GOLD: Could “confiscation” happen again?

Monday, September 7, 2015

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/09/no_author/will-the-feds-confiscate-gold-again/

Will Uncle Sam Confiscate Gold Again?
By Mark O’Byrne
GoldCore
September 5, 2015

*** begin quote ***

Investors suffered financial losses in recent weeks as stocks globally came under pressure in August and had their worst month in the last three years.

In one of the most volatile trading periods since the global financial crisis, August saw a massive $5.7 trillion erased from the value of stocks worldwide. No major stock market was left unscathed and the risk of financial and economic contagion became evident again.

There are growing concerns internationally that in the event of another Wall Street or global stock market crash and a new systemic crisis – a Eurozone debt crisis or another Lehman Brothers collapse – there could be enforced bank closures or extended bank holidays in the EU and U.S. as seen in Greece recently.

*** end quote ***

It’s not hard to imagine that in another “meltdown”, “market panic”, or “credit squeeze”, that the political class would use that opportunity to radically takeover the economy.

It would not be hard for “the authorities” to implement their plan for taking the trillions in IRAs / 401Ks / 403Bs / 457s by strong-arming the 2200 or so “custodians” into turning them over. Perhaps, for that, sometimes mentioned “enhanced social security benefit”?

While they are seizing the gold and precious metals — if they can find them — they will probably take the guns too.

Be interesting to see how that works out for them. 

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? . . .” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I don’t think any type of door to door seizure will work out to well for the “boots on the ground”.

But then again, “We, The Sheeple” have gone along before.

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Getting paid your full salary with benefits every year for more than 20 years

Sunday, September 6, 2015

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/09/03/harrisburg-paying-officer-who-hasn-t-worked-since-1993/21231588/

Harrisburg paying officer who hasn’t worked since 1993
Sep 3rd 2015 7:15PM

*** begin quote ***

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Imagine spending your last day working, and then getting paid your full salary with benefits every year for more than 20 years. This is the reality for one Harrisburg police officer.

Maritta Adley, 57, has not worked a day with the Harrisburg Police Bureau since 1993. However, she is not a former employee. She is still on the city’s payroll under its workers’ compensation program, and has been for 22 years.

City officials were made aware of the ghost employee when they took office in 2014. City Solicitor Neil Grover says officials are currently working to figure out their options.

*** end quote ***

Well, that seems “fair”.

Gooferment bureaucrats bear no responsibilty for their failures.

Only the taxpayers suffer and suffer and suffer.

Argh!

Any doubt that the Gooferment is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient?

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POLITICAL: A “shutdown” means stopping 16%

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Friends,

As many of you know, no one has worked harder than me on the issue of our debt and deficit. And as many of you also probably know, nothing makes me angrier than sequestration.

We’re currently less than one month away from the end of this current Federal fiscal year. If Congress doesn’t agree on a budget by October 1st, we’ll see the return of these mindless, across-the-board cuts.

As a businessman and former governor, I know there’s a smart way to cut government and there’s a stupid way to cut government. Sequestration is the stupid way. Sequestration doesn’t look at what government programs are working versus which ones need improvements. It cuts all without regard to their goals or effectiveness.

There is no state in our nation that has been harder hit by sequestration than the Commonwealth. And continued sequestration would be devastating for Virginia. It would cut back key military investments at a time when our nation is engaged in conflict in Afghanistan and supporting efforts to defeat the terrorists of ISIL. It would cut back investments in veterans’ care, roads and bridges, scientific research, and more.

Repealing the sequester without locking in a sensible, balanced deficit reduction plan risks disrupting the credit markets and harming our economy. Congress must commit to negotiating a balanced budget that reduces our deficit.

That’s why I’ve been pushing the Republican Senate leadership to engage in bipartisan budget negotiations now – not a month from now – so we don’t again find ourselves on the brink of another federal shutdown when sequestration comes roaring back at the end of September.

Now, I want to be clear: this is going to require both parties to get out of their comfort zones. Everything must be on the table in order to come up with a long-term solution – that’s how negotiations work.

The last thing the Commonwealth or the country needs is running out the clock until the end of September and putting the risk of another federal government shutdown in play.

Thank you,

Mark R. Warner

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Personally, since “shutdown” means stopping 16% of the “entire Federal Gooferment”, then shut it down.

It’s one way to reduce costs!

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POLITICAL: The subpoena to immunity to “The Truth”

Friday, September 4, 2015

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/02/former-staffer-who-maintained-hillary-clintons-private-email-server-to-plead-the-fifth/

FORMER STAFFER WHO MAINTAINED HILLARY CLINTON’S PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER TO PLEAD THE FIFTH
by JOHN SEXTON
2 Sep 2015212

*** begin quote ***

Pagliano worked as Hillary’s IT director during her 2008 campaign. Starting in May 2009 he was hired by the State Department where he served as special projects manager to the Chief Technology Officer. That title also included responsibility for continued maintenance of Clinton’s home server. Pagliano left his position in February 2013, the same month Clinton stepped down as Secretary of State.

*** end quote ***

Now we are getting somewhere.

I’d now subpoena all of his direct reports during that period of time.

Get all the folks on the record as invoking the Fifth.

Then, start handing out “qualified immunity” (i.e., get out of jail free cards).

That will have “the rats deserting the sinking ship” and The Truth will come out.

Argh.

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INTERESTING: Could atherosclerosis be due to chronic infection

Thursday, September 3, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/31/mummies-pharaohs-heart-disease-arteries-egyptians

Health & wellbeing
Mummies know best: the pharaohs giving up their secrets about heart disease
A study of the arteries of ancient Egyptians has challenged the received wisdom that the illness is simply down to unhealthy modern lifestyles
David Kohn
Monday 31 August 2015 03.00 EDT

*** begin quote ***

In 2008, Greg Thomas, a cardiologist from California, was in Cairo for work. While there, he visited the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities with another cardiologist, Adel Allam of Al Azhar University in Cairo. They came across the mummy of King Merneptah, a pharaoh who lived 3,200 years ago. The description on Merneptah’s case said he had suffered from atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque on artery walls. Both men were sure this must be wrong. How could an ancient Egyptian have had heart disease, when most of the risk factors for the disease – obesity, unhealthy diet, smoking and lack of exercise – did not then exist? But could they prove it?

*** and ***

As they continue to expand their work, the Horus researchers emphasise that many key questions remain unanswered – including the origin of the mummies’ atherosclerosis. Thomas and Finch suspect that pre-modern heart disease was caused not simply by genes or ageing, but by another risk factor, one that modern societies no longer face: widespread chronic infection. From tests on tissue samples, they know that many mummies typically had one or more chronic infections, including malaria, tuberculosis, worms or other microbes. One teenage Egyptian mummy had four serious parasites – a level of disease that would be astonishing today.

*** end quote ***

Wow, this will completely turn the “science” on its head.

You really “don’t know what you don’t know”.

Fascinating stuff.

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TINFOILHAT: Clinton secrets hacked by spy

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/6613428/Secrets-of-MI6-spy-found-dead-in-bag-revealed.html

Clinton secrets hacked by spy in bag
EXCLUSIVE: Shocking new twist to the mystery five years on

*** begin quote ***

THE MI6 spy found dead in a holdall had illegally hacked into secret data on Bill Clinton, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.

Gareth Williams, 31, dug out the guestlist for an event the former American president was going to as a favour for a pal.

The codebreaker — who had breached his security clearance — handed the list to the friend, who was also to be a guest.

MI6 bosses raged over the data breach amid growing tensions with US security services over Mr Williams’s transatlantic work.

*** and ***

Echelon is used by Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

A source said: “The Clinton diary hack came at a time when Williams’s work with America was of the most sensitive nature.

“It was a diplomatic nightmare for Sir John Sawers, the new director of MI6 at the time.”

*** end quote ***

What Clinton diary?

Never heard anything about that.

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VETERANS: Carson’s right about the VA

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/ben-carson-no-need-veterans/2015/08/26/id/672110/

Ben Carson: ‘We Don’t Need a Department of Veterans Affairs’

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Finally someone talking some sense about the way we care for the girls and boys coming home as well as the “old vets”. Phoenix and Memphis are a disgrace and probably just the tip of the iceberg.

We need some old First Sergeants in charge of the system.

Argh!

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RANT: There are only “negative” rights; “positive” ones imply a duty by others

Monday, August 31, 2015

FROM FACEBOOK

Sanders

Only “rights” are negative rights. Positive rights — like what you are calling “access to affordable health care — implies that someone else must provide them. Does the doctor have to work at 3AM to be accessible and for free to be affordable? If not the doctor, then why forced — by being robbed — to pay for that service for someone else?

Moral principles are the same in the first world as the third world.

Charity care has ALWAYS been available. And IS available.

An example, a fellow at the AL on a merchant marine disability pension had some serious health issues. He was treated at Princeton Hospital as a “charity case” and it cost him nothing.

The original hospitals were set up by religious organization to provide care for the poor. Columbia Presbyterian, Baylor Baptist, Jewish Memorial, and the vast number of Catholic ones.

Then the Gooferment got into “health”, “health care”, “health care insurance”, or something else with “Medicare and Medicaid” and it has been a mess ever since.

People “demanding” their “rights” to “free stuff” has been the death of the American Experiment.

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RANT: Martin O’Malley wants to expand “social security” with more and higher taxes

Sunday, August 30, 2015

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150825/OPINION02/150829657

Another View – Martin O’Malley: To ensure retirement security, let’s start by expanding Social Security
By MARTIN O’MALLEY

*** begin quote ***

This is not our American Dream. As a nation, we must act to ensure the retirement security of American families. And we should start by expanding Social Security benefits — not cutting them or merely “enhancing them” — to provide a foundation for a more secure retirement to all those who have worked hard to achieve it.

Social Security has worked so well for so long because it is fundamentally fair: Everyone pays in, and everyone receives a payout. The result? Social Security now provides a guaranteed retirement or insurance benefit to almost every worker in America — while keeping 300,000 Granite Staters out of poverty.

However, despite Social Security’s remarkable success, if you listened to Republicans and even some Democrats talk about the program today, you’d think the sky is falling. But let’s be clear: Social Security is not in crisis.

It’s not the sky that’s falling. It’s the floor that’s falling out from under our seniors.

As Democrats, it is time to stand up for our values and call for the expansion of Social Security for all beneficiaries. Increasing Social Security benefits remains the best and most straightforward way to provide greater retirement security for American families — not raising the retirement age, or cutting benefits for our seniors, or privatizing Social Security and putting the program in the hands of Wall Street.

*** end quote ***

Sorry, but “Social Security Insurance” is a Ponzi scheme where the victims don’t get a choice.

If it’s such a great idea, why is it compulsory?

It’s hard to get into all it’s negatives in a short space and limited time, but let’s remember Bastiat’s “seen and unseen”. What could people have done with the “FICA taxes” stolen from them and their employer?

Even an index fund that mimiced the S&P, Dow Jones, or Total Stock Market would have returned 10% per year average over 30 years. What kind of retirement would people have versus the negative return that social security represents.

In 1977, Chile eliminated their “social security” plan in favor of a free choice one and they are better off for it.

Argh!

Stop socialism and trust the free market for a better life for all. 

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POLITICAL: Read the Bills Act has been referred to committee; argh!

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Mr. Ferdinand Reinke
1641 International Dr Unit 414
McLean, VA 22102-4831

Dear Mr. Reinke:

Thank you for contacting me about H.R. 1831, the Read the Bills Act. I appreciate hearing from you.

On June 15th, 2015, Senator Rand Paul introduced S. 1571, legislation to require Congress to post potential bills online for a minimum of seven days before voting on passage of them. In addition, all legislation would have to be voted on by a roll call vote.

The Read the Bills Act has been referred to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. Please be assured that I closely review legislation that comes before the Senate, and I will be sure to keep your views on this important issue in mind.

Again, thank you for contacting me.

Sincerely,

Signature

Tim Kaine

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Translation: Now please go away!

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POLITICAL: 8,648 Employees on Thanksgiving

Friday, August 28, 2015

http://patch.com/new-jersey/southbrunswick/s/f7mst/n-j-supermarkets-laying-off-8-648-employees-on-thanksgiving

N.J. Supermarkets Laying Off 8,648 Employees on Thanksgiving
Bergen County-based company files reduction in force notices with Department of Labor.
Originally posted on the Toms River, NJ Patch
By TOM DAVIS (Patch Staff) August 24, 2015 

# – # – # – # – # 

Anyone care to tell me how low the unemployment rate is?

Everyone always is saying the “economy is recovering from a short recession”.

What a joke.

Go to any mall and count the vacant stores. That’s malinvestment.

Check out the number that have left the workforce. After a while, they don’t count as unemployed.

Look at the numbers on “disability”.

And yet the political class of politicians and bureaucrats are doing just fine.

Argh!

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RANT: The TSA now isn’t the ONLY suspect

Thursday, August 27, 2015

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/22/tsa-reveals-master-baggage-keys/

TSA inadvertently shows the dangers of master baggage keys
blogger-avatarby Jon Fingas | @jonfingas | 22 hrs ago

*** begin quote ***

Security researchers have long warned of the dangers of using master-keyed locks — if thieves get their hands on just one key, they compromise all of the compatible locks at the same time. And unfortunately, the US’ Transportation Security Administration is learning this lesson the hard way. It briefly let the Washington Post show a photo (we’ve blurred the details) of the master baggage keys it uses for approved locks, giving crooks a crude guide to making duplicates. And you can’t just switch to a non-standard lock to get around this, since TSA agents will rip it off if they catch it during an inspection.

*** end quote ***

Can the Gooferment be any more immoral, ineffective, and inefficient?

The stupid bureaucrats allowed a picture of their “masters” to be published.

Maybe it’s deliberate?

Now that the picture’s out, you can’t automatically blame the TSA!

Argh!

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RANT: Bernie Sanders is a socialist

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Occupy Healthcare

Disagree on principle — If one has a “positive right”, then who is required to pay for it. As distinguished from “negative rights”, that outline what human can’t be prohibited from doing — likfe liberty, and property. Hence self-defense, speech, and not to be hurt or have their stuff stolen. “Health care” is not a right and “charity care” has always been a hallmark of America. Hospitals were originally set up by religious group (i.e., Baylor Baptist, Jewish Memorial. Mother Cabrini Hospital).

Disagree on strategy — Healthcare is wonderful in Canada and England if you don’t die waiting for an MRI. And, look what is not covered or just not available. If single payer is so great then explain the VA healthcare fiasco or the Indian Health System’s half year disaster. And, Medicare / Medicaid ain’t great either. They make the mean old insurance companies look like saints.

Disagree on tactical — one size fits all healthcare is a national disaster. Obamacare / SCOTUS care make nuns have pregnancy insurance. Makes a poor old senior citizen on a fixed income pay for stuff they will never need.

Finally, the Gooferment is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. Why would anyone in their right mind give them more to screw up?

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INTERESTING: Hilton stops porn

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

https://video.foxnews.com/v/4430136078001/hilton-hotels-pulls-the-plug-on-on-demand-pornography/?intcmp=hpff#sp=show-clips

Hilton Hotels pulls the plug on on-demand pornography
Aug. 18, 2015 – 1:10 – Adult videos will no longer be available in rooms

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Hmm, wonder why?

Could it be that it’s costing more than it earns?

If that’s the case, it’s a turn in the culture.

Maybe “sex” isn’t selling so well!

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INTERESTING: Space, the final frontier.

Monday, August 24, 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3200738/Was-Sardinia-home-Atlantis-Comet-triggered-enormous-tidal-wave-wiped-ancient-civilisation-experts-claim.html

Was Sardinia home to Atlantis? Comet triggered an enormous tidal wave that wiped out ancient civilisation, experts claim
Writer and Atlantis expert Sergio Frau says the southern end of Sardinia in the Mediterranean resembles an underwater Pompeii
This may have been the inspiration for Plato’s fictional Island of Atlantis
Frau believes a tidal wave caused by a comet may washed the ancient civilisation away in 1,175 BC, taking the island back to a dark age
By SARAH GRIFFITHS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 04:45 EST, 17 August 2015 | UPDATED: 06:36 EST, 17 August 2015

*** begin quote ***

Ancient documents suggest a huge tidal wave swept over the island, forcing people to flee and now modern scholars have suggested it was caused by a comet.

Experts say a wave may explain the flat Campidano plain, which stretched from Cagliari to the Phoenician port of Tharros in the south of the island. In a conference held in Sardara, Stefano Tinti, a geophysicist and expert on tidal waves, explained that until the 1980s, experts did not know that tidal waves had devastated towns in the Mediterranean.

But now 350 events have been pinpointed in the last 2,500 years.He said that a comet landing in the sea near to a coast could have caused walls of water 1,640 feet (500 metres) high to ruin the nuraghi and sweep across the plain of Campidano.

So far there is no evidence to support his comet theory, but the professor believes his idea may explain why complex dwellings were abandoned so quickly.

He said: ‘A falling comet strikes the sea at a speed of 20km a second. It takes less than a second for the wave to propagate, with a four or five fold increase in size.

*** end quote ***

Interesting how we know so little about our “origins”.

To me, this stuff indicates our frailty as a species. And, gives us — as a species — to go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.

As the old Star Trek intro … … “Space, the final frontier.”

Argh!

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INTERESTING: The Architect of Destruction

Sunday, August 23, 2015

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/scott/130301

March 1, 2013
The Architect of Destruction
By Maureen Scott

*** begin quote ***

“Obama comes from a community organizer background where it’s us against them. But that’s not who we are. And that’s not the position the leader of our Nation should take.” – Dr. Benjamin Carson

Obama appears to be a tormented man who is filled with resentment, anger, and disdain for anyone of an opinion or view other than his. He acts in the most hateful, spiteful, malevolent, vindictive ways in order to manipulate and maintain power and control over others. Perhaps because, as a child, he grew up around family members and mentors who instilled him with an abiding bitterness toward the U.S. That bitterness seems not to have left him.

*** end quote ***

[TIP ‘o’ the HAT to: Peter Lutz]

Wow, this is worth the read.

It really puts BHO44 in perspective.

“… … and the epitome of a Demagogue.”

It’s a stunning rebuke and it should get more wide-spread distribution.

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INTERESTING: How unique — and trackable — is your browser?

Saturday, August 22, 2015

https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=yes

Panopticlick

How unique — and trackable — is your browser?

*** begin quote *** 

Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies.

Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits. Click below and you will be given a uniqueness score, letting you see how easily identifiable you might be as you surf the web.

Only anonymous data will be collected by this site.

*** and ***

Within our dataset of several million visitors, only one in 2,869,769 browsers have the same fingerprint as yours.

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys 21.45 bits of identifying information.

The measurements we used to obtain this result are listed below. You can read more about our methodology, statistical results, and some defenses against fingerprinting in this article.

Help us increase our sample size

*** end quote ***

So you still think you’re “anonymous” on the inet?

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INTERESTING: Gooferment Skrules Daze antidote = devour libraries

Friday, August 21, 2015

http://ncc-1776.org/tle2015/tle834-20150816-03.html

School Daze, or An Unoriginal Title for New Ideas by A.X. Perez perez180ehs@hotmail.com  
Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

*** begin quote ***

With the school year beginning many of us will be returning to public schools or other “learning institutions” that must meet state standards or sending our kids to the same.

Remember the following: School is only a starting place for education. Devour libraries and ransack the net. They only got you for seven hours, that gives you eight for damage control.

*** end quote ***

I like that advice.

I learned more from my own reading than I ever did in school.

Hope others can pass this advice along.

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INSPIRATIONAL: Rewire your brain to avoid decline

Thursday, August 20, 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11803682/Sian-Williams-how-to-rewire-your-brain-to-avoid-decline.html

HOME»NEWS»HEALTH»HEALTH NEWS
Sian Williams: how to rewire your brain to avoid decline
The former BBC News presenter Sian Williams explores new research showing that simple lifestyle changes can help reverse mental decline

By Sian Williams
3:00PM BST 15 Aug 2015

*** begin quote ***

I learn a lot from being with Scilla and meeting all these other brilliant minds, coming up with ways to protect ours. Dementia will affect one in three of us over 65. That’s frightening, but being acutely stressed about it will only make our cognitive function worse.

Scilla takes time to relax, sleep well, walk and see friends – as good a way as any of, not just protecting our brains, but getting on with life.

*** end quote ***

⅓!

Wow, that’s not “good news”.

The good news is that there are some evidenced-based tactics to avoid it.

Hope so. 

I’ve seen the “nursing homes” and that’s not living.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: One Gooferment Skrule’s ridiculous plan

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

http://www.blacklistednews.com/School_Officials_Used_Young_Girl_as_%E2%80%9CBait%E2%80%9D_in_Rape_Sting%2C_She_Was_Raped_and_they_Covered_it_Up/45680/0/38/38/Y/M.html

SCHOOL OFFICIALS USED YOUNG GIRL AS “BAIT” IN RAPE STING, SHE WAS RAPED AND THEY COVERED IT UP
Published: August 13, 2015

*** begin quote ***

BHJ’s lawsuit was even thrown out by a lower court who sided with the school board.

However, on Wednesday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals brought back the lawsuit and granted BHJ’s attorney the ability to sue the Madison County school board.

“This is a unique case because the administrators effectively participated in (the boy’s) sexual harassment by setting (Jane) Doe up in a rape-bait scheme involving (the boy) in order to ‘catch him in the act,’” found the appeals court.

The lawsuit will now continue and with any luck, BHJ will receive just compensation for her role as a pawn in the school’s ridiculous plan.

*** end quote ***

I’d say the word “ridiculous” is a VAST understatement.

The Taxpayers and the Parent if the “inmates” at this “school” should be up in arms.

Argh!

I’d say fire everyone involved or in a supervisory or managerial or leadership role.

Immediately!

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: $72 Trillion And Counting

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-long-range-social-securitymedicare-deficit-72-trillion-and-counting/

CONTRA NEWS AND VIEWS, STOCKMAN’S BEST OF THE WEEK
The Long-Range Social Security/Medicare Deficit: $72 Trillion And Counting
by Forbes • August 11, 2015
By John C. Goodman for Forbes

*** begin quote ***

The Social Security/Medicare Trustees have issued their latest reports and they are not easy reading for the uninitiated. I suspect most of the Trustees hope you don’t read them at all. They prefer their own spin. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, these reports are invariably accompanied by a press release that completely ignores what is important and focuses instead on what is unimportant.

What’s unimportant? The trust funds and when they will run dry. Like most social security systems in the world today, ours is a pay-as-you-go system. Nothing has been saved or invested. What we call trust funds consist of nothing more than IOUs the government has written to itself. (More on that below.) Yet, that is what the official press releases emphasize and this focus is reflected in the first graph below.

What’s important? Cash flow. In fact, in a pay-as-you-go system, cash flow is the only thing that matters. As the second graph shows, Social Security and Medicare are paying out more than they are taking in. As the baby boomers retire, the total deficit will grow dramatically. Currently, we are using about one in every seven general revenue dollars to cover these deficits. By 2020, we will need more than one in five. By 2030, we will need about one in three.

*** end quote ***

Like most Ponzi schemes, eventually the suckers’ money runs out.

And, all the politicians and bureaucrats from FDR are going to be long gone.

So what should be done about this and ALL the unfunded liabilities?

At the very least, everyone should REALIZE that the current system is unsustainable.

Even a fat old white guy injineer or a reasonably competent accountant can demonstrate that there ain’t no free lunch.

  • Old advice: “when in a hole, stop digging” seems to apply here.
  • Hard stop on all new “pensions”. Require all such to be fully funded!
  • All plans must “mark to market” with honest accounting.
  • “Chile” style social security reform
  • Congress must live within what the taxpayers can afford
  • Any deficit is paid for my Congress folks personally
That’s should get everyone’s attention?
 
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Stockman’s Corner

Chart Of The Day: Mr. Deng’s Drastic Yuan Devaluation And The Long Mercantilist Peg Which Followed

fredgraph

Chart Of The Day: The Tesla ‘Cash Burn’ Inferno

TSLA FCF_0

  … 

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CNBC’s Alfred E. Neuman Luncheon Club—–Beyond Clueless

Real Output Per Hour - Click to enlarge

I just heard one of CNBC’s cheerleaders admonishing viewers not to worry about China’s full-on plunge into currency wars. You see, the US is growing strongly at 2-3% in the second half, jobs just keep on coming, and, besides, the USA is completely “decoupled” from whatever troubles may be brewing abroad. So this regular CNBC noon… 

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China’s Beggar The World Deflation——Global Steel Industry Getting Hammered By Its Steel Dumping

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at The Telegraph Chinese steelmakers are preparing to flood the global market with cut-price exports as they take advantage of this week’s shock devaluation of the yuan, setting off furious protests from struggling competitors in Europe and the US. It is the first warning sign of a deflationary wave of cheap products… 

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The True Cause Of Greece’s Economic Failure——An Omnivorous State, Not Lazy Workers

1-Hours-worked-per-year-1024x540

  The Industrious Greeks Mystery In the course of the Greek crisis, animosities between creditor countries like Germany and Greece didn’t take long to surface. They were fired up in the tabloid press, which was quick to revive various stereotypes. In Greece, Germans soon found themselves compared to their Nazi predecessors, while German tabloids inter […] 

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Stockman’s Corner Media

Reagan OMB Head: Fed Fueling Ill-Gotten Gains

Stephen Roach Nails It Again: Fed Is In Total Denial, Replicating Same “Deadly Trap” As Last Time

The Fed “is in total denial,” Roach rants, adding that it “hasn’t learned the lessons of what it put the world through a decade ago.” 

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David Stockman Interview: The Case For Super Glass-Steagall

David Stockman Talks Historical Dominoes—–Rise Of the Warfare State And Keynesian Central Banking

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/thompsonstockman121214.mp3 Click here to listen. David Stockman interview on the Political Badger: Today I had the pleasure of interviewing David Stockman.  He is a former Congressman from Michigan, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, and former partner at The Blackstone Group.  Stockman is the author of The Triumph of Politics: Why the… 

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The Long-Range Social Security/Medicare Deficit: $72 Trillion And Counting

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By John C. Goodman for Forbes

The Social Security/Medicare Trustees have issued their latest reports and they are not easy reading for the uninitiated. I suspect most of the Trustees hope you don’t read them at all. They prefer their own spin. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, these reports are invariably accompanied by a press release that completely ignores what is important and focuses instead on what is unimportant.

What’s unimportant? The trust funds and when they will run dry. Like most social security systems in the world today, ours is a pay-as-you-go system. Nothing has been saved or invested. What we call trust funds consist of nothing more than IOUs the government has written to itself. (More on that below.) Yet, that is what the official press releases emphasize and this focus is reflected in the first graph below.

What’s important? Cash flow. In fact, in a pay-as-you-go system, cash flow is the only thing that matters. As the second graph shows, Social Security and Medicare are paying out more than they are taking in. As the baby boomers retire, the total deficit will grow dramatically. Currently, we are using about one in every seven general revenue dollars to cover these deficits. By 2020, we will need more than one in five. By 2030, we will need about one in three.


MONEY: A good used car is as good as gold?

Monday, August 17, 2015

http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/08/13/buy-gold-buy-a-used-car-instead/#comment-634721

Buy Gold? Buy A Used Car Instead!
by eric • August 13, 2015

*** begin quote ***

Gold may not have the high rate of return that the casino called Wall Street offers … to insiders. But it is a really good way to store value – and that accounts for its popularity among people who may not get rich quick but tend to avoid becoming poor.

Used cars are another great way to transmute depreciating paper money into a durable asset that – like gold – is portable and fungible (i.e., easily converted into other things of value).

The government has inadvertently created a bull market for them, too. 

*** end quote ***

Unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention when my grandfather would fix what ever particular “$50″ wreck I was driving that week.

In the past, my strategy was to buy new on a three year loan and keep “paying” myself until it died. Eventually, I could pay cash for cars. Seemed to work for me.

Last car, with “zero down and zero interest”, my financial advisor convinced me to take the free money and leave the cash in my portfolio. I’ll drive it until the wheels fall off which means it should last about 9 years.

What I’ll do then I have no idea. What the economic climate will be I have no idea. But I’ll adapt since it’s obvious that the “only constant is change”.

For anyone who’s got some mechanical ability, old cars / trucks that you can still work on seems to be a profitabe niche.

When I drive to and from the Jersey shore, I see veritable series of “one car used car lot” (i.e., each house  along the way with one, or maybe two, used cars for sale). As the season progresses, more “projects” roll out for sale. The peak is around “back to school season” when the sports cars seem to dominate the “lots”.

The USA has become the throw away consumer economy at its own peril. Perhaps this is the renaissance?

I think this is more a reflection on the value of Federal Reserve Notes and the bad behavior that it has “trained” the shepple to engage in.

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: 34 years in prison!

Sunday, August 16, 2015

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_1976_KILLING_DNA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-08-13-22-03-44

Aug 14, 1:53 AM EDT

JUDGE TOSSES MURDER CONVICTION OF MAN IN PRISON FOR 34 YEARS
BY JOE MANDAK
ASSOCIATED PRESS

*** begin quote ***

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man who spent 34 years in prison for the rape and shooting death of a teenage girl was released from prison Thursday after a judge vacated his murder conviction, citing new DNA evidence.

Lewis Fogle, 63, was freed on bond because he remains charged and could be retried by District Attorney Patrick Dougherty, who filed the joint motion to vacate the conviction with the New York-based Innocence Project.

“We are incredibly grateful to District Attorney Patrick Dougherty for working with us to conduct the DNA testing and for acknowledging that Mr. Fogle’s conviction should be set aside,” said David Loftis, managing attorney for the Innocence Project.

*** end quote ***

Sorry, but this is why I oppose the death penalty.

And, “our” “system of justice” is flawed.

There must simply be a better way.

It’s a real knock on Gooferment and whatever happened to “better 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man go to jail”?

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TINFOILHAT: Appearances may implicate Saudi government in 9/11

Saturday, August 15, 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192114/Federal-lawsuit-reveal-evidence-Saudi-complicity-9-11.html

Federal lawsuit could reveal contents of 28 pages omitted from 9/11 report that allegedly implicate Saudi government

  • A congressional intelligence report had the explosive pages redacted
  • The two men who authored them are likely to be called to appear in court
  • The lawsuit has been brought by victims’ families against Saudi kingdom
  • Suit claims links between two hijackers and former Saudi figures in US

By TIM MACFARLAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 05:15 EST, 10 August 2015 | UPDATED: 08:13 EST, 10 August 2015

*** begin quote ***

A federal lawsuit could reveal details implicating the Saudi government in 9/11.

A congressional intelligence report contains 28 censored pages reportedly linking Saudi officials to two of the Saudi hijackers.

The Obama administration refuses to publish the pages, despite requests from Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

*** end quote ***

What’s in those 28 pages?

Why won’t BHO44 release them?

And, why do I have to read about this in a UK news source?

The Saudis don’t want their crazies upsetting the royal applecart. So let them hit the Great Satan instead.

BHO44 is a best a Muslim sympathizer; at worst, a Muslim “plant”.

Because the American leftist media is “in the bag” for the D’s.

Argh!

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GOLDBUG: What do you have that can’t be “inflated” away?

Friday, August 14, 2015

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/08/pater-tenebrarum/the-asset-the-state-loves-to-hate/

Gold and the Grave Dancers
By Pater Tenebrarum
Acting Man
August 3, 2015

*** begin quote ***

Greenspan:

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”

*** end quote ***

Gold is the poor man’s friend. The “Sovereign” (i.e., the Federal Reserve System counterfeiters, Congress debt and deficits,the politicians, bureaucrats) can’t fool you out of it. 

FDR “recalled” it. And the American Sheeple of the day obeyed. Argh!

Gold may fluctuate up and down when priced in fiat (i.e., it’s valuable because the Gooferment says it is) currency. 

But “we” all know that because it’s scarce, it’s valuable. 

And, like a work of art, beachfront property, land, and such tangibles, the Gooferment can’t print any more of it.

That’s why I’m a Gold bug. 

What do you have that can’t be “inflated” away?

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: EPA and the Gold King Mine

Thursday, August 13, 2015

http://abcnews.go.com/US/million-gallons-contaminated-water-turns-river-orange-colorado/story?id=32989366

Three Million Gallons of Contaminated Water Turns River Orange in Colorado
Aug 10, 2015, 10:22 AM ET
By KAYLEE HECK via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

*** begin quote ***

A team of workers with the Environmental Protection Agency accidentally released 3 million gallons of waste water from the Gold King Mine in Silverton, Colorado, on Aug. 5, the agency said. It was initially estimated to be a third of that size at one million gallons, the EPA said.

*** end quote ***

Laugh! Sadly shaking my head.

I get a lot of flak from folks about my continued assertions that the Gooferment is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient!

Here’s a classic example.

I wonder who’s responsible for the damages?

Guess it’s the taxpayer.

Wonder how whoever owned this mine, and those who profited from it, were allowed to escape liability?

Argh!

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