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Latest Articles: United States News
Potemkin America
Post Date: 2011-02-06 14:51:03 by Capitalist Eric
2 Comments
In 1961 I was a member of the student exchange program to the Soviet Union. It was the second year of the exchange and part of a diplomatic effort to achieve some thaw in the Cold War. The fall of the Soviet Union resulted in high unemployment and poverty rates in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. There were three groups of us totaling approximately 35 American students. The Soviet authorities were not comfortable with us hanging out with Russian students, so we were kept constantly on the move. Consequently, we saw a lot of the communist country and its empire. My group went in through Yugoslavia and Romania, spent time in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tashkent, Samarkand, and a Soviet sports ...
Moonbars Like the Kenyan, Normal People Don't
Post Date: 2011-02-06 10:48:06 by no gnu taxes
1 Comments
President Barack Obama's second year in office has polarized the US as a 68 point gap divides the two major political camps in the country over his performance, a recent Gallup poll shows. In fact, no president since President Dwight Eisenhower, over 50 years ago, has had a more polarizing second year than Obama. Results revealed that 81 percent of Democrats and only 13 percent of Republicans have expressed their approval of the condition, indicating a whopping 68 point approval gap between the two parties. The poll linked Obama's disapproval rating to the poorly performing economy, adding that "the other presidents with low second-year averages also took office during ...
Police Warn of Cheese Heads, Terrible Towels While Driving
Post Date: 2011-02-06 10:42:59 by go65
1 Comments
At NBCWashington, we receive a lot of press releases from local police departments about sobriety checkpoints, drunk driving patrols, etc. They are especially common around big time party events, like the Super Bowl. But this year’s release from Maryland State Police, invoked a little humor in honor of the big game. While primarily focusing on drunk driving, Maryland State Police also want you to know that waving a “terrible towel” or driving with cheese on your head are unsafe. Now chances are that when the police catch drivers doing either one of these things, they are probably already drunk. Click for Full Text!
The Decline of Male Space
Post Date: 2011-02-06 10:42:16 by Capitalist Eric
3 Comments
> Once upon a time, the world belonged to men. Literally. Because men had exclusive power in both private and public life, they controlled their surrounding environment and the way in which space was designed and decorated. Consequently, the world was once a very masculine place. Thankfully, we’ve made progress in the area of gender equality and women have brought their influence to bear in both the home and the workplace. However, as with many other areas of modern life, the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other; instead of creating a world that’s friendly to both male and female space, we’ve created one that benefits female space at the expense of male ...
Egypt Christians, Muslims Unite in Tahrir
Post Date: 2011-02-06 10:29:06 by go65
1 Comments
CAIRO – Joining hands against the regime of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian Muslim and Christian protestors shared funeral prayers in Tahrir square on Sunday, February 6, for the victims of brutal security crackdowns on demonstrations. “Nothing can describe our feelings,” Michael Muneer, a Christian activist and chairman of the civil organization “Hand In hand for Egypt”, told Aljazeera satellite channel. “Christians pray and Muslims defend them. It is a touching scene.” In the course of what Egyptian protestors called the “Week of Resistance,” protesters took to the streets for a “million marsh” in the 13th day called ...
U.S. Labor Force and Unemployment Statistical BS
Post Date: 2011-02-06 09:14:57 by Capitalist Eric
5 Comments
I had no idea what to expect in today's jobs report. ADP projected 187,000 jobs but has been wildly off numbers reported by the BLS. Economists expected +146,000 jobs. The actual establishment survey report shows +36,000. I knew huge revisions and methodology changes were coming this month would make gaming the report a crap-shoot. However, the amazing thing in the jobs report was not the number of jobs, but the statistical sleight-of-hand in the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate (based on the household survey), unexpectedly fell from 9.4% to 9.0%. How did that happen? Based on population growth, the labor force should have been expanding over the course of a year by about 125,00 ...
Palin says Obama's policies have US on road to ruin
Post Date: 2011-02-06 08:49:43 by Capitalist Eric
7 Comments
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Feb 4 (Reuters) - Republican Sarah Palin said on Friday an explosion of government spending and debt under President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats had put the United States on "the road to ruin." In a tribute to former President Ronald Reagan, the potential 2012 White House contender said leaders in Washington had lost sight of the values that made Reagan a Republican icon and a hero to conservatives -- a belief in limited government, low taxes and personal freedoms. "This is not the road to national greatness, it is the road to ruin," Palin said of the growth in government spending, budget deficits, joblessness and housing foreclosures ...
It appears the Kenyan's Tuscson "Death Dance" bounce was short lived
Post Date: 2011-02-05 16:34:25 by no gnu taxes
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The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17 (see trends). The president’s Approval Index ratings have fallen nine points since Monday as the crisis in Egypt unfolds. Most of the decline comes from a fall in the number who Strongly Approve of the president’s performance (30% on Monday, 23% now). However, for the first time since mid-December, the number who Strongly Disapprove has moved back over the 40% mark for five straight days.
ABC News Subway Series with Senator Rand Paul
Post Date: 2011-02-05 14:49:35 by A K A Stone
2 Comments
Poster Comment:Run Rand Run
House Republicans Slash Spending By Domestic Agencies, But Only Nick Their Own Budget
Post Date: 2011-02-05 13:14:42 by Brian S
1 Comments
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even as they take a cleaver to many domestic agencies, Republicans now running the House are barely touching Congress' generous own budget. A new GOP proposal would reduce domestic agencies' spending by 9 percent on average through September, when the current budget year ends. If that plan becomes law, it could lead to layoffs of tens of thousands of federal employees, big cuts to heating and housing subsidies for the poor, reduced grants to schools and law enforcement agencies, and a major hit to the Internal Revenue Service's budget. Congress, on the other hand, would get nicked by only 2 percent, or $94 million. Recent hefty increases to the ...
GOP WTF Parade On Health Care
Post Date: 2011-02-05 11:16:15 by go65
14 Comments
Did you ever get the feeling that most of the freshman Republicans in Congress, you know, don't know what the #*%@ they're talking about when it comes to health care? Not just idiots who don't know that it makes actual goddamn sense to make sure every family can afford a family doctor, but real prize-winning jerk-asses who can't wait to get in your face about the government helping pay for your health care, but genuinely don't know (because they never bothered to find out) that the government is paying for theirs? Or who don't know that, yeah, in the real world, people sometimes have to go without insurance. Even if it might mean they'll lose everything if they ...
Amid Egypt-inspired unrest, Iraqi prime minister cuts salary in half
Post Date: 2011-02-05 10:49:48 by go65
3 Comments
Baghdad (CNN) -- Amid growing unrest about poor public services and water shortages, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday agreed to cut his salary in half. Protesters around Iraq have said recent popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia inspired their weeklong demonstrations for improvements in government services and their quality of life. Thousands have rallied since Sunday across the country, railing against rampant poverty, a 45% national unemployment rate and shortages of food, electricity and water, including several hundred in three different parts of Baghdad on Friday.
Bachmann drops plan to cut veterans benefits [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2011-02-05 09:14:19 by go65
53 Comments
Rep. Michele Bachmann backed off a plan on Friday to cut $4.5 billion in benefits to veterans, following strong opposition from several veterans groups. The $4.5 billion proposed cut was one of dozens Bachmann suggested last month in a plan to slash $430 billion from the budget over five years. Those cuts included everything from replacing farm subsidies to privatizing the TSA, FAA and Amtrak. But since Bachmann released her proposal, veterans groups have voiced the loudest objections, causing Bachmann to drop them from her budget-cutting plans. “One point on my discussion list was a $4.5 billion proposal that would affect payments made to our veterans,” Bachmann said in a ...
Global Warming Theory in a Nutshell -- Separating Science Fom Bullshit [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2011-02-05 09:10:50 by no gnu taxes
66 Comments
Every scientific theory involves assumptions. Global warming theory starts with the assumption that the Earth naturally maintains a constant average temperature, which is the result of a balance between (1) the amount of sunlight the Earth absorbs, and (2) the amount of emitted infrared (“IR”) radiation that the Earth continuously emits to outer space. In other words, energy in equals energy out. Averaged over the whole planet for 1 year, those energy flows in and out of the climate system are estimated to be around 235 or 240 watts per square meter. Greenhouse components in the atmosphere (mostly water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide, and methane) exert strong controls over how ...
USD OMG
Post Date: 2011-02-04 19:02:45 by Capitalist Eric
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Is the US's financial position hopeless? I've studied the US finances backwards and forwards, and as I see it the US's financial position most definitely is hopeless. The actual posted national debt of the US is $14.1 trillion. However, the US reports its finances on a cash basis while omitting its unfunded obligations in such items as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and various other entitlements. If the entitlements are included, the total national debt including unfunded obligations would be over $100 trillion. Wait, it gets worse. Entitlements, defense and interest on the national debt takes up 80% of the entire budget of the US. That leaves just 20% that can be ...
Rand Paul: End 'Welfare' To Israel
Post Date: 2011-02-04 18:59:58 by Brian S
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Tea party-backed Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) isn’t sure that congressional Republicans have the guts to make the big budget cuts they’ve promised and, he said, members of the movement are becoming frustrated. “There’s a disconnect between Republicans who want a balanced budget but aren’t maybe yet brave enough to talk about the cuts to come,” the freshman senator said in an interview with ABC News, responding to the spending plan released Thursday by the House Budget Committee chair, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), which would cut non-defense discretionary spending by $58 billion for the rest of fiscal 2011. “I go to a tea party and you know what they say to me? ...
Saviors in Uniform?
Post Date: 2011-02-04 18:53:26 by Capitalist Eric
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"The army is all good men but the police, every policeman is bad," explained Egyptian demonstrator Mustafa Abdel Wahab to Time magazine. Mr. Wahab is as tragically mistaken in the first assessment as he is correct in the second. In Egypt – as is the case nearly everywhere else – the police and army are what Alexander Hamilton called "correspondent appendages of military establishments." Not every individual soldier or policeman is exceptionally depraved, of course. But the institutional purpose of such establishments is to serve the depraved interests of those who control the State. This is why, as Hamilton pointed out, military bodies (which include police ...
Obamacare: D.O.A. -- Obama is a failure
Post Date: 2011-02-04 15:50:53 by no gnu taxes
0 Comments
How did Obama ever think that his program would pass constitutional muster? How could he imagine that the Interstate Commerce clause could cover something that wasn't interstate (health insurance cannot be sold over state lines) and wasn't commerce (failure to buy insurance is not commerce) would stand up in court? He was so sure that he would win any constitutional challenge that he arrogantly failed to put a severability clause in the bill so that it would survive even if parts were stricken down. The decision of the Florida District Court may or may not prevail in the Circuit Court. But who can doubt that the Supreme Court, as currently constituted, will strike it down? So ...
Ronald Reagan Myth Doesn't Square with Reality (Editors Note this article is propaganda and that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the 20th century
Post Date: 2011-02-04 15:48:54 by Ferret Mike
9 Comments
About 10,000 people will gather this weekend at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California to honor what would have been the 100th birthday of former President Ronald Reagan -- among them Dick Cheney, the Beach Boys and Sarah Palin.
Reagan, who served as president from 1981 -1989 and died in 2004 at the age of 93, is widely considered the patron saint of conservatives; ask a prominent conservative their hero, and odds are they'll point to the Gipper. (The adulation is so widespread that candidates at a debate last month among the candidates to be RNC chairman were asked their hero - "aside from President Reagan.")
Reagan is perhaps most often invoked by those who cast him ...
Reagan's myth has grown over time (Note that Ronald Reagan was the greatest President of the 20th century)
Post Date: 2011-02-04 15:28:39 by go65
6 Comments
"The Reagan myth is pretty simple," said Bunch, a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. "Basically, people want Ronald Reagan remembered as the man who won the Cold War and as the man who turned the economy around ... this idea that Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall and that he cut taxes and saved the American economy."
He noted that conservatives also fail to mention that Reagan raised taxes throughout his presidency and was willing to work across the aisle with Democrats on major policies such as Social Security.
"When he had to govern, he was actually kind of a great compromiser. He was willing to make compromises to get things done. You almost never hear about the fact ...
GREAT DEPRESSION II - REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: 18.9 % -- THERE AIN'T NO RECOVERY WHILE OBAMA IS PRESIDENT
Post Date: 2011-02-04 13:59:05 by no gnu taxes
3 Comments
Barack Obama’s Egypt Failure: He’s Becoming Carter Faster Than Carter Became Carter
Post Date: 2011-02-04 13:52:58 by no gnu taxes
26 Comments
Barack Obama’s failure in Egypt has nothing to do with Egypt itself descending to chaos. No American administration has been willing to call Hosni Mubarak a dictator, which he is. And no administration has sought to strong arm Mubarak into a succession plan devoid of kleptocratic relatives. We cannot blame Barack Obama for Egypt collapsing in on itself. We can however blame Barack Obama for failing to mitigate and control the impact of the collapse. Like when a demolition team sets about bringing down a crumbling building — and we now know Obama collaborated to help bring down Egypt — the demolition team must make sure the building, as it implodes, does not throw debris ...
Another Paul campaign? (Rand considering 2012 presidential bid)
Post Date: 2011-02-04 13:26:54 by Hondo68
0 Comments
The Kentucky senator suggested to ABC's Top Line today that he could run for president, per Rick Klein: "We'll see... I'm very much interested in being part of the debate." He certainly has the infrastructure in place, courtesy of his father, to fund and manage a national campaign.
Undestanding the Unemployment Deception
Post Date: 2011-02-04 13:23:42 by Capitalist Eric
0 Comments
Yahoo! reports, and the mainstream media parrots, that the “unemployment rate is sinking at the fastest pace in half a century because a surprisingly large number of people say they’re finding work.” The unemployment rate dropped sharply last month to 9 percent [down from 9.4%], based on a government survey that found that more than a half-million people found work. ... The unemployment rate has fallen by eight-tenths of a percentage point in the past two months. That’s the steepest two-month drop in nearly 53 years. Buried within the report, outside of the view of home page lead headlines, is this important item of interest: But part of that drop has occurred as many ...
Houdini Economics - Unemployment Rate Drops Sharply But Almost No New Jobs Created
Post Date: 2011-02-04 09:17:31 by no gnu taxes
7 Comments
Good political news for the Obama administration. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released a report for January 2011 showing that the unemployment rate dropped to 9%, with over 500,000 people finding jobs. But only 36,000 new jobs were created in the economy, which essentially is none given the magnitude of the labor force: "The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 9.0 percent in January, while nonfarm payroll employment changed little (+36,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in manufacturing and in retail trade but was down in construction and in transportation and warehousing. Employment in most other major industries changed ...
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