The Democratic Party’s largest single contributors will make money off of the country losing hundreds of thousands of jobs with President Obama killing the Keystone Oil Pipeline from Canada.
Energy Policy: Killing the Keystone XL pipeline may help one of the world’s richest men get richer. North Dakota’s booming oil fields will now grow more dependent on a railroad the president’s economic guru just bought.
Stop us if you see a pattern here. About the time George Soros — Hungarian billionaire and key donor to leftist groups and the Democratic Party — invested heavily in the stock of the state-run Brazilian oil company Petrobras, President Obama was curbing U.S. offshore oil production and the U.S. Export-Import Bank announced a $2 billion loan to Petrobras to finance deep-water drilling off the pristine beaches of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
As he was imposing curbs and moratoria on U.S. offshore drillers, President Obama wished the Brazilians well in the hope we would someday be Brazil’s best oil customer.
Apparently, oil tankers coming from Brazil are better and safer than a pipeline from Canada, whose best customer we will not be if they ship their tar sands oil to China instead.
Interestingly, another billionaire, Obama economic inspiration Warren Buffett, stands to benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline delay.
As oil production ramps up in the Bakken fields of North Dakota, plans to use the pipeline to transport it have been dashed.
As a result, North Dakota’s booming oil producers will have to rely even more on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad, which Buffett just bought, to ship it to refineries.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe in a deal valuing the railroad at $34 billion. Berkshire Hathaway already owns about 22% of Burlington Northern, and will pay $100 a share in cash and stock for the rest of the company.
…..That targeting has taken a sinister turn–a criminal one, in fact–as the Des Moines Register reports:
A Des Moines man has been arrested after police say he used, or tried to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in a scheme to falsely implicate Schultz in perceived unethical behavior in office.
Zachary Edwards was arrested Friday and charged with identity theft.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a news release saying Schultz’s office discovered the scheme on June 24, 2011 and notified authorities.
Iowa blogger Shane Vander Hart has more, including this mug shot of Zachary Edwards, a Democratic operative:
Edwards is a former Obama staffer who directed “new media operations” for Obama in five states during the 2008 primaries. Thereafter, he was Obama’s Director of New Media for the State of Iowa. In the Democratic Party’s lexicon, “new media” apparently includes identity theft.
Edwards now works for LINK Strategies, a Democratic consulting firm with extraordinarily close ties to Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin. Its principal, Jeff Link, has served as Harkin’s campaign manager and chief of staff. Link, too, is a former Obama staffer. The LINK Strategies web site says that Jeff Link “served as a media consultant to the Obama for President Campaign, coordinating branding, all paid media and polling in 25 states, including seven battleground states (VA, NC, FL, CO, NM, NV, MT)….”
That Edwards allegedly tried to steal the Secretary of State’s identity in order to frame Schultz for “unethical behavior in office” is no coincidence. Iowa Democrats, as Kevin Hall of the Iowa Republican points out, have mounted a campaign of false accusations against Schultz…..
The U.S. Constitution actually protects federal lawmakers from detention while they’re on the way to the capital.
“The Senators and Representatives…shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same….” – Article I, Section 6.
The National Bureau of Economic Research scored the recession as ending in June, 2009. Yet, today, in the 49th month since the recession started, there has still been no real recovery, like recoveries from previous recessions in America.
Unemployment actually rose after June, 2009, and did not fall back down below that level until 18 months later in December, 2010. Instead of a recovery, America has suffered the longest period of unemployment near 9% or above since the Great Depression, under President Obama’s public policy malpractice. Even today, 49 months after the recession started, the U6 unemployment rate counting the unemployed, underemployed and discouraged workers is still 15.2%. And that doesn’t include all the workers who have fled the workforce under Obama’s economic oppression. The unemployment rate with the full measure of discouraged workers is reported at www.shadowstats.com as about 23%, which is depression level unemployment.
Today, over 4 years since the recession started, there are still almost 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. That includes 5.6 million who are long-term unemployed for 27 weeks, or more than 6 months. Under President Obama, America has suffered the longest period with so many in such long-term unemployment since the Great Depression.
Notably, blacks have been suffering another depression under Obama, with unemployment today, 49 months after the recession started, still at 15.8%. Black unemployment has been over 15% for 2 ½ years under Obama. Black teenage unemployment today is over 40%, where it has persisted for over 2 years as well.
Hispanics have also been suffering a depression under Obama, with unemployment today still in double digits at 11%. Hispanic unemployment has been in double digits for three years under President Obama. Over one fourth of Hispanic youths remain unemployed today, which also has persisted for years.
The Census Bureau reported in September that more Americans are in poverty today than at any time in the entire history of Census tracking poverty. Americans dependent on food stamps are at an all time high as well.
Real wages and incomes have been falling so steadily under Obama and his confused, throwback, Keynesian/neo-Marxist Obamanomics, that the Census Bureau also reported that real median family income in America has fallen all the way back to 1996 levels.
Compare Obama’s lack of a recovery 2 ½ years after the recession ended with the first 2 ½ years of the Reagan recovery. In those years under Reagan, the American economy created 8 million new jobs, the unemployment rate fell by 3.6 percentage points, real wages and incomes were jumping, and poverty had reversed an upsurge started under Carter, beginning a long term decline.
While Obama crows about 200,000 jobs created last month, the most for a month during his entire Administration, in September, 1983 the Reagan recovery less than a year after it began created 1.1 million jobs in that one month alone. Under Obama, we are still almost 6 million jobs below the peak before the recession started over 4 years ago! In the second year of the Reagan recovery, real economic growth boomed by 6.8%, the highest in 50 years.
The chief excuse of the Obama apologists is that what we have suffered was not just a recession, but a financial crisis, and, they argue, recovery from a financial crisis takes a lot longer than recovery from a recession. But that is not the experience of the American, free market, capitalist economy.
The experience of the American economy is reported in full at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as cited above – recessions since the Great Depression previously have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously 16 months, and the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. That is the standard by which the performance of Obamanomics is to be judged. Which of those American recessions was a “financial crisis” that breaks the pattern?
Most healthcare plans will be required to cover birth control without charging co-pays or deductibles starting Aug. 1, the Obama administration announced Friday.
The final regulation retains the approach federal health officials proposed last summer, despite the deluge of complaints from religious groups and congressional Republicans that has poured in since then. Churches, synagogues and other houses of worship are exempt from the requirement, but religious-affiliated hospitals and universities only get a one-year delay and must comply by Aug. 1, 2013.
“This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. “I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”
Congressional Republicans slammed the decision as an assault on religious freedom.
“This ruling forces religious organizations to violate the fundamental tenets of their faith, or stop offering health insurance coverage to their employees,” said the Republican Policy Committee. “Time will tell whether those institutions choose the former or the latter course — but neither option should be necessary, if the administration had not taken such an unbending approach to appease its liberal base.”
The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico.
Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection.
Cunningham was ordered Wednesday to appear before Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Agent Brian Terry.
The letter from Cunningham’s Washington DC attorney stunned congressional staff. Last week, Cunningham, the second highest ranking U.S. Attorney in Arizona, was scheduled to appear before Issa‘s committee voluntarily. Then, he declined and Issa issued a subpoena.
Cunningham is represented by Tobin Romero of Williams and Connolly who is a specialist in white collar crime. In the letter, he suggests witnesses from the Department of Justice in Washington, who have spoken in support of Attorney General Eric Holder, are wrong or lying.
CHICAGO, IL – President Obama’s Chicago homecoming on Wednesday was less welcoming than he expected, as Obama was shocked to learn his Hyde Park residence had been foreclosed upon some time last year. Obama was in Chicago for a series of fundraisers and decided to visit his old home, only to discover the locks had been changed and a new family had moved in.
Since his inauguration, President Obama had neglected to make a single payment on the home he’d shared with his wife and two daughters, while the house itself fell into grave disrepair.
“The place started to become a real eyesore,” said Kevin Deckman, who owns a home on the opposite side of the street from the former Obama residence. “The lawn was nothing but weeds, and there were a bunch of stray cats that would come and go through an open window, I think. It was a real health hazard.
More…
Daniel Broyles, a spinal surgeon at the University of Chicago Medical Center, purchased the former Obama home at a foreclosure auction last May and was headed to his kitchen Wednesday night when he caught the president trying to jimmy open the side door with a credit card. “He came through the door, and we both had this moment where we were looking at each other like, ‘What are you doing?’” When Broyles explained to Obama the circumstances by which he came to own the house, the president apologized and left.
US retail sales rose less than expected over the holidays while new jobless claims climbed to a six-week high, underlining the slow pace of recovery from recession.
Retail sales increased 0.1 per cent in December to $400.6bn, missing forecasts of a 0.3 per cent rise and logging the weakest growth since last May, according to a commerce department report.
Separately, first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose to 399,000. Economists say claims need to stay below 400,000 to sustain job growth.
December sales of electronics and appliances fell 3.9 per cent and department store purchases slipped 0.2 per cent. Meanwhile, cheaper fuel prices brought down receipts at petrol stations 1.6 per cent last month, while food and beverage sales fell 0.2 per cent.
“December’s retail sales figures suggest it was not a happy holiday season for US retailers,” said Paul Dales, senior US economist at Capital Economics. “In other words, households have started to pare back their spending, most probably because their real incomes have continued to fall.”
Just as I told fellow Political Arena writer and CEO Thomas Zaleski yesterday, Bill Daley had to go because he was not “down with the struggle” enough for Valerie Jerritt and the other Saul Alinsky inspired radicals in the top White House staff. Daley was seen as too pro-business, too willing to work with Republicans in Congress (instead of viewing them as the enemy in a class war), and too Irish Catholic, which offended Michelle Obama.
This should speak volumes about just how leftist, neo-marxist, or pick your favorite description of how radical and out of touch this White House is.
”The bigger truth is that Bill Daley left the White House because he lost to Valerie Jarrett and to the president’s wife in the battle for the philosophical direction of the Obama White House. Daley was only ineffective because his boss would not let him be effective.”
“He is a pro-business Democrat, an increasingly rare breed these days in Washington. Obama is not a pro-business Democrat. Obama has made the fateful decision that he will govern as a left-wing political populist.”
“That is why he has embraced the Occupy Wall Street movement, why he keeps using class-warfare rhetoric, why he has given up on deal-cutting, why he has decided to run against Congress rather than on his accomplishments.”
When debt reaches 100% of GDP it is usually a point of no return. Only one country in the history of the world has survived that much debt. What happens is that spending and interest spiral up to the point where those making the loans realize that the debtor is incapable of paying it back. The currency starts to fall apart fast at 120-130% of GDP, which isn’t far away. We are already seeing the inflationary effects of so much debt.
WASHINGTON – The soaring national debt has reached a symbolic tipping point: It’s now as big as the entire U.S. economy.
The amount of money the federal government owes to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other programs, now tops $15.23 trillion.
That’s roughly equal to the value of all goods and services the U.S. economy produces in one year: $15.17 trillion as of September, the latest estimate. Private projections show the economy likely grew to about $15.3 trillion by December — a level the debt is likely to surpass this month.
“The 100% mark means that your entire debt is as big as everything you’re producing in your country,” says Steve Bell of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which has proposed cutting nearly $6 trillion in red ink over 10 years. “Clearly, that can’t continue.”
Long-term projections suggest the debt will continue to grow faster than the economy, which would have to expand by at least 6% a year to keep pace.
Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman is working on a major Obama administration initiative that would renew scientist exchanges between U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and Chinese nuclear facilities.
The idea is aimed at promoting openness and transparency by China’s military about its secret, large-scale buildup of nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials.
Critics say the plan is similar to an exchange program in the 1990s that sent U.S. nuclear scientists to China and produced one of the worst cases of nuclear espionage. Secrets about every deployed warhead in the U.S. arsenal were compromised, including the W-88 small nuclear warhead deployed on submarine-launched missiles.
“We’ve seen this movie before, and it has a bad ending,” one official said.
Officials familiar with the plan told Inside the Ring that the initiative was discussed during a recent policy committee meeting of senior national security officials at the White House.
Requiring people to have health insurance is “conservative,” GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told MSNBC on Wednesday, but only if states do it.
The argument aims to improve Romney’s appeal to Republican voters concerned about the healthcare reform plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts in 2006. The Massachusetts law contains an individual mandate similar to the one in President Obama’s healthcare law, which conservatives despise.
“Personal responsibility,” Romney said, “is more conservative in my view than something being given out for free by government.”
I know the difference between personal responsibility and a government mandate and I imagine our fine readers do too….
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Columbia University will offer a new course for upperclassmen and grad students next semester. An Occupy Wall Street class will send students into the field and will be taught by Dr. Hannah Appel, a veteran of the Occupy movement.
The course begins next semester and will be divided between class work at Columbia’sMorningside Heights campus and fieldwork that will require students to become involved with the Occupy movement outside of the classroom.
The course will be called “Occupy the Field: Global Finance, Inequality, Social Movement” it will be run by the anthropology department.
This is a double edged sword. Romney cannot exactly ding President Obama for his incredible lack of transparency, especially after he promised repeatedly to be the mots transparent president in history, when Romney will not be transparent himself.
On the other hand, if Romney releases the tax returns every point in it will be spun and lied about, 1% nonsense etc. It would give Obama something to run against.
Mitt Romney, who is one of the wealthiest men ever to seek the presidency, said on Wednesday that he had no intention of releasing his tax returns if he became the Republican presidential nominee, breaking with a long tradition in both parties.
Mr. Romney made the statement in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, but the network did not show that part of the interview. Mr. Romney, a multimillionaire who made his fortune running a private equity firm, was asked whether he planned to release his tax return.
“I doubt it,” Mr. Romney said, according to a transcript of the interview provided by NBC News. “I will provide all the financial info, which is an extraordinary pile of documents which show investments and so forth.”
“But you won’t do the tax returns?” asked Chuck Todd, host of “The Daily Rundown.”
“I don’t intend to release the tax returns. I don’t,” Mr. Romney responded.
A spokesman for President Obama‘s re-election campaign blasted Mr. Romney and questioned whether he had something to hide in his finances.
A new report from a New Orleans-based group reveals that the Obama administration is approving just 35 percent of the oil drilling plans for the Gulf of Mexico so far this year. It is also taking an average of 115 days — nearly four months — to secure approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Those numbers contrast sharply from previous years. This historical average is a 73.4% approval rate. The approval time has nearly doubled; the historical average is 61 days for the government to approve plans.
For plans that require drilling activity, the numbers are even worse. New regulations require all deepwater drilling plans to undergo an environmental assessment process. Those plans have an average approval time of 222 days or more than seven months.
The data were included in the latest release of the Gulf Permit Index from Greater New Orleans Inc. It has monitored this trend since last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The delays have continued for more than 18 months later.
Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.
Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation since June 17, 2011.
By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.
#3 During 2011, U.S. debt surpassed 100 percent of GDP for the first time ever.
#4 According to Wikipedia, the monetary base “consists of coins, paper money (both as bank vault cash and as currency circulating in the public), and commercial banks’ reserves with the central bank.” Currently the U.S. monetary base is sitting somewhere around 2.7 trillion dollars. So if you went out and gathered all of that money up it would only make a small dent in our national debt. But afterwards there would be no currency for anyone to use.
#5 The U.S. government spent over 454 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt during fiscal 2011.
#7 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.
#8 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will surpass 23 trillion dollars in 2015.
#9 According to the GAO, the U.S. government is facing 34 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities for social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare. These are obligations that we have already committed ourselves to but that we do not have any money for.
#10 Others estimate that the unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government now total over 117 trillion dollars.
#11 According to the GAO, the ratio of debt held by the public to GDP is projected to reach 287 percent of GDP by 2086.
#13 The United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.
#14 If you divide up the national debt equally among all U.S. taxpayers, each taxpayer would owe approximately $134,685.
#15 Mandatory federal spending surpassed total federal revenue for the first time ever in fiscal 2011. That was not supposed to happen until 50 years from now.
#16 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.
#18 When you add up all spending by the federal government, state governments and local governments, it comes to 46.6% of GDP.
#19 Our nation is more addicted to government checks than ever before. In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.
#21 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
#22 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#23 In 1950, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.
#24 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run out five years faster than they were projecting just last year.
#25 Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.
#26 If the U.S. government was forced to use GAAP accounting principles (like all publicly-traded corporations must), the U.S. government budget deficit would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 trillion to $5 trillion each and every year.
#27 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. But this year alone the U.S. government is going to add more than a trillion dollars to the national debt.
#28 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#29 A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.
#30 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 470,000 years to pay off the national debt.
#31 If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.
#32 According to Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, the U.S. is facing a “fiscal gap” of over 200 trillion dollars in the future. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article that he did for CNN….
The government’s total indebtedness — its fiscal gap — now stands at $211 trillion, by my arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the difference, measured in present value, between all projected future spending obligations — including our huge defense expenditures and massive entitlement programs, as well as making interest and principal payments on the official debt — and all projected future taxes.
#33 If you add up all forms of debt in the United States (government, business and consumer), it comes to more than 56 trillion dollars. That is more than $683,000 per family. Unfortunately, the average amount of savings per family in the U.S. is only about $4,735.
#34 The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.
But do our leaders care about statistics such as these?
Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2012 – Hint: Most goes to Democrats – LINK.
Top 20 Industry Money Recipients This Election Cycle – Who is in the back pocket of Wall Street? – LINK.
Corruption You Can Believe In: Failed Sub Primes and Mortgage Fraud Lenders Funneled Money to Dodd & Obama the Most. Fannie & Freddie Gave $200 Million to Partisans-Most Went to Democrats! Dodd, Obama Among Top Recipients. Republicans Attempted to Pass Reforms-Blocked by Democrat Leadership! – LINK.
I thought Elizabeth Warren was all about transparency. We are all still waiting for her to file the required financial disclosure form.
The Oklahoma Professor has been criticizing Scott Brown for being “Wall Street’s favorite Senator.” She has also denounced “Wall Street cash in politics.”
But it turns out she may be indirectly accepting Wall Street money. The Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is helping the Harvard Professor, has taken over $40 million from Wall Street during the last 7 years according to records from OpenSecrets.org. In fact, Wall Street is the biggest contributors to them. They beat lawyers and labor union[s]. Just during this election season the DSCC has already received $1.5 million from Wall Street.
If Lizzy Warden is truly opposed to Wall Street money, then shouldn’t she reject the DSCC’s money? Otherwise she is just using the DSCC to funnel in Wall Street money.
Via Human Events:
According to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records by the Center for Responsive Politics, the 2008 Obama campaign received $12.6 million from Wall Street “Securities and Investment” firms versus McCain’s $7.9 million
The top three corporate employers of donors to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Rahm Emanuel were Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JPMorgan
Employees of Lehman Brothers alone gave Obama $370,000, compared to about $117,000 to McCain. (No wonder Bush let them go under.)
Since 1998, the financial sector has given a total of $37.6 million to Obama, compared to $32.1 million to McCain. But Obama ran for his first national office only in 2004. So McCain got less from the financial industry in a decade that included two runs for president than Obama did in four years.
CHICAGO (CBS) – A new state law requires those who buy drain cleaners and other caustic substances to provide photo identification and sign a log.
The law, which took effect Sunday, requires those who seek to buy caustic or noxious substances, except for batteries, to provide government-issued photo identification that shows their name and date of birth. The cashier then must log the name and address, the date and time of the purchase, the type of product, the brand and even the net weight.
State Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) obtained passage of the new law following attacks in which drain cleaner was poured on two Chicago women, badly scarring them.
“So that’s who I have to call,” Schroeder said.
He said that when he called his local legislator, the legislator claimed not to know about the new law. Neither, he said, did other retailers in the area. He said he and other store personnel had to call to a number of stores before they could get details.
Non-compliance results in fines: $150 for the first offense, $500 for the second and up to $1,500 for the third and subsequent violations.
Schroeder estimated that there are “easily” 30 or more products in the store that must be reported when sold.
Jewel-Osco has removed the few items it carried from its shelves, but Schroeder said he does not have that option as a hardware store. He said he does not believe that the precautions written into the bill will prevent such crimes from occurring.
Hmmm Vote fraud is a crime……
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 