Saturday, May 4, 2013
Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., May 4 & 5, 2013
Don't... throw... BRICKS...
Yep... friggin' tragedy all around... people killed who didn't deserve to die... young men trying to do their duty scarred for life... but BOTTOM LINE...
Don't... throw... BRICKS... and STONES... and BOTTLES... at police and then armed national guardsmen and expect nothing bad to result!
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/03/livestock-cattle-beef-cme-idUSL2N0DK1XP20130503
U.S. wholesale beef prices rose to an all-time high on Friday...
* JUST KEEP TELLING YOURSELVES "THERE IS NO INFLATION... THERE IS NO INFLATION... THERE IS NO INFLATION... THE GOVERNMENT TELLS ME SO... THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AGREES... THERE IS NO INFLATION... THERE IS NO INFLATION..."
(*SNORT*) (*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/04/18053748-five-us-troops-killed-by-ied-attack-in-afghanistan?lite
Five U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan Saturday by an attack involving an improvised explosive device...
* MURDERED.
* FOR NO REASON; FOR NO U.S. GAIN.
Nineteen American personnel have died over the past week...
* DID YOU KNOW THIS, PEOPLE. FRANKLY... I DIDN'T.
Two other ISAF service members were killed on Saturday in western Afghanistan, the security force announced. The nationalities of the two service members were not immediately released. The two died after an Afghan National Army soldier turned his weapon on them in what is commonly referred to as a “green on blue” attack, the ISAF said.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/297647-michelle-obama-gun-violence-makes-schoolchildren-fear-death-daily
First lady Michelle Obama said that students at a high school just five miles from her family's Chicago home told her that “every day they wake up and wonder whether they’re going to make it out of school alive.”
* WELL OF COURSE THEY DO - CHICAGO IS A DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED CITY.
(*SHRUG*)
* FUNNY... MICHELLE'S HUSBAND'S YOUTHFUL "COMMUNITY ORGANIZING" APPARENTLY DIDN'T DO THE TRICK.
* I BET SHERIFF ARPAIO COULD FIX CHICAGO!
(*SHRUG*)
* SERIOUSLY...!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/world/asia/karzai-said-he-was-assured-of-cash-deliveries-by-cia.html?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065&_r=0
The C.I.A.’s station chief here met with President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, and the Afghan leader said he had been assured that the agency would continue dropping off stacks of cash at his office despite a storm of criticism that has erupted since the payments were disclosed.
* FIRST PARAGRAPH; VERBATIM; SUNDAY'S NEW YORK TIMES.
The use of the C.I.A. cash for payoffs has prompted criticism from many Afghans and some American and European officials, who complain that the agency, in its quest to maintain access and influence at the presidential palace, financed what is essentially a presidential slush fund. The practice, the officials say, effectively undercut a pillar of the American war strategy: the building of a clean and credible Afghan government to wean popular support from the Taliban.
* THIS IS OUR GOVERNMENT, FOLKS; PRESIDENT BARRACK HUSSEIN OBAMA - THE MAN JUST RECENTLY ELECTED TO A SECOND TERM.
* BTW... HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT "SOME AMERICANS" BIT? CUTE, HUH. "MANY" AFGHANS... "SOME" AMERICANS. MAKES YA PROUD, HUH.
Instead, corruption at the highest levels seems to have only worsened. The International Monetary Fund recently warned diplomats in Kabul that the Afghan government faced a potentially severe budget shortfall partly because of the increasing theft of customs duties and officially abetted tax evasion.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
* FOLKS... THIS IS A TOTAL CLUSTER FUCK AND THE HONEST TO GOODNESS TRUTH IS THAT IN HIS FOUR AND A HALF YEARS IN OFFICE, OBAMA'S POLICIES HAVE ONLY FURTHER FUCKED UP AN ALREADY FUCKED UP SITUATION.
Formal aid [to Afghanistan] is publicly accounted for and audited. The C.I.A.’s cash is not, though Mr. Karzai did say the Americans were given receipts for the money they dropped off at the presidential palace.
(*SNORT*)
Asked why money that was used for what would appear to be justifiable governing and charitable expenses was handed over secretly by the C.I.A. and not routed publicly through the State Department, Mr. Karzai replied: “This is cash. It is the choice of the U.S. government.”
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Mr. Karzai is not the first Afghan to receive money from the C.I.A., which paid warlords to fight the Taliban during the invasion in 2001 and has paid others to keep fighting. But the payments to the president’s office appear to be on a vaster scale and to have had a wider impact, fueling the same patronage networks that American envoys, law enforcement agents and soldiers struggled unsuccessfully to dismantle.
* AS I SO OFTEN POINT OUT, IF YOU (AND I!) THOUGHT BUSH WAS A FUCK UP IN MANY WAYS... (*PAUSE*)... OBAMA HAS A DISTINCT TENDENCY TO DOUBLE DOWN... TRIPLE DOWN... ON EVERY BONEHEADED MOVE ONCE MADE BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!
* FOLKS... ONE MORE TIME: *VASTER SCALE*
* FOLKS... ONE MORE TIME: *WIDER IMPACT*
The United States was not alone in keeping the Karzai administration awash in cash. Iran, too, made regular cash payments to the presidential palace, though Mr. Karzai said that it cut off the money after Afghanistan began negotiating a strategic partnership deal with Washington.
(*SNORT*) FOLKS... YA CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!
Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, wrote to President Obama last week expressing concern that they appeared to “indicate an incoherent U.S. policy toward Afghanistan,” and asking for an explanation.
* WOULDN'T IT BE NICE IF HARRY REID WERE TO BE AS CONCERNED... IF NANCY PELOSI WERE TO BE AS CONCERNED... IF JOHN BOEHNER AND MITCH MCCONNELL WERE TO BE AS CONCERNED?
* FOLKS... AMERICA IS BROKEN.
“The alleged arrangements make accountability impossible and promote corruption at the top levels of the Afghan government, as well as break trust with the American taxpayer,” Mr. Corker wrote.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628004578460270906013736.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecond
The Republican-controlled Ohio Senate has shelved legislation that would make Ohio the 25th right-to-work state.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
[T]he experience of states that have passed right-to-work laws, which forbid requiring someone to join a union, is that these laws are conducive to economic growth.
Last year The Wall Street Journal reported that right-to-work states have lower unemployment and faster job growth than states that compel people to join a union as condition of employment.
[T]his is really about a lack of political will. It's about taking an issue off of the table that Republicans believe might hurt them in an election year.
(*SIGH*)
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/05/was-the-april-jobs-report-really-the-obamacare-jobs-report/#mbl
* RE: THE OBAMA "JOBS RECOVERY"
Let’s see, more part timers and fewer hours worked.
Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says what we’re all thinking: “This is not good news as it reflects the reliance on part-time work. … the decline in hours and rise of part-time work is troubling in light of anecdotal reports of the impact of the Affordable Care Act.”
[T]he number of persons employed part time for economic reasons — “involuntary part-time workers” as the Labor Department calls them – increased by...278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job.
At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate — a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig – rose from 13.8% to 13.9%.
* AS NOTED BY ME THE OTHER DAY!
What’s more, there wasa 0.2 hour decline in the length of the average workweek. This led to 0.4 percentage point drop in the index of average weekly hours, “equaling the largest declines since the recovery began,” notes economist Dean Baker of Center for Economic and Policy Research.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
Anecdotal reports like this one from the Los Angeles Times: “Consider the city of Long Beach. It is limiting most of its 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week, on average. City officials say that without cutting payroll hours, new health benefits would cost up to $2 million more next year, and that extra expense would trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services.”
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
Government shed a trend-like 11,000 jobs last month, a number which bore little evidence of a meaningful sequestration impact. Similarly, it is hard to directly link the decline in the average workweek to furloughed government workers, as the workweek only measures private industry hours.
The labor force participation rate was dead in the water. If it were back to January 2009 levels, the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%. Demographics are playing a role here. But even taking that into account may put the real unemployment rate in the 9% to 10% range.
Even with the unemployment rate at a misleadingly low 7.5%, it is way above where the Obama White House predicted it would be if Congress passed the 2009 stimulus... Back then, Team Obama thought 5% was the economy’s full-employment rate but recently has upped that number to 5.4%.
(*SMIRK*)
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