. IS `DISGUSTED' WITH RUSSIA, AMBASSADOR RICE SAYS AT UN The world is suddenly aflutter in its usual fake indignation (how many times have we seen this) having realized what has been going on in Syria for months on end. ************** 'Anonymous' hackers intercept conversation between FBI and Scotland Yard on how to deal with hackers A conference call between Scotland Yard and the FBI has been intercepted and published by a member of the computer hacking group Anonymous. ************** Navy is scaling up a component to connect bigger capacitor banks to railguns National *************** The Fraud of “Hate Crimes” Laws Anti-white “flashmobs,” deftly hidden by Big Media, have struck again, this time in Philadelphia, where a large group of black teenagers beat a white cab driver and his white college-age passenger while they were stopped at an intersection. The execrable Philly D.A., however, has announced that the attackers will not be charged with committing hate crimes. City of brotherly love, indeed. ************** Will GLAAD Scrub Yahoo! Of All 'Anti-LGBT Comments'? ************** Sen. Rand Paul Proposes an Amendment to the STOCK Act to ouwlaw Obama-style crony socialism ************** Deal Reached to Prevent Michigan Takeover of Detroit; Really? No, Not Really; What's Best for Bankrupt Detroit? On January 29 Bloomberg reported Bing Races to Beat Michigan Deadline for Union Detroit Deal Democratic Mayor Dave Bing is racing to wrest concessions from 48 bargaining units to erase a $200 million deficit in the home of General Motors Co. and the cradle of the U.S. auto industry. ************** Jindal's Education Moon Shot Louisiana's Governor pushes vouchers and tenure reform. ************** SEIU Confirms Democrat-Socialist Marxist Connection I have long contended that the US’s largest and most militant labor organization the Service Employees International Union, is allied to, or subordinate to the country’s largest Marxist organization – Democratic Socialists of America. Economy
& Taxes *************** Angry Youths Attack House Of Greek President Papoulias; Hurl Rocks, Molotov Cocktails Instead of defaulting a long time ago (when we first suggested it should) when it could have pulled an Iceland, taken a bitter pill, hyperinflated the drachma and in the process delevered overnight, if at a big social cost of losing its welfare safety net (which it is about to lose anyway courtesy of the PSI and OSI), and not be held captive to bigger geopolitical interests, and hostage to the banker superclass, Greece very likely could have been on the road to recovery now, granted with a totally different political regime. ************** Greece on ‘Razor’s Edge’ as Debt Talks Drag On Greece’s efforts to win a second bailout from international creditors teetered in the balance as negotiations in Athens failed to clinch an agreement. ************** TrimTabs Explains Why Today's "Very, Very Suspicious" NFP Number Is Really Down 2.9 Million In Past 2 Months We have examined the nuance of the euphoric jobs data this morning from every angle and by now there should be plenty of 'information' for investors to make their own minds up on its credibility. ************** How Europe Has Evolved From A Democracy To A Bankocracy And Why Austerity Will Lead To Chaos In one of the clearest (and most optically pleasing) discussions of recent months, David McWiliams (of Punk Economics) succinctly explains how Europe has evolved from a democracy to a bankocracy, the implications of which lead to austerity for the people and a Franco-German imposition (the 'fiscal compact') that can only lead to social unrest and chaos. ************** The New Class: Profiting From Decline ************** Record 1.2 Million People Fall Out Of Labor Force In One Month, Labor Force Participation Rate Tumbles To Fresh 30 Year Low ************** America’s Atlas Generation – The Forgotten 33% Much has been made of the 1% vs. the 99%; the “super-rich” vs. the rest of us, who are presumably the hard working, loyal Americans who’ve been left behind. But who are the rest of us, and how does who we are affect how much we pay in taxes, and how we may vote? ************** UN Wants World Tax To ‘Help The Poor’ Global levy needed to aid “needy people” get free housing, education and healthcare ************** Market Stoned Like Its 1999 Presented with little comment but we thought, given the exuberance surrounding Facebook, ZNGA's rally, and FFN's double, that we would point out that the four-week average volume on the NYSE has dropped to levels not seen since, yes you guessed it, 1999. ************** GK To the Rescue I’ve been meaning for a while now to start another occasional series, like my previous ones recalling Hayek and James Burnham, to recycle some timeless gems from G.K. Chesterton. ************** President Obama hits Romney with subliminal messaging attack President Obama is taking subliminal shots at Mitt Romney, over and over again. ************** Getting Nowhere, Very Fast California has a huge state debt and Washington has a huge national debt. But that does not discourage either Governor Jerry Brown or President Barack Obama from wanting to launch a very costly high-speed rail system. ************** Short China: Its commodities bubble is set to pop Commodities guru Jim Rogers wrote: “Bull in China, Investing Profitably in the World’s Greatest Market.” A former partner of hedge genius billionaire George Soros, he blamed the Fed for igniting two catastrophic financial bubbles back in 2007. So he shorted Fannie Mae, banks and home builders, abandoned America just before the 2008 meltdown, and moved to China. ************** Italy On the Verge of a Full Revolt This past week has been a very turbulent time for Italy. And it wasn't just the grounding of the Concordia cruise ship by a playboy captain; but the grounding of the country by Euro-technocrat usurper Darth Monti, trying to impress his Keynesian buddies with his latest attempts to ‘Save Italy’! ************** Why Apple's products are 'Designed in California' but 'Assembled in China' Look at the back of your iPhone, or your iPad, or on the bottom of your Mac. You'll see the following words embossed somewhere: "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." Many Americans, all the way up to the President himself, have wondered why Apple has outsourced virtually all of its manufacturing overseas. At a dinner with several top US technology executives last year, President Obama asked Steve Jobs flat out what it would take to bring those jobs back to the US. According to Jobs, there's simply no way for it to happen. ************** California to run out of cash in March without action California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today. ************** 'Take Care Of Me' Society Is Wrecking The USA You’ve played by the rules. Worked hard to put yourself through school. You’ve gotten a decent job and you pay your taxes. You’re faithfully paying down your mortgage and saving money in a 401(k) – all to secure your finances and your future. But now there are a lot more “takers” than “makers” in this country – and the impact is systemic and long-lasting. ************** Why Are the Chinese Buying Record Quantities of Gold? This month, the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department reported that China imported 102,779 kilograms of gold from Hong Kong in November, an increase from October’s 86,299 kilograms. Beijing does not release gold trade figures, so for this and other reasons the Hong Kong numbers are considered the best indication of China’s gold imports. ************** Money From MF Global Feared Gone Nearly three months after MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed, officials hunting for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe that much of it might never be recovered, according to people familiar with the investigation. ************** Prepare for Greece to Leave Eurozone; German Government Calls for Greece to Cede Sovereignty Over Tax and Spending Decisions to Eurozone "Budget Commissioner"; Text of the German Demands ************** Greek Fury at Plan for EU Budget Control Greece’s finance minister angrily rejected a German plan for the euro zone to impose a budget overseer onto Athens in return for a new €130 billion bailout, saying it would improperly force his country to choose between “financial assistance” and “national dignity”. ************** Greek Debt Solution Likely to Trigger Credit Default Swaps European finance ministers and politicians have come to the conclusion that a deal, even one involving a credit event, is better than no deal at all. Thus it is increasingly likely the Greek Debt Wrangle will trigger credit default swaps. ************** Fear may save the euro, but not necessarily Europe Angela Merkel came to Davos on Wednesday and, in a speech as solidly built as a Mercedes, once again assured the world’s business leaders that the euro will be saved. But this time, there’s a difference: More of them seem to believe it. That immediately raises two further questions: Even if the euro zone is saved, where is the strategy for growth? And where would this saving of the euro leave the larger politics of Europe? ************** The economic chart that may doom the Obama presidency In his State of the Union response the other night, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels neatly summed up Mitt Romney’s (who has a roughly 90 percent chance of being the GOP nominee according to Intrade) economic case against President Barack Obama: “The president did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight, but he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse.” ************** China’s very mysterious data ************** As Europe Goes (Deep In Recession), So Does Half The World's Trade Following the Fed's somewhat downbeat perspective on growth, confidence in investors' minds that the US can decouple has been temporarily jilted back to reality. It is of course no surprise and as the World Bank points out half of the world's approximately $15 trillion trade in goods and services involves Europe. ************** Baltic Dry Index Signals Renewed Market Decline Much has been said about the Baltic Dry Index over the course of the last four years, especially in light of the credit crisis and the effects it has had on the frequency of global shipping. ************** Will Buffett Avoid the Buffett Rule? The sage of Omaha is already positioned to shield most of his rising wealth from such a tax. *************** International Obama asks Assad to ‘step aside,’ condemns mass murder in Homs*************** President Barack Obama on Saturday accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government of murdering civilians in an “unspeakable assault” in the city of Homs, and demanded that Assad step down, a day after more than 400 civilians across the country. ************** Russia and China veto UN resolution on Syria Russia and China braved Arab and Western fury tonight by vetoing a UN resolution calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down. ************** Massive Anti-Putin Rally in Moscow (More here) ************** Is China's Yield Curve Signaling A Harder Landing? Following our note on the flattening (and update on the steepening) in the Chinese yield curve (RMB 10Y - 2Y to be specific) last November, we have continued to keep an eye on the relationship between the Shanghai Composite and the bond market for signals that all is not well in the recent 'soft-landing' rally. ************** Forget China, The USA Is Leading The World Out Of Slowdown Concerned about European bank deleveraging impacting Emerging Market growth prospects? ************** Khmer Rouge Jailer Gets Life Sentence ************** Worried India Shifts Defense Focus To China India is turning away from its long preoccupation with declining Pakistan as rising Chinese power sets alarm bells ringing in Delhi. ************** Post-Sovereign Europe? There can be no "solidarity" without a loss of national greatness. ************** Argentina calls William Falklands 'conquistador' BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina said it doesn't seek another war over the Falkland Islands, and accused Britain of militarizing their sovereignty dispute by announcing Tuesday that it is sending an advanced warship to the islands along with Prince William "in the uniform of a conquistador." ************** Law-Abiding Mexicans Taking Up Illegal Guns In Mexico, where criminals are armed to the teeth with high-powered weapons smuggled from the United States, it may come as a surprise that the country has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world. ************** He Told the Truth About China’s Tyranny *************** Opinion *************** Vigilante Films and the Left Liberals have a knee-jerk reaction against vigilante films. ************** Shop is Not a Four-Letter Word ************** Sam's Big Government Backpack ************** Turn This Ship Around ************** Obama to the nation: Onward civilian soldiers War, said James Madison, is “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” Randolph Bourne, the radical essayist killed by the influenza unleashed by World War I, warned, “War is the health of the state.” Hence Barack Obama’s State of the Union hymn: Onward civilian soldiers, marching as to war. ************** You Can Prevent Your School From Teaching Our Children To Fail Become Active In Your City And Take Back Your Public Schools *************** |
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