Three Reasons Why Rep. Bachmann Might Be Right About Huma Abedin
by
AWR Hawkins
On July 9, Rep. Michele Bachmann sent letters to the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, asking that they investigate the Muslim Brotherhood's influence on, and "deep penetration" within, the U.S. government. In her letters she named Huma Abedin, Sec. of State Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, as an individual who has familial ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Usual Suspects: ABC's Ross, Stephanopoulos Point to Tea Party in Dark Knight Shooting UPDATE: ABC Corrects, Apologizes--After Blaming 'Social Media' and the Public
On Good Morning America, ABC News' Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos suggested that the Tea Party might be connected to the mass shootings early this morning in an Aurora, CO theater during a screening of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. The mainstream media attempted to blame the Tea Party for the Tuscon shootings in January 2011, shortly after Republicans swept the midterm elections. Now, in the critical 2012 elections, the mainstream media seems poised to do the same--and ABC News has led the way.
Here is the exchange between ABC News chief investigator Brian Ross and host George Stephanopoulos about apparent suspect James Holmes:Sen. Tom Coburn: How Both Parties Bankrupted America
by
Reason TV
Dana Milbank Hurls McCarthyism To Shield Obama From Criticism
by
John Nolte
Even though -- according to a number independent fact-checkers -- Obama has been running around for the past month using $100 million in ads to hit Mitt Romney with lies; even though Obama's top surrogates have been using the word "felon" to describe Romney -- The Washington Post's Dana Milbank is now demanding that Romney shut up.
'Dark Knight Rises' Review: Nolan Slaps Obama With a Masterpiece
by
John Nolte
From a purely cinematic standpoint, director/co-writer Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" is a genuine masterpiece. Actually, it's a triumph.
Surpassing the extraordinary hype and
expectations surrounding the conclusion to his epic trilogy seemed
impossible, and yet somehow Nolan achieved just that. The fact that I'm
even debating whether or not "Rises" surpasses its perfect predecessor
speaks volumes. Without giving anything away -- without telling you if
it's tragic or happy or bitter or sweet -- let me just say that the
final few minutes of "Rises" represent one of the most intensely
satisfying movie moments of my life.
Media finds way to blame tea party for another violent tragedy
Once again, the media managed to blame the tea party for a horrific violent tragedy. This time the tragedy was in Aurora, Colorado at midnight showing of the Dark Knight Rises. Twelve people were killed by a shooter who went on a rampage, fifty other individuals needed to be treated for injuries. Below are examples of past tragedies that the tea party was unfairly blamed for immediately after the event occurred:
More malaise ahead
More malaise ahead
We’re all waiting for the president’s promised Recovery Summer
The economy continues to be stuck in neutral, with no sign of relief ahead. The natural question is: How many more months and years of gloomy news reports must be endured until we admit the Obama administration’s borrow-and-spend policies have failed?Other than a slight glimmer of hope in the housing market, economic indicators are grim. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, testifying before Congress Wednesday, reiterated the commitment for further action via monetary policy if the outlook doesn’t improve. Printing more greenbacks won’t be any more effective than the misguided stimulus which helped drive the national debt to its current $15.9 trillion level. Loose money might just add inflation to our woes.
PICKET: Colo. shooting shows failure in treatment of mentally ill
The horrible massacre that happened
at the Century 16 Cineplex in Aurora, Colorado has set off the debate
between second amendment and gun control activists. According to
reports, the suspected gunman, 24-year old James Holmes, allegedly shot
71 people at the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises at the Aurora theater.
Twelve people were killed and 59 were treated for injuries. With red dyed hair, Mr. Holmes was described as wearing a ballistics outfit and gas mask. According to reports, Mr. Holmes referred to himself as "the Joker" the same name of the Batman comic book villain. Mr. Holmes also told police that his residence was booby-trapped.
Twelve people were killed and 59 were treated for injuries. With red dyed hair, Mr. Holmes was described as wearing a ballistics outfit and gas mask. According to reports, Mr. Holmes referred to himself as "the Joker" the same name of the Batman comic book villain. Mr. Holmes also told police that his residence was booby-trapped.
Batman won’t save you
Batman won’t save you
But a concealed weapon might
The midnight massacre at a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colo., has put the issue of gun control back at center stage. Leftist lawmakers and TV anchors jumped the gun with the usual calls to restrict the Second Amendment. Propaganda aside, preventing tragedies like this in the future involves giving citizens the ability to fight back, not just be sitting ducks.Invariably when a tragedy like this occurs, politicians and pundits seek quickly to spin it to their advantage. ABC News rushed out a report linking the shooter to the Colorado Tea Party, apparently based on a few seconds of Internet research that yielded the name “Jim Holmes” on a Tea Party website. Predictably, it turned out that this Jim Holmes is not the 24-year-old alleged shooter but a 52-year-old Hispanic conservative, whose ethnicity doesn’t fit the dominant mainstream media narrative. ABC News later apologized for “disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.” This was a particularly egregious breach of journalistic discipline considering that the suspect was already in custody and many details regarding his life and motives would soon be made public.
Police: Colo. shooting suspect bought 6,000 rounds of ammunition
AURORA, Colo. — Police moved to complete the grim task of identifying the dead and notifying their families Friday evening in the aftermath of the movie theater massacre that left 12 dead and 58 wounded.
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said he met with 70 family members of the victims at 4 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time who were still waiting for word of their missing relatives. An hour later, he said the last of the bodies had been removed from theater nine at the Century 16 at the Town Center of Aurora.
“Hopefully in the next hour we will get a confirmed list of the deceased and will begin the agonizing process of meeting with the families and determining what happened to their loved ones,” Chief Oates said at an evening press conference.
Police Devise Plan to Enter Apartment of Colo. Suspect
Alex Brandon/Associated Press
Law enforcement officials talk near the apartment of James Holmes, the alleged gunman, on Saturday in Aurora, Colo. More Photos »
By JOHN ELIGON
AURORA, Colo. — Federal and local authorities on Saturday worked to
disarm the booby-trapped apartment of a man suspected in the deadly mass
shooting at a movie theater here, planning controlled detonations of
what appeared to be sophisticated, explosive contraptions in his
apartment while trying to preserve evidence that might give them insight
into the rampage.
Multimedia
Names of victims emerge in Colo. theater rampage
By | Associated Press –
Tom Sullivan, center, embraces …
A written message that begins "To …
Colorado theater shooting: How the world's newspapers covered the 'Dark Knight' massacre
28 photos - 1 hr 44 mins ago
AURORA, Colo.
(AP) — A sports blogger who recently wrote about surviving a shooting
in Canada. A man preparing to celebrate his first wedding anniversary. A
young woman whose death announcement brought heartbreak, yet closure,
to her family.
Friday, July 20, 2012
How I Would Unschool My Kids
How I Would Unschool My Kids
- Posted by James Altucher
But in twelve years of basic schooling I can’t’ remember anyone asking where the “E” was. It goes A, B, C, D (which was really horrible to get a D. It means you were trying somewhat (so as to avoid the “F”) but you were just plain stupid and got a D. Not even a C.) and then, the magic “F”. Which was more than just a letter but a one-letter acronym. None of the other letters stood for anything. They were just letters. They could’ve been replaced by numbers (Claudia tells me in Argentina they were graded by numbers from one to ten. No letters). It’s not like “A” stood for Amazing. Or “B” Boring. “C” Crazy. “D” Dumb. You could’ve just replaced them by 1, 2, 3, 4. Or a “1+”. But F was irreplaceable.
(the mirror image of the tattoo says “Never a Failure, Always a Lesson”)
The Untouchables by Gary North
The word
"untouchable" means something different in India than it does in
the West. In India, no one wants to be an untouchable. In the West,
achieving the status of untouchable is the supreme organizational
goal.
In India,
untouchable status means that you cannot move up. In the West, it
means that you can't be pulled down.
In every Western
nation, certain institutions are untouchable. Anyone challenging
them is regarded as a revolutionary, a kook, or a self-promoter
looking for publicity.
Untouchable
status means that the organization gets a free ride in society.
Its mistakes are overlooked. Its deviations from established standards
are overlooked. It is immune from the usual criticisms that all
other institutions are subjected to.
The Communist
Party in the Soviet Union had this status. So did the Politburo.
Obama Believes Success Is a Gift From Government
Obama Believes Success Is a Gift From Government
Perhaps the rain made the teleprompter unreadable. That's one thought I had on pondering Barack Obama's comments to a rain-soaked rally in Roanoke, Va., last Friday.Perhaps he didn't really mean what he said. Or perhaps -- as is often the case with people -- when unanchored from a prepared text he revealed what he really thinks.
Trashing Achievements
By Thomas Sowell -
There
was a time, within living memory, when the achievements of others were
not only admired but were often taken as an inspiration for imitation of
the same qualities that had served these achievers well, even if we
were not in the same field of endeavor and were not expecting to achieve
on the same scale.
The perseverance of Thomas Edison, as he tried scores of materials for the filament of the light bulb he was inventing; the dedication of Abraham Lincoln as he studied law on his own while struggling to make a living -- these were things young people were taught to admire, even if they had no intention of becoming inventors or lawyers, much less President of the United States.
The perseverance of Thomas Edison, as he tried scores of materials for the filament of the light bulb he was inventing; the dedication of Abraham Lincoln as he studied law on his own while struggling to make a living -- these were things young people were taught to admire, even if they had no intention of becoming inventors or lawyers, much less President of the United States.
The Price Of Corn Hits A Record High As A Global Food Crisis Looms
Are
you ready for the next major global food crisis? The price of corn hit
an all-time record high on Thursday. So did the price of soybeans.
The price of corn is up about 50 percent since the middle of last month,
and the price of wheat has risen by about 50 percent over the past five
weeks. On Thursday, corn for September delivery reached $8.166 per
bushel, and many analysts believe that it could hit $10 a bushel before
this crisis is over. The worst drought in the United States in more
than 50 years is projected to continue well into August,
and more than 1,300 counties in the United States have been declared to
be official natural disaster areas. So how is this crisis going to
affect the average person on the street? Well, most Americans and most
Europeans are going to notice their grocery bills go up significantly
over the coming months. That will not be pleasant. But in other areas
of the world this crisis could mean the difference between life and
death for some people. You see, half of all global corn exports come
from the United States. So what happens if the U.S. does not have any
corn to export? About a billion people around the world live on the
edge of starvation, and today the Financial Times ran a front page story
with the following headline: "World braced for new food crisis".
Millions upon millions of families in poor countries are barely able to
feed themselves right now. So what happens if the price of the food
that they buy goes up dramatically?20 Signs That All Point To The Exact Same Thing - Can You Guess What That Is?
The
U.S. economy is in a massive amount of trouble. There aren't enough
jobs. There isn't enough money to go around. Business activity is
slowing down again. Household wealth has been falling. Food prices
have been rising. Many state and local governments all over the country
are flat broke and are drowning in debt. The federal government has
been rolling up unprecedented amounts of debt
in an attempt to keep things going, but everyone knows that kind of
borrowing is simply unsustainable. So where do we go from here? We
consume far more than we produce and we use debt to make up the
difference. 40 years ago the total amount of debt in America
(government, business and consumer) was less than 2 trillion dollars. Today it is nearly 55 trillion dollars.
How in the world did we let the total amount of debt in the United
States grow more than 27 times larger over the past 40 years? Our
economic system is fundamentally broken, but most Americans don't
realize it yet because times are still relatively good.11 International Agreements That Are Nails In The Coffin Of The Petrodollar
Is
the petrodollar dead? Well, not yet, but the nails are being hammered
into the coffin even as you read this. For decades, most of the nations
of the world have used the U.S. dollar to buy oil and to trade with
each other. In essence, the U.S. dollar has been acting as a true
global currency. Virtually every country on the face of the earth has
needed big piles of U.S. dollars for international trade. This has
ensured a huge demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. government debt. This
demand for dollars has kept prices and interest rates low, and it has
given the U.S. government an incredible amount of power and leverage
around the globe. Right now, U.S. dollars make up more than 60 percent
of all foreign currency reserves in the world. But times are
changing. Over the past couple of years there has been a whole bunch of
international agreements that have made the U.S. dollar less important
in international trade. The mainstream media in the United States has
been strangely quiet about all of these agreements, but the truth is
that they are setting the stage for a fundamental shift in the way that
trade is conducted around the globe. When the petrodollar dies, it is
going to have an absolutely devastating impact on the U.S. economy.
Sadly, most Americans are totally clueless regarding what is about to
happen to the dollar.These 12 Hellholes Are Examples Of What The Rest Of America Will Look Like Soon
Do
you want to see where this country is headed? If so, don't focus on
the few areas that are still very prosperous. New York City has Wall
Street, Washington D.C. has the federal government and Silicon Valley
has Google and Facebook. Those are the exceptions. The reality is that
most of the country has been experiencing a slow decline for a very
long time and once thriving cities such as Gary, Indiana and Flint,
Michigan have become absolute hellholes. They are examples of what the
rest of America will look like soon. 60 years ago,
most Americans were decent, hard working people and there were always
good jobs available for anyone that was willing to roll up his or her
sleeves and put in an honest day of work. But now all of that has
changed. Over the past decade, tens of thousands of manufacturing
facilities have shut down and millions of jobs have left the country.
Cities such as Cleveland, Baltimore and Detroit were once shining
examples of everything that was right about America, but now they stand
out like festering sores. The "blue collar cities" have been hit the
hardest by the gutting of our economic infrastructure. There are many
communities in America today where it seems like all of the hope and all
of the life have been sucked right out of them. You can see it in the
eyes of the people. The good times are gone permanently and they know
it. Unfortunately, the remainder of the country will soon be
experiencing the despair that those communities are feeling.27 Things That Every American Should Know About The National Debt
The
U.S. government has stolen $15,876,457,645,132.66 from future
generations of Americans, and we continue to add well over a hundred
million dollars to that total every single day day. The 15 trillion
dollar binge that we have been on over the past 30 years has fueled the
greatest standard of living the world has ever seen, but this wonderful
prosperity that we have been enjoying has been a lie. It isn't real.
We have been living way above our means for so long that we do not have
any idea of what "normal" actually is anymore. But every debt addict
hits "the wall" eventually, and the same thing is going to happen to us
as a nation. At some point the weight of our national debt is going to
cause our financial system to implode, and every American will feel the
pain of that collapse. Under our current system, there is no
mathematical way that this debt can ever be paid back. The road that we
are on will either lead to default or to hyperinflation. We have piled
up the biggest debt in the history of the world, and if there are
future generations of Americans they will look back and curse us for
what we did to them. We like to think of ourselves as much wiser than
previous generations of Americans, but the truth is that we have been so
foolish that it is hard to put it into words.Four Reasons To Be Even Less Optimistic About The Global Financial System Than You Were Last Month
The
cracks in the ice are getting bigger. At this point it is really hard
to have much confidence in the global financial system at all. They
told us that MF Global was an isolated incident. Well, the horrific
financial scandal over at PFGBest is essentially MF Global all over
again. They told us that we would not see a huge wave of municipal
bankruptcies in the United States. Well, three California cities have
declared bankruptcy in less than a month. They told us that we could
have faith in the integrity of the global financial system. Well, now
we are finding out that global interest rates have been fixed by
insiders for years. They told us that Greece was an isolated problem
and that none of the larger European nations would experience anything
remotely similar. Well, what is happening in Spain right now looks like
an instant replay of exactly what happened in Greece. So who are we
supposed to believe? Why does it seem like nearly everything that "the
authorities" tell us turns out to be a lie? What else haven't they
been telling us?The following are four reasons to be even less optimistic about the global financial system than you were last month....
BBC Gives Jerusalem to the Arabs
The BBC, ever mindful of British obligations to their swelling Muslim population, decided on its BBC Sport website to name the capital of every country participating in the London Olympic games except one: Israel. Even more incredibly, the site listed Palestine as a country and named its capital as East Jerusalem. But for Israel, a capital wasn’t even listed.
Israel’s government, angered by the
omission, responded with a letter by Mark Regev, the Prime Minister’s
Spokesman, to Paul Danahar, the Middle East bureau chief of the BBC:
Ebert Reads Alleged 'Dark Knight' Killer's Mind, Pushes Gun Control
by
John Nolte
Within hours of these awful murders, narcissist Roger Ebert decided to preen around and push his left-wing politics on gun control and, through some brilliant insight few mortals enjoy, read the alleged killer's mind...
Lowlights:JAMES HOLMES, who opened fire before the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises,” could not have seen the movie. Like many whose misery is reflected in violence, he may simply have been drawn to a highly publicized event with a big crowd. In cynical terms, he was seeking a publicity tie-in. He was like one of those goofballs waving in the background when a TV reporter does a stand-up at a big story.
Dark Knight's Box Office in Wake of Tragedy? 'Like Nothing Ever Happened' ... So Far
"The Dark Knight Rises" was expected to threaten "The Avengers" for box office supremacy this weekend.
Then, earlier this morning, a gunman dressed as the Joker, opened fire on a "Dark Knight" screening in Colorado, and killed 12 movie goers before police took him into custody.The film's commercial chances suddenly were up in the air, but Deadline.com reports the early indicators show the massacre hasn't adversely affected ticket sales - yet.
“What happened in Colorado is a tragedy, make no mistake about it. But East Coast numbers are coming in like nothing ever happened. We grossed half a million dollars by 10 AM just in Manhattan.” One reason for that is because most of today’s grosses, and a good portion of this weekend’s, consisted of $30M in pre-sales. So whether moviegoers show up or not to the theaters doesn’t matter: they still paid for their tickets. The real-time effect of the Aurora movie theater shooting likely won’t be felt at the box office until Saturday at the earliest and more likely Sunday and next week and next weekend as pre-release sales decrease.
Money, Where's the Money?. by Steve H. Hanke
Since September 2007, when the British Government and
the Bank of England bungled the Northern Rock affair, one government
after another has sent in the boy scouts in an attempt to douse what has
become an international economic wildfire. Their efforts haven't
worked. Indeed, they have often made matters worse — much worse — and
the fire remains uncontained.
Heads of state continue to rush from one meeting to the next.
Worryingly, they (and the army of pundits that follow them) continue to
focus most of their rhetoric on whether fiscal austerity or more fiscal
stimulus is the right strategy to contain the crisis and turn things
around. Instead, they should be focusing on the money supply. As history
shows us, money and monetary policy trumps fiscal policy.
Steve H. Hanke
is a Professor of Applied Economics at The Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
More by Steve H. HankeIn New Zealand, Farmers Don't Want Subsidies. by Mark Ross and Chris Edwards
Every five years or so, members of Congress from rural
areas team up to push through a costly extension of farm programs. They
are at it again this year. The Senate recently passed legislation to
keep billions of dollars in subsidies flowing to farm businesses, and
the House just passed a similarly bloated bill out of committee.
Farm bills are an inside game. Politicians never give the public a
good reason why U.S. agriculture needs to be coddled by the government.
Members of Congress focus on grabbing more subsidies for home-state
farmers, and they rarely discuss or debate whether all this federal aid
is really needed.It isn't needed. New Zealand's farm reforms of the 1980s dramatically illustrate the point. Faced with a budget crisis, New Zealand's government decided to eliminate nearly all farm subsidies. That was a dramatic reform because New Zealand farmers had enjoyed high levels of aid and the country's economy is more dependent on agriculture than is the U.S. economy.
Let Them Eat Hope. by Gene Healy
After much soul searching, Barack Obama has figured out where his presidency has gone wrong — and he shared it with CBS's Charlie Rose and viewers across the fruited plain Sunday morning.
"The mistake of my first term — couple of years," the president
allowed, "was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy
right." At times, Obama confessed, he'd forgotten that "the nature of
this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives
them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough
times." He needed to do "more explaining, but also inspiring.""Because hope is still there," the first lady added.
Obama Encouraging Americans to Get on Welfare
by Michael D. Tanner
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CITE THIS
The Obama administration clearly doesn't believe that enough Americans are receiving welfare.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last week
issued an order giving the Obama administration greater authority to
waive work requirements included in the 1998 welfare reform law. This
comes on top of a new ad campaign, using Spanish-language soap operas,
to encourage more Latinos to sign up for food stamps.The administration even gave a special award to an Agriculture Department worker who found ways to combat the "mountain pride" discouraging Appalachian residents from taking full advantage of food stamps and other welfare programs.
Cheaper Credit Will Not Fix the Housing Market
by Mark A. Calabria
Continued weakness in the labor market has renewed
calls for an additional round of quantitative easing by the Federal
Reserve; that is the large scale purchase of assets, mostly treasuries
or agency (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) securities, with long maturities.
Such additional purchases would be a mistake as the impact on the labor
market would be minimal, potentially negative, and the long-run risks
to the Fed and the economy would be substantial.
Who Will Guarantee This Guarantor? Part Two
The director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation responds to an article on American.com.
The article prompted a thoughtful response from Josh Gotbaum, the director of the PBGC. His response follows, along with my additional comments:
How the Elites Built America’s Economic Wall
Illustration by Andrew Neyer
Economists have long taught this history to their undergraduates as an illustration of the growth theory for which Robert Solow won his Nobel Prize in economics: Poor places are short on the capital that would make local labor more productive. Investors move capital to those poor places, hoping to capture some of the increased productivity as higher returns. Productivity gradually equalizes across the country, and wages follow. When capital can move freely, the poorer a place is to start with, the faster it grows.
Let States Do the Tax-Collecting Dirty Work
By Amity Shlaes
That line from the New York Times columnist Bill Keller about state experiments involving President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act reflects a prevalent attitude: States that break away with original fiscal plans come up with subpar results that waste everyone’s time.
Photographer: Ben Baker/Redux
Home of Suspect in Colorado Movie Shootings May Be Booby-Trapped
By Vincent Del Giudice, Jennifer Oldham and Mark Niquette -
PHotographer: Ed Andrieski/AP Photo
Police use a video camera to look inside an apartment where the suspect
in a shooting at a movie theatre lived in Aurora, Colo., on July 20,
2012. PHotographer: Ed Andrieski/AP Photo
Strassel: Obama's Enemies List—Part II
Strassel: Obama's Enemies List—Part II
First an Obama campaign website called out Romney donor Frank Vandersloot. Next the IRS moved to audit him—and so did the Labor Department.
Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list. Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This bloodhound—a recent employee of Senate Democrats—worked for a for-hire opposition research firm.
Now Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted by the federal government. In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been "selected for examination" by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot's wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).
Mr. VanderSloot, who is 63 and has been working since his teens, says neither he nor his accountants recall his being subject to a federal tax audit before. He was once required to send documents on a line item inquiry into his charitable donations, which resulted in no changes to his taxes. But nothing more—that is until now, shortly after he wrote a big check to a Romney-supporting Super PAC.
Zhang Jun/Xinhua/ZUMAPRESS.com
Two weeks after receiving the IRS
letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of
Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs
on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for
temporary agriculture workers. The H-2A program allows tens of thousands of temporary workers in the U.S.; Mr. VanderSloot employs precisely three. All are from Mexico and have worked on the VanderSloot ranch—which employs about 20 people—for five years. Two are brothers. Mr. VanderSloot has never been audited for this, though two years ago his workers' ranch homes were inspected. (The ranch was fined $8,400, mainly for too many "flies" and for "grease build-up" on the stove. God forbid a cattle ranch home has flies.)
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