National Debt (Strangely) Unchanged for 70 Days

The U.S. national debt for the past 70 days has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000, CNSNews.com reports, citing the Daily Treasury Statement for July 26.“That is approximately $25 million below the legal limit of $16,699,421,095,673.60 that Congress has imposed on the debt,” the report notes.Fed debt subject to the legal limits imposed by Congress first hit the $16.7B mark on May 17. The national debt has for every business day since then been exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00.“If the debt had increased by even $30 million at any time during those 70 days, it would have exceeded the statutory limit,” the report conceded.However, according to the Treasury, the debt hasn’t budged an inch. It has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000:

via TheBlaze.com.

How bizarre is that?

Can you imagine running your household and determining that you spent EXACTLY what you earned — down to the dollar — for nearly 3 months?

Or is it possible that the G is playing games with the numbers?

More Bankruptcy Coming (to a city near you)

The top 10 biggest U.S. cities on the brink of pension bankruptcy.

#1 Philadelphia – Unfunded liability of $9 billion, $16,696 per household, only 1 year before the pension accounts are empty

#2 Chicago – Unfunded liability of $44.8 billion, $41.966 per household, money runs out in 4 years

#3 Boston – Unfunded liability of $7.5 billion, $30,901 per household, money runs out in 4 years

#4 Cincinnati – Unfunded liability of $2 billion, $15,681 per household, money runs out in 5 years

#5 St Paul – Unfunded liability of $1.4 billion, $13,686 per household, money runs out in 5 years

#6 Jacksonville – Unfunded liability of $4 billion, $12,944 per household, money runs out in 5 years

#7 New York City – Unfunded liability of $122 billion, $38,866 per household, money runs out in 6 years

#8 Baltimore – Unfunded liability of $3.7 billion, $15, 420 per household, money runs out in 7 years

#9 Detroit – Unfunded liability of $6.4 billion, $18,643 per household, money runs out in 8 years

#10 Fort Worth – Unfunded liability of $2 billion, $7,212 per household, money runs out in 8 years

via Business Insider.

This list was put together using data from 2010-12.  So Detroit is on the list… and not at the top.  So how was Detroit the first to go?  Because the tax base fled in mass.  The constant media attention to Detroit didn’t help either.  But kudos to them for filing early and getting it out of the way.  The longer you wait the worse it is for everybody.

Chicago sadly has the highest debt per capita.  The debt per household is approaching the average annual household income.  Who’s going to pay that off?  How many will participate in paying?  As Obama would say, will be make sure that everyone pays their fair share?

China Economy to Overtake U.S. by 2016

China’s economy expanded last year at 7.8pc – its slowest pace in more than a decade – and recent data has fuelled concerns that any rebound in the country’s growth is losing steam.

However, the OECD was upbeat, predicting in a new survey of China’s prospects that the country’s economy could expand by 8.5pc this year and by 8.9pc in 2014.

While the OECD noted the slowdown in China’s aggressive expansion, it nonetheless predicted that growth should average 8pc in this decade at current rates of investment and reform.

After allowing for price differences, it forecast that China could become the world’s largest economy, overtaking America, around 2016.

via Telegraph.

High debt is a drag on growth.  You’re using sooo much money for debt service (paying interest) that could have gone to pay for more useful activity… education, roads, technology, etc.

China’s economy grew at nearly 8% last year.  U.S.’s economy grew at less than 1/2 that. (Thanks Obamacare and businesses fearing other Obama policies.)

Also worth noting that this story NOT being carried by any major U.S. news organization save the Washington Post and CNN International.  Not even a single link / page to the regular CNN site despite the story begin pick-up by Reuters news service.  To ABC/NBC/CBS/MSNBC and yes, even Fox this story is not news worthy.

 

It’s Big Brother Day

Just plain too damn spooky for all this to hit in the same day.  If you’re not weirded out… you should be

Let’s start with the CIA keeping track of EVERYTHING you do.

Discussing the goldmine of data that today’s technology has created, the Central Intelligence Agency’s Chief Technology Officer Ira “Gus” Hunt on Wednesday said the spy agency tries to “collect everything we can and hang onto it forever.”  …

“The value of any piece of information is only known when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future point in time,” Hunt said. “Since you can’t connect dots you don’t have, it drives us into a mode of, we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever.”  …

Hunt said it is “really very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human generated information.” This, he explained, would allow the CIA to analyze digital breadcrumbs people don’t even realize they are leaving behind.

“You are aware of the fact that somebody can know where you are at all times, because you carry a mobile device, even if that mobile device is turned off…You know this, I hope? Yes? Well, you should,” he added.

via TheBlaze.com.

For the record, this is totally illegal.  The CIA is not permitted to perform any investigations on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.  This is the Obama administration run amok.

What’s that?  You doubt me that’s it’s the Obama admin pushing this?

The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.  …

Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program

via NBCNews.com.

Ya, it’s the Obama admin.  And you will note that’s it’s DHS taking the lead here… Not the CIA.  Why?  Because DHS is allowed by spy on U.S. citizens (thank you Patriot Act.)

And while talking about DHS… keep in mind that they refuse to answer any questions about why they need 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition.

Speaking at CPAC with Infowars and We Are Change reporter, Luke Rudkowski, Congressman Timothy Huelscamp revealed this week that the Department of Homeland Security has refused to answer questions from “multiple” members of Congress regarding its recent purchase of huge amounts of weapons and ammunition.

“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that,” Huelscamp said.

“I’ve got a list of various questions of agencies about multiple things. Far from being the most transparent administration in the world, they are the most closed and opaque,” the Congressman added.

“They refuse to let us know what is going on, so I don’t really have an answer for that. Multiple members of Congress are asking those questions,” he added.

via Infowars.

Worry not.  Your government is here to protect you.

But just in case you’re not caught in the government tracking of absolutely everything you do.  Worry not… the Gestapo is alive and well.  You should keep an eye on your neighbor and see what they’re up to.

Nearly a year before signing the nation’s most stringent gun control measure into law, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched a hotline that allows state residents to report illegal gun owners in exchange for a $500 reward.  …

New Yorkers can call the “Gun Tip Line” if they believe someone they know has an illegal gun. Hotline calls are answered by state police and tips are referred to local law enforcement, the station reported.“This initiative seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor and use their own tax dollars to pay for the $500 reward,” Republican Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin told the station.

via Fox News.

It really is 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World all rolled into one.

Sixty years of modern liberalism and brought us to this point.  People too dumb to know that they’re marching themselves into the arms of a dictator.

Keep watching Dancing with the Stars!!  Your government owns you.  You’re no longer free.  You’re nothing.  You’re like a damn battery in the Matrix.  Just putting out enough effort to keep the machine running so the government can pretend to protect you.

You should be ashamed of yourself.  God knows the minority of us are ashamed of you.  It’s time to wake up and redeem yourself.  Please.

Black Leaders Oppose Gun Control

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RABZq5IoaQ]

“There is a direct correlation between Gun Control and Black People Control.”

“Black Codes to deny the Second Amendment to recently freed slaves.”

“When they take our guns is when they will take our God.  And that is when America will fight back.”

Amen to that!!

Not since Lincoln has a president so divided the country into people for and against their government.  Maybe it’s something about presidents from Illinois.  Don’t know.  Don’t care.  But what we need is someone who can unite us as the ways we are all similar far exceed the ways we are different.  But the greatest way to all get along is to may sure that each person is free.  We much give each other liberty.  And right now it appears that being free from the government would be the greatest thing of all.

 

Holder: Drone Killing Americans on U.S. Soil Legal

“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul’s question about whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”

via WashingtonExaminer.com.

WTF!!

Where is the outrage?!

John Cusack Interviews Law Professor Jonathan Turley

TURLEY: That’s exactly right. In fact, President Obama has not only maintained the position of George W. Bush in the area of national securities and in civil liberties, he’s actually expanded on those positions. He is actually worse than George Bush in some areas.

CUSACK: Can you speak to which ones?

TURLEY: Well, a good example of it is that President Bush ordered the killing of an American citizen when he approved a drone strike on a car in Yemen that he knew contained an American citizen as a passenger. Many of us at the time said, “You just effectively ordered the death of an American citizen in order to kill someone else, and where exactly do you have that authority?” But they made an argument that because the citizen wasn’t the primary target, he was just collateral damage. And there are many that believe that that is a plausible argument.

CUSACK: By the way, we’re forgetting to kill even a foreign citizen is against the law. I hate to be so quaint…

TURLEY: Well, President Obama outdid President Bush. He ordered the killing of two US citizens as the primary targets and has then gone forward and put out a policy that allows him to kill any American citizen when he unilaterally determines them to be a terrorist threat. Where President Bush had a citizen killed as collateral damage, President Obama has actually a formal policy allowing him to kill any US citizen.

via Truth-Out.org.

We’re at the point where the far left is starting to realize that Obama is simply shredding the Constitution.  I don’t think I’ve EVER agreed with  John Cusack before but he is 100% correct here.

CUSACK: Oscar Wilde said most journalists would fall under the category of those who couldn’t tell the difference between a bicycle accident and the end of civilization. But why is it that all the journalists that you see mostly on MSNBC or most of the progressives, or so-called progressives, who believe that under Bush and Cheney and Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez these were great and grave constitutional crises, the wars were an ongoing moral fiasco — but now, since we have a friendly face in the White House, someone with kind of pleasing aesthetics and some new policies we like, now all of a sudden these aren’t crimes, there’s no crisis. Because he’s our guy? Go, team, go?

I’m not sure that he means by “Pleasing aesthetics”.  Bush was not aesthetically pleasing?  I mean, he was no George Clooney but no ogre either.  … Or is that Obama is black?  I dunno.  But not sure I care either.  Where are all the anti-war protesters nowadays?

Overall this is an amazing piece that should be required reading for everyone on the Left.  They should think about all the venom they spewed at Bush for years for acting exactly like Obama.  I’m not saying Bush had it right… far from.  But the hypocrisy on the left is unbearable.

 

Lincoln Quote

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking
away people’s initiative
and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what
they could and should do for themselves.

— Abraham Lincoln

Amen.

Obama Admin Claims it can Kill Americans

Think about this for just a second.

A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

via NBC News.

It’s official.  Well, as official as NBC News.  Your government thinks that it has the right to murder you without any criminal (or any judicial) proceeding whatsoever.

What the #%&%!

So what they’re saying here is that the executive branch of the government can unilaterally decide without any hearing in any court, without any authorization from congress, without a jury of peers, without any due process, the Obama administration can label someone, anyone, for death.

That there is not rebellion to this means that America has lost her soul.

We’re doomed.

Gun Laws and Common Sense

Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.

For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.”via The Daily Beast.

This is an amazing piece.  If you have not read you should.

Two more quotes:

Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities.

As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator.

and…

The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.

Violence by firearms is most prevalent in big cities with the strictest gun laws. In Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, it is only the criminals who have guns, the law-abiding populace having been disarmed, and so crime runs riot.

I wish I wrote that first paragraph there.

Thank you David Mamet.