Bits Bucket for August 6, 2015
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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What is the cost of China’s stock market intervention so far?
Quartz
China’s stock market stimulus has cost over $1 trillion so far
Heather Timmons
6 hours ago
Deep pockets.
(REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic)
Since China’s stock markets tumbled from their mid-June peak, Beijing has rolled out a massive stimulus package, with mixed results.
The intensity of China’s stock market stimulus has raised concerns that the government is putting the country’s entire financial system at risk. It has also spooked small retail investors, who have responded by trying to front-run the government, selling before government support dries up, making the Shanghai Composite Index incredibly volatile in recent weeks.
So, how much money has Beijing actually spent trying to support the markets? Economist and Peking University professor Christopher Balding has tallied it all up, and arrived at an astounding figure—$1.3 trillion.
That’s more than five times the $247 billion the US government initially spent on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that was used to support financial institutions after the 2008 financial crisis.
…
Wonder how much of its US Treasury holdings China has dumped to prop up its stock market?
I do. Please post if you come across that information!
P.S. Too bad, so sad they are dumping during a period when Treasurys and Uncle Buck are both appreciating.
“Too bad, so sad they are dumping during a period when Treasurys and Uncle Buck are both appreciating.”
Somebody is making bank… as long as interest rates hold steady.
All that money for walmart crap is being repatriated at pennies on the dollar. The second great Asian Fleecing has begun.
Propping up a stock market seems to me like pumping water into a leaky tank. When you stop, it is soon as if you had done nothing. You only buy time.
How much is the Dow down YTD? About 2 percent?
“That’s more than five times the $247 billion the US government initially spent on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that was used to support financial institutions after the 2008 financial crisis.”
Wait - I thought we got all our money back plus some return.
Or - we blew about $600 - $700 billion.
“…initially spent…”
Not sure how the Fed’s bailout program meshed with TARP, but I believe the Fed’s bailout tally ultimately was in the $4+ trillion range.
Marketwatch dot com
Asia Markets
China stocks nudge down on worries about Beijing support
By Chao Deng
Published: Aug 6, 2015 3:39 a.m. ET
Bank shares put pressure on Australian index
Reuters
China’s shares fell and bank shares pressured Australia on Thursday, but Japan’s market rose ahead of a key jobs report in the U.S. later this week.
The Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP, -0.89%) was last down 0.3% at 3,682.31 and the smaller Shenzhen Composite (399106, -0.69%) fell 0.3% at 2,122.20, as investors continue to assess the level of regulators’ commitment to support mainland stocks.
On Thursday, fresh worries emerged that China’s stock regulator might start approving firms’ share-placement applications as early as this Friday. The prospect of new shares could prompt investors to withdraw cash from existing positions.
“The fact that the regulator didn’t deny [local media reports of the timeline] last night confirmed investor concern, thus dragging down the market,” said Zhang Gang, an analyst at Central China Securities.
…
Are you personally enjoying positive wealth effects due to the commodities collapse?
Omaha dot com
As commodity futures prices fall, everyday things like coffee and natural gas could get cheaper
By Russell Hubbard / World-Herald staff writer | Updated 2 hours ago
Commodity prices, including the crude oil that makes gasoline, are in a global slump. That means “fill ’er up” might soon roll off the tongue a little more easily.
And lower prices could be on the way for other commodity-linked things — like a cup of coffee or the natural gas that will heat your house this winter.
Motoring club AAA says gas prices could fall as low as $2 a gallon locally by Christmas. They were $3.50 a gallon on average, nationally, just last year.
The price of crude oil this week fell the most since January, briefly dipping below $50 a barrel. But it can take a while for the price of crude to filter down to gasoline. That’s because it has to be produced in an oilfield that might be across the world, transported to a refinery and refined, then stored at a distribution terminal before finally being delivered to gas stations.
Still, declining crude prices should eventually make their way to local pumps.
“In many ways it’s a very simple prediction, based purely on the decline in crude oil,” said Michael Green, an AAA spokesman.
Oil’s drop is not unique among the stuff of which the world is made. Most commodities are far cheaper at the wholesale level now than a year ago, as shown by the performance of major commodities indexes.
One of the most widely followed is the Standard & Poor’s Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, which tracks wholesale prices of dozens of commodities, including crude oil, gold and copper. In the past year, the index has fallen 38 percent. In the same period, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index has risen about 7 percent.
Another widely followed measure, the Bloomberg Commodity Index, fell 9.5 percent in July, the biggest percentage fall since September 2011. It already had dropped to a 13-year low last month.
…
Almond Butter is 8.00 a jar at trader joes! The draught and no bees are to blame! Are almonds a commodity?
That sounds like some weirdo food for rich Californian hippies. I wouldn’t expect it to be cheap.
I’m in flyover for a bit and astounded at how freaking FAT everybody is. Maybe y’all could use a little frou frou food.
“I’m in flyover for a bit and astounded at how freaking FAT everybody is.”
Indeed, I’ve been saying that for years.
“I’m in flyover for a bit and astounded at how freaking FAT everybody is.”
My son and I just finished playing catch, hard ball and gloves.
The recent smoke and wind driven dust were gone, and the temperature was perfect in the upper seventies. There were lots of people out walking, tossing the Frisbee, etc., mostly the younger and fit crowd.
The issue here is THE WEATHER; it sucks. Too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, and the wind is usually blowing at 12 - 15 mph. Thus, the favorite sport is eating in front of the television. Every Sunday… they’re forgiven.
Poor commodities: an asset without a central bank backer - James Saft
By James Saft
Tue Aug 4, 2015 7:06am EDT
(Reuters) - Commodity investors stung by the four-year bear market made one simple mistake: investing in an asset class not backed by a central bank.
Whereas equities and bonds have benefited from very meaningful support, direct and indirect, from central bank asset-purchase programs, commodities have not.
That may or may not be good policy; certainly you can argue that the current downdraft in commodities prices reflects a singular lack of inflation risk in the global economy. That might argue for more quantitative easing, but given that what we’ve had so far has neither generated much inflation or kindled demand for raw materials, it would be hard to be too sure that more central bank buying of financial assets would help commodities prices.
What the situation does underscore is the tremendous extent to which official policy, rather than performing analysis and bearing risks, makes or breaks investment strategy in the post-crisis world.
Commodities are in the midst of a four-year bear market which has only intensified in recent months. The Thomson Reuters/CoreCommodity CRB index, down 46 percent since April 2011, has fallen more than 30 percent in the past year alone.
The causes for the fall, are of course, complex. Not only have energy prices fallen sharply, in part due to weak demand, in part due to improved efficiency and in part due to a strategic decision by crude producers to make life difficult for emerging producers of shale and other energy sources.
As well, China’s economy, which has been the dominant marginal buyer for most commodities for more than a decade, is both slowing rapidly and undergoing an historic shift away from investment and towards consumption, a change which implies less intensive demand for raw materials.
Commodities are thus a bit of an unloved step-child in a world in which everyone’s new dad is a central bank. The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England have found it useful to buy government bonds, and sometimes other assets, at least in part because of the impact this has on other financial assets, making investors wealthier and financing easier to get and cheaper.
LUCKY IS THE TOOL
China has gone beyond this, stepping in to rescue its plunging equity market with an unparalleled intervention including financing lenders which in turn lend money for stock purchases. And official policy in China has been calibrated to ease and support the transition to a more consumption-oriented economy, thus hastening the arguably inevitable dampening effect this has on commodities prices.
In this way financial assets, as opposed to commodities, have simply been lucky in that they are one of the few levers central banks have left to attempt to kindle demand and inflation. None of this is to say that policy should have supported commodities prices, though it is superficially attractive to put money into the pockets of the less well off who produce commodities, as opposed to the better off who own securities.
…
Trying to advise Lil’ Sis on buying the dip on commodities. Told her she should try to time her purchases to get them all in place before the next bailout begins.
Any thoughts on when QE4 will start?
Don’t hurt your sister by advising her to buy commodities.
To get another commodities bubble like we are just now past peak you will need another very significant country building structures out the wazoo that they don’t really need with money they don’t really have.
A lot of commodities are oversold and underpriced right now.
My advice to her is to consider buying once commodities bottom out, which is inevitably going to happen at some point over the next decade or so, unless China turns out like Japan, with a two-decades+ long unwind of their epic bubble.
In the latter case, the advice would be to buy commodities at some point over the next two-three decades. If I could pinpoint that timing, I could soon be a rich man.
“oversold and underpriced”
What in particular is going for significantly less than it was before the big China bubble?
Sugar is on its way to a place where it belongs. Oil.
As I recall, crude was around $20/bbl in 1998-1999.
I predict that oil will be stupid expensive again eventually.
On that forecast, I forecast crude will collapse again.
Lots of dems being indicted today….
I am sure it is just a coincidence.
——————
Sources: Pa. Attorney General Kathleen Kane to be charged on Thursday
WPVI-TV | Wednesday, August 05, 2015 |
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WPVI) — Sources tell Action News that Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane will be charged Thursday after an ongoing investigation into a grand jury leak.
The investigation centered on whether Kane had a role in disclosing information about a 2009 grand jury investigation to the Philadelphia Daily News last year.
A grand jury recommended in December that Kane be charged for engaging in a cover-up and lying about her role in the leak.
The grand jury’s allegations were referred to Montomgery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.
Amazingly - this very long article fails to mention once that the corrupt City Council president is a democrat.
I am sure it was an innocent oversight…
—————
Former Reading City Council president admits role in bribery scheme
August 6, 2015 - Don Spatz and Karen Shuey - Reading Eagle
FBI agents were seeking all records that linked city contractors to political donations.
Several people related to the Reading investigation have received target letters from the U.S. attorney’s office, meaning they are likely to be indicted, according to a source. The source said indictments would be related to a “pay-to-play” scheme.
In a move that stunned Reading’s elected leaders, City Council President Francis G. Acosta on Wednesday admitted taking $1,800 in a bribery scheme and resigned from office hours later.
“Elected officials have an obligation to provide their constituents with honest services,” U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger said in a statement. “When officials sell their services, particularly to repeal anti-corruption legislation, as Acosta admitted here, they do tremendous damage to the integrity of our governmental system.
The FBI already is probing Spencer’s dealings under a two-year-old grand jury investigation of so-called “pay to play” moves, in which major campaign donors get lucrative contracts. Often, the contracts are no-bid pacts, or with specifications written so strictly that only one firm can meet them.
“Corrupt” and “Democrat” are synonomous. Those who aren’t actively corrupt, tolerate, enable, and vote for those who are. Scum, every last one of them.
While the Establishment GOP “leadership” is also corrupt to the core, at least the rank and file tend to take a very dim view of such sleaze and corruption.
They only take a dim view of sleaze if it’s performed by democrats. The response to republican sleaze is “but THEY do it too!”
Partisan toolbags, the lot of them.
While the Establishment GOP “leadership” is also corrupt to the core, at least the rank and file tend to take a very dim view of such sleaze and corruption.
On penny ante corruption, maybe, however on massively corrupting American democracy ie Citizens United and corporatocracy corrupting American economics and politics, the rank and file Repubs are tools, enablers and morons.
And deniers that they are.
Gee, how did you manage to leave this one out?:
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/falkenberg/article/Towel-or-no-towel-attorney-general-s-indictment-6425115.php
“Republican primary voters chose Paxton over two other candidates, including formidable, longtime state Rep. Dan Branch, knowing that he could face indictment.”
Yep, Republicans really care about the integrity of their elected officials. Really.
ed terrell explores poverty in reading pa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spaKNMl06VI
As Poorest U.S. City, Reading Also Struggling With High Dropout Rate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mrOyhZmRUY
“Lots of dems being indicted today…”
I’ve heard that a republican is really just a democrat who hasn’t been arrested yet. So what/who is a democrat that hasn’t been caught yet?
Hillary has been caught. So the answer is a presidential candidate.
What do you call a voter who thinks their party is actually not as bad as the other one?
Yeah - I got the memo.
Bush was evil and was responsible for all the evil in the world and he and the republicans needed to be voted out of office to save the world from global warming, bring peace, bring racial unity and have nations respect us again.
Obama is as good/bad as anyone could have done the job. The system is stacked against him. There is really nothing more he could have done. Better to go with the devil you know. Democrats and republicans are pretty much the same anyways.
What what the do.
Democrats and republicans are pretty much the same anyways.
We wouldn’t know that from your postings.
That’s just stupid. Even too stupid to serve as a meaningful description of Democrats, believe it or not.
2banana has still not learned to move beyond strawman arguments. Nuance is completely foreign to him.
Liberace!
Liberace!
“2banana has still not learned to move beyond strawman arguments.”
I guess someone has to pick up the slack for AlbqDan. And at least 2banana doesn’t deluge the HBB 24/7 with CCP propaganda.
It’s alzheimers + fox news. He’s gorges on sound bites and pukes them up here.
He’s gorges on sound bites and pukes them up here.
“According to Nielsen TV data through mid-January, the average age of Fox News viewers is 68-years-old and most are white”
“Get off my lawn!”
” pretty much the same anyways. ”
My friends and neighbors who vote Democrat actually are pretty much the same. It is the corruption, murderous greed and Wall Street bribery that need to be rooted out.
What do you call a voter who thinks their party is actually not as bad as the other one?
not particularly enthusiastic?
2banana sure does know how to make the usual suspects get their panties in a twist.
Right?
Sorry I have a hard time tolerating stupid. It’s just me…
2banan’s formula on where to not live. It has never failed.
Long term control by democrats + insane public unions + huge free sh*t army = misery, bankruptcy and ruin
Chicago and other cities in Illinois (and across America) are almost at the point where 100% of the taxes collected go to pay public union goon pensions.
Sheer insanity.
But public union goon support and vote nearly 100% democrat - so it is all good.
And it is for the children.
—————
“I Pay $271 A Month To Schools And I Don’t Have Kids”: Illinois Bureaucracy Sucks Homeowners Dry
ZeroHedge - 08/05/2015
As the New York Times explains, “pension costs in many American states and cities are growing much faster than the money available to pay them, causing a painful squeeze. Officials who try to restore balance by reducing pensions in some way are almost always sued; outcomes of these lawsuits vary widely from state to state. Some of the worst problems have been brewing for years in Illinois, particularly in Chicago.
“Multitude of local authorities soak Illinois homeowners in taxes”
Mary Beth Jachec [a] 53-year-old insurance manager gets a real estate tax bill for 20 different local government authorities and a total payout of about $7,000 in 2014. They include the Village of Wauconda, the Wauconda Park District, the Township of Wauconda, the Forest Preserve, the Wauconda Area Public Library District, and the Wauconda Fire Protection District.
Jachec, looking at her property tax bill, is dismayed. “It’s ridiculous,” she said.
The state is home to nearly 8,500 local government units, with 6,026 empowered to raise taxes, by far the highest number in the U.S.
Many of these taxing authorities, which mostly rely on property tax for their financing, have their own budget problems. That includes badly underfunded pension funds, mainly for cops and firefighters.
In many Illinois cities and towns, high taxation still isn’t enough to keep up with increasing outlays, especially soaring pension costs, and some services have been cut. For example, in the state capital Springfield, pension costs for police and fire alone will this year consume nearly 90 percent of property tax revenues, according to the city’s budget director, Bill McCarty.
Got TABOR? We do
Looking forward to a nice state tax refund too from all the marijuana taxes
Region VIII
That is so cute.
You have a state law.
That millions of people like and was legally enacted by their state representatives or state ballot.
All it takes it ONE federal judge to see it another way (just like DOMA or immigration).
And a single judge will.
And it will be for the children.
And that will be as successful as Prohibition was 90 years ago
There’s no putting the poop back inside the horse on this one
And BTW, the markup on moving shatter hash to New York is 400%
“So much cash, gotta keep it in Hefty Bags” — Ice T
I thought he was talking about TABOR being invalidated not the MJ law.
BTW the rap quoted here, NWA, ICE T, ICE Cube, etc., seems to display a deliberate West Coast bias. Please include some Tupac or Notoriuous BIG, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, or someone from the east coast lest tragedy befalls us all.
The comment was about TABOR.
Looks like the bong is going early this AM.
Tupac was from Oakland, BTW
http://www.picpaste.com/20150806_064005_1.jpeg
Actually Tupac was born and raised in New York.
Yes, but he got his start as a roadie with Digital Underground, from Oakland, so musically he is West Coast
And he rapped about Cali, not New York
That Tupac east coast west coast debate went through my mind. I forgot about Digital Underground (aaaaaaannd, now I’ve got the Humpty Dance in my head, thanks). I was going to take him out from east coast because I think he was aligned against Biggie who was also east coast, but then I thought he had actually done time and been shot on the east coast.
Too bad tupac didn’t get a chance to stick around and blow all his money.
Here’s how 50 Cent says his entire ~$25 million fortune vanished
His lavish Connecticut house — the one with 21 bedrooms, 24 bathrooms, and a nightclub — costs about $72,000 a month to maintain, he says. He spends about $5,000 per month on just the gardening.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/50-cent-files-financials-in-bankruptcy-court-2015-8#ixzz3i385C4Ze
Looks like the bong is going early this AM.
I suspect this is the real reason you hate Colorado, the mj laws. Colorado is to damn libertarian for neo-cons like you. I think Alabama is more your kind of place.
Coloradans outside of Denver have an independent streak. But the cities are infested with free sh*tters/Democrats.
You have a state law.
It’s not a “law”, it’s part of the state constitution.
The tax and spenders have been trying to repeal or void it for years, and have failed repeatedly. We’ve had TABOR for about 20 years now. What do you have in your state?
Sometimes I just don’t get you. You HATE taxes and well paid state employees, especially those with pensions. You should be in love with Colorado, which has one of the lowest tax burdens in the country, it should be your hero. But you hate it with a passion, and you cheer and hope for TABOR’s failure.
Anyway, you can continue enjoying living in your high tax, TABOR free state.
+1
You are so cute.
And marriage was defined as a union between one man and one woman in MANY state constitution. Some for decades.
All it takes it one federal judge to find it “unconstitutional.”
I don’t cheer for TABORs failure.
I know it is coming.
Using the same tactics that democrats have used to revoke other laws that they don’t like but don’t have the votes.
For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard
– Act III, Scene IV of Hamlet
Maybe the Supreme Court ruled same sex marriage legal because they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t any Bible thumpers business to decide which consenting adults could marry each other.
There’s gonna be some bible thumpers asking them to decide the next question after which, how many. Their bible isn’t exactly the same.
Maybe the Supreme Court ruled same sex marriage legal because they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t any Bible thumpers business to decide which consenting adults could marry each other.
So why bother to vote anymore?
Just let the unelected supreme court make the laws.
As long as the the supreme court leans progressive - all is good with you.
Scratch a liberal and get a tyrant…
Even if TABOR is overthrown (BTW, it just recently survived a challenge that went all the way to the Supreme Court) there is the Colorado electorate, who HATE taxes. Every ballot issue that comes up to allow a tax increase goes down in flames, losing 2 to 1.
Every Democrat in the state knows this. If TABOR were repealed, any state legislator who votes for a tax increase knows they will be unseated next election. So I’m not too worried, plus the Dems only control the state assembly and not the state senate.
Meanwhile I estimate that I’ve saved about $100K in taxes over the past 20 years compared to the high tax state where you live.
You constantly bitch and complain about high tax states, yet you do NOTHING about it. We in Colorado DID DO something about it and all you can do is say that it’s pointless. Well, it hasn’t been pointless for me, bub; I’ve saved 100 grand in taxes. Now get back to work to pay taxes to support those state pensions you hate so much. And keep voting neo-con, we need another war in the middle east.
Yep, unless you can tell other people how to live their lives, what’s the point of voting?
Even if TABOR is overthrown (BTW, it just recently survived a challenge that went all the way to the Supreme Court) there is the Colorado electorate, who HATE taxes.
You are really cute too.
Gay marriage went down in flames nearly everywhere it was put on the ballot. Even in California.
Same with enforcing existing immigration law.
That didn’t stop one federal judge, obama, eric holder and the democrats.
Never let a crisis go to waste.
It is coming for TABOR.
Yep, unless you can tell other people how to live their lives, what’s the point of voting?
Hmmmm - maybe you are starting to see the light about limiting the size and scope of government.
“Hmmmm - maybe you are starting to see the light about limiting the size and scope of government.”
It’s amazing that you can’t see the irony in your desire to limit gay marriage AND limit the scope of the government.
Gay marriage increases the total number of marriages, which increases the number of marriage licenses issued by governments, hence increasing the total size of government.
2B - did you see my post (edited by Ben) yesterday?
Tribune on the weekend reported in banner line that City of Ch*tcago will be running a 735 million budget shortfall for the next fiscal year.
City finances are in a fire and smoke death spiral.
2banana’s Law:
Long term control by democrats + insane public unions + huge free sh*t army = misery, bankruptcy and ruin
Bankruptcy was the best thing that ever happened to Detroit. Roads got repaired, new street lamps were put up, and even the police department got new cars. Bankruptcy fixes a lot of problems that would only get worse otherwise, and it may be the only solution to the budget problems so many cities face.
Long term control by democrats… = misery, bankruptcy and ruin
Yours is a tired opinion. The following is a fact:
Long-term Repub states are literally killing people by not expanding Medicaid. There’s your misery, bankruptcy and ruin in real time.
“Political decisions have consequences, some of them lethal.”
Harvard Study: States’ Medicaid expansion refusal will kill thousands
Twenty-five states have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. That leaves millions of people in the gap between being poor enough to qualify for existing Medicaid, and too poor to qualify for the subsidies available to buy private insurance on the health exchanges. Refusing the expansion is a political decision by Republican state lawmakers that will have a big economic impact for those states. What it will also cause, according to a new study from Harvard University and the City University of New York, is eight million people remaining uninsured, and up to 17,000 premature and avoidable deaths.
“We predict that many low-income women will forego recommended breast and cervical cancer screening; diabetics will forego medications and all low-income adults will face a greater likelihood of depression, catastrophic medical expenses and death,” researchers wrote in the study, which was released on the website of the journal Health Affairs.
“We calculated the number and characteristics of people who will remain uninsured as a result of their state’s opting out of the Medicaid expansion, and applied these figures to the known effects of insurance expansion from prior studies,” lead author Samuel Dickman said. “The results were sobering. Political decisions have consequences, some of them lethal.”
LOL @ Lola
How can the Clinton’s get away with this?
—————–
Rep. Fattah indicted in racketeering scheme Philadelphia Democrat faces charges tied to campaign finance schemes
Eric Bradner - CNN -Jul 29, 2015
Rep. Chaka Fattah was indicted Wednesday on racketeering charges tied to a host of public corruption schemes, the Department of Justice said. The Philadelphia Democrat, who was first elected to Congress in 1994 and served on the influential House Appropriations Committee, faces 29 charges, many stemming from his 2007 campaign for mayor.
The Justice Department said that during his failed 2007 campaign to be Philadelphia’s mayor, Fattah borrowed $1 million from a wealthy supporter and then used an education non-profit he’d founded to repay much of that money, using charitable donations and grant funds.
“By misusing campaign funds, misappropriating government funds, accepting bribes, and committing bank fraud, as alleged in the Indictment, Congressman Fattah and his co-conspirators have betrayed the public trust and undermined faith in government.”
The indictment is a crushing blow to a two-decade congressional career in which Fattah has risen to become the ranking member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science — making him the top Democrat overseeing the budget of the federal agency that pursued his indictment. H
Article for 2brony, this is rather creepy, but the solution is obvious:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/fbi-issues-alert-about-middle-eastern-males-approaching-military-families-in-colorado-wyoming
Ban all immigration from muslim countries and deport all muslims on expired visas
Instead, you have Scott Walker promising to launch a ground invasion of Iran on the day of his inauguration
None of which will result in “smaller government”
None of which will result in “less regulations”
None of which will result in “lower taxes”
But it will hold the price of oil up, and that’s what Scotty’s campaign contributors want more than anything.
Vote for Obama twice and this is what you get:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/lifestyle/health/pueblo-county-resident-dies-of-plague-2nd-plague-death-in-colorado-in-2015
Only under the failed leadership of the Democrat Party do people get sick and die from diseases from the 14th century, thanks Obama!
The best thing that could happen to this country is for Trump to be elected President. You will never cast a more meaningful vote in your life.
Amazing - AGAIN - no mention that the sleazebag corrupt politicians are democrat.
That is really strange.
—————————–
Allentown residents call for resignations in wake of FBI investigation
Emily Opilo - The Morning Call - August 6th, 2015
Having had a month to digest the FBI investigation swirling around Allentown City Hall and Mayor Ed Pawlowski, residents lashed out at City Council on Wednesday night, demanding officials take action to address political corruption in the city.
Contracts are at the center of the FBI’s probe into Allentown which was revealed on July 2 when federal officials raided City Hall. Computers, cellphones and other devices were seized, and agents served a subpoena requesting documents related to a list of more than two dozen people and businesses.
A parallel investigation is underway in Reading, which on Wednesday netted its first conviction with a guilty plea from Reading City Council President Francisco Acosta. According to Acosta’s attorney, he conspired to take a bribe from Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer.
Some of the outrage among citizens Wednesday stemmed from a land deal Allentown officials orchestrated in 2014. An extra $1.4 million from the city’s 50-year lease of its water and sewer systems was used to purchase several parcels from developer Abe Atiyeh.
At the time, Francis Dougherty, the city’s managing director, explained to council that the parcels were “strategic park land” needed to fully connect the city’s park system under its master plan. Council voted 6-1 in favor of the purchase, which was included in a larger package of capital projects totaling $5 million.
Rich Fegley, co-owner of the Allentown Brew Works, questioned the price that the city paid for the land which was well above what Atiyeh paid for the parcels when he bought them as Cedar Holdings LLC and Basin Property Development LP. Allentown paid $450,000 for a property on Martin Luther King Drive. Atiyeh bought it for $51,000. A second property on West Union Street cost Atiyeh $350,000. Allentown paid $950,000.
“Want to buy my property?” Stauffer asked. ” I’ll let you buy it for three times what it’s worth.”
The people who vote for corruption are as bad as the corrupt politicians themselves.
Another article for 2brony about the “religion of piece”
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/08/06/saudi-state-tv-mosque-bombing-in-southwest-town-abha-targeting-police-kills-17/
America would be better served if we just washed our hands of it and walked away from this region, but instead you have a group of candidates tripping over each other in a race to put boots on the ground there
No “smaller government”
No “less regulation”
No “lower taxes”
Just more blood, more death, and another trillion of debt
Until the first property tax bill arrives…
——————–
This Is What America’s ‘Dream Home’ Looks Like
The Fiscal Times - Beth Braverman - 06 AUG 2015
The dream home for today’s American consumer is just over 2,000 square feet and located outside of a major city, according to a report out today by Trulia.
Consumers polled by the real estate Web site said the top features in their dream home were a backyard deck, a gourmet kitchen, and an open floorplan.
Owning a home is still part of the American dream for 70 percent of those polled, down from 77 percent five years ago. The portion of Americans who want to buy a home one day was highest—hitting almost 90 percent—among millennials.
The country’s home ownership rate fell to 63.7 percent in the first quarter, the lowest level since 1989. The rate peaked at 69.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2004, right before the housing bubble burst.
Just 36 percent of millennials who want to buy a home are currently saving to purchase one. As rents in many cities continue to skyrocket, however, homeownership may become more appealing.
Unemployed people don’t buy houses and can’t pay their mortgages.
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/05/the-true-jobs-massacre-in-the-us-oil-gas-sector/
Wonder how the Evangelical RIght will spin this.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11786802/Burning-of-Christian-churches-in-Israel-justified-far-Right-Jewish-leader-says.html
What is so “Right” about this jewish leader and his group?
Do they want smaller government that can live within its means?
Do they want to follow a constitution as their founders intended?
Do they think bigger government is NOT the answer?
Do they think illegals should be deported?
Do they think bankers should go to jail?
Do they think owning a gun is a God given right?
Would they rather do for themselves instead of relying on a government welfare program?
Do they respect private property?
Do they believe in the free market?
Do they despise the Free Sh*t Army?
Again - what is so “right” about them?
They sound like fascists or leftists.
Just a different kind of leftist that is usually spun in the press.
They’re too busy having sex with their little sisters to care
Remember Attorney General John Ashcroft? Any time he was sworn into public office he had himself anointed in oil. And he was afraid of calico cats. And he had the naked female statues in the Department of Justice covered in cloaks. And he stopped flying on commercial aircraft in July 2001, but that’s another story
What a nut case.
If he had just stuck with running automatic weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels and shielding bankers from banking laws in return for a lucrative job - he would have been OK.
Eric Holder the Uncle Tom Oreo Cookie said his greatest regret on leaving office was not passing stricter gun controls
But nice threadjack attempt anyway
The Evangelical Right are perverts, warmongers, and hypocrites
And the misdeeds of King Obama and Empress Hillary won’t change that
Focusing on wanting to ban guns is evil. Not just because of the gun grab itself but also because it burns so many calories and diverts so much attention away from the real issue of having so many poor sick souls running loony on our streets. Fix the mental health system.
What if they decide YOU are crazy, and want to lock you up ‘for your own good’?
If I am walking around dazed and catatonic hopped up on drugs and not able to take care of myself or properly take my medicine then I need to be put somewhere that can look after me and not be allowed to leave until I can look after myself.
Really? Really? I say fix the mental health system and the response is some paranoid they could lock you up too response?
Well that depends on the medicine doesn’t it? Is it to keep you from seeing demons, or is it to keep you docile and accepting as the rich drive everybody else further into the muck?
Crazy people don’t think they’re crazy. Some crazy people think sane people are crazy, and some of these people are in positions of power. It’s not a simple thing to figure out.
I am all for erring on the side of caution with keeping guns out of the hands of people that are deemed crazy. Locking them up is another thing entirely.
Ashcroft was one of the most profoundly creepy AGs we’ve ever had, but the sheeple grazed on. I joined the ACLU, despite my reservations about many of its stances, when this guy was in office.
Saudi Arabia has been funding Islamic fundamentalism all over the globe. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/suicide-bomber-attacks-saudi-arabian-mosque-live-10443009.html
Q. What is the only sure way to get to Heaven in the Christian Religion?
A. Humbly accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and follow him.
——–
Q. What is the only sure way to get to Heaven in the islamic Religion?
A. Die fighting in jihad.
Is Savage on already?
‘A. Humbly accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and follow him.’
‘The Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. The crusades also provided opportunity for economic and political gain, adventure, and satisfied the feudal obligations of followers to their liege lords in addition to demonstrating devotion to God. Typical of medieval warfare the crusaders often pillaged the countries through which they traveled and the leaders retained much of the territory gained rather than returning it to the Byzantines as they had sworn to do.’
‘The Peoples’ Crusade prompted Rhineland massacres and the murder of thousands of Jews. The Fourth Crusade resulted in the sack of Constantinople by the Roman Catholics.’
8 History
8.1 Reconquista (718–1492)
8.2 People’s Crusade (1096)
8.3 First Crusade (1096–1099) and immediate aftermath
8.4 Second Crusade (1147–1149)
8.5 Wendish (1147–1162)
8.6 Third Crusade (1187–1192)
8.7 Northern crusades (1193–1290)
8.8 German Crusade (1195–1198)
8.9 Fourth Crusade (1202–1204)
8.10 Albigensian Crusade (1208–1241)
8.11 Fifth Crusade (1217–1221)
8.12 Sixth Crusade (1228–1229)
8.13 Seventh Crusade (1248–1254)
8.14 Eighth and Ninth Crusade (1270–1272)
8.15 Aragonese Crusade (1284-1285)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
‘Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?’
‘Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.’
–60 Minutes (5/12/96)
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/we-think-the-price-is-worth-it/
Fair question.
Now tie in deeds of the Crusades above to ONE teaching of Jesus.
I can tie in mass slaughter, slave trading, taking sex slaves, child raping, conquering new lands, enslavement and genocide all to the teachings of mohamed.
Now lets put the Crusades into the big picture of 400 years of islamic aggression.
Maybe America should not have fought back against Japan after Pearl Harbor - after all, we are a “Christian” nation.
—
With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt — once the most heavily Christian areas in the world — quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.
That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4461
What happened to the peace and love? What country has a leader, right now, that bragged he was good at killing people? It’s hillarious you pull out this ISIS stuff. I was saying on this blog these were really bad dudes when John McCain was having his picture taken with them. Israel treats their wounded and sends them back into Syria:
‘West Making Big Mistake in Fighting ISIS, Says Senior Israeli Officer’
‘IDF Northern Command officer says he thinks the U.S.-led coalition intervened too early against the Sunni militants, and ‘not necessarily in the right direction.’
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/beta/1.623717
And what’s happening with our “best ally” these days?
‘Terror struck twice in Israel this Thursday.
First, an ultra-Orthodox zealot went on a slashing rampage at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, stabbing six, and fatally wounding a 16-year-old girl.
Then, extremist Jewish settlers firebombed the house of a Palestinian Arab family in the West Bank village of Duma, critically wounding three, and burning alive an 18-month-old toddler alive.’
‘On a wall, the arsonists spray painted a Star of David and the Hebrew word for “revenge.” This marks the crime as a “price tag” attack. This is the term used by settlers for attacks meant to, “exact a price… for any action taken against their settlement enterprise,” as Uri Friedman put it in The Atlantic.’
‘Graffiti on another wall read, “Long live the Messiah King.” This is a manifestation of the messianic religious Zionism that has been the spiritual driving force of the Israeli settler movement since its beginning. Both attacks are to a great extent rooted in a religious extremism that has been sponsored and harnessed by the State of Israel.’
‘Out of that fevered and well-funded environment arose Shapira’s magnum opus: a 2009 book co-written by him and Rabbi Yosef Elitzur titled Torat Ha’Melech (The King’s Torah). The book was characterized by an Israeli newspaper as: “230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew.”
‘As Blumenthal explained: “Torat Ha’Melech was written as a guide for soldiers and army officers seeking rabbinical guidance on the rules of engagement. Drawing from a hodgepodge of rabbinical texts that seemed to support their genocidal views, Shapira and Elitzur urged a policy of ruthlessness toward non-Jews, insisting that the commandment against murder ‘refers only to a Jew who kills a Jew, and not to a Jew who kills a gentile, even if that gentile is one of the righteous among the nations.’”
‘The book teaches that: “…non-Jews are ‘uncompassionate by nature’ and may have been killed in order to ‘curb their evil inclinations.’ ‘If we kill a gentile who has violated one of the seven commandments [of Noah]… there is nothing wrong with the murder,’ Shapira and Elitzur insisted.”
‘Furthermore: “The rabbis went on to pronounce all civilians of the enemy population ‘rodef,’ or villains who chase Jews and are therefore fair game for slaughtering. Shapira and Elitzur wrote, ‘Every citizen in the kingdom that is against us, who encourages the warriors or expresses satisfaction about their actions, is considered rodef and his killing is permissible.’
‘Shapira and Elitzur also justified the killing of Jewish dissidents. ‘A rodef is any person who weakens our kingdom by speech and so forth,’ they wrote.”
‘As Blumenthal clarified: “Though he did not specify the identity of the non-Jewish ‘enemy’ in the pages of his book, Rabbi Shapira’s longstanding connection to terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians exposes the true identity of his targets.”
‘Most relevant to our present concerns are the book’s teachings on the killing of children. Blumenthal related: “Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared, ‘There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.’”
‘And: “Finally, the rabbis issued an extensive but crudely reasoned justification for the killing of innocent children, arguing that in order to defeat ‘the evil kingdom,’ the rules of war ‘permit intentional hurting of babies and of innocent people, if this is necessary for the war against the evil people.’ They added, ‘If hurting the children of an evil king will put great pressure on him that would prevent him from acting in an evil manner—they can be hurt.’
‘Shapira and Elitzur justified killing babies and small children on the grounds of satiating the national thirst for revenge. ‘Sometimes,’ the rabbis wrote, ‘one does evil deeds that are meant to create a correct balance of fear, and a situation in which evil actions do not pay off . . . and in accordance with this calculus, the infants are not killed for their evil, but due to the fact that there is a general need of everyone to take revenge on the evil people, and the infants are the ones whose killing will satisfy this need.’”
http://original.antiwar.com/Dan_Sanchez/2015/08/03/burning-babies-and-stabbing-gays-in-messianic-israel/
Now that’s a whole lotta peace and love there banana. Maybe you should think about that for a bit.
34″Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
What happened to the peace and love?
Do you really think becoming a Christian is entering a suicide pact?
That you can go an kill me and take my daughters as sex slaves and I will just lay there and let you do it and mutter some prayers about peace and love?
There is no Christian that is perfect and there is no Christian nation. Many are far away from that goal. But don’t equate a perfect Christian to a perfect hippie.
However - it is uncanny that Christian nations have more freedom, economic opportunity, rule of law and less fear than any mulsim country. Or atheist (communist) countries. Through out history and the world.
It is uncanny. Is that just random luck?
Maybe you should think about that for a bit.
We don’t have to go back to the crusades to find the true meaning of American Christianity, just go back a few decades to when lynchings were still going on in the south. Many people who are still alive took part, and now they and their families are trying to pass themselves off as the arbiters of morality because once a week they put on a suit and shuffle off to their local fundamentalist church. It’s funny that a people who are responsible for most of the evil in American history now see themselves as righteously superior to the rest of the country.
‘kill me and take my daughters as sex slaves’
Saudi’s funded ISIS. US funded, Turkey (our NATO ally) lets them be reinforced. Who’s responsible for ISIS?
There are extremists everywhere. There’s even a guy running for president who wants to bomb Iran on inaugural day. We have a former presidential candidate saying we need to set up internment camps. Nut jobs abound. When are the reasonable adults get a chance to pour oil on the troubled waters? Because the only answer to all this Muslim hating stuff is genocide. And that ain’t gonna happen. At some point we have to learn how to live with each other. No more proxy wars, no more playing one group against the other. No more regime change. Let each country determine its fate.
I have thought it through. There is no acceptable end game to all this hate and fear.
Because the only answer to all this Muslim hating stuff is genocide.
How about just not importing by the thousands?
How about just not modifying our laws and traditions so we do not “offend” them.
But muslims do vote mostly democrat - so all is good…
Who’s responsible for ISIS? George W. Bush. Saddam was a ruthless dictator but he was good at one thing: keeping a lid on radical Islamists. There would be no ISIS in Iraq today if Saddam was still in power.
Immigration is a separate issue. Who said this: Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney
A neocon. These neocons (who BTW from inception supported universal health care and amnesty) are willing to drive us into complete poverty to advance their agenda.
Who’s responsible for ISIS?
Jimmy Carter for allowing the Shah to be overthrown and allowing radical islam to take over Iran
Bill Clinton for not killing OBL despite numerous opportunities
George Bush for invading Iraq
Barrack Obama for abandoning a stable Iraq and destroying Libya, Yemen and Syria (and nearly destroying Egypt)
The Shah was installed by the US and the UK when they overthrew a democratically-elected prime minister. He was a bum who tortured Iranians.
You probably can’t change immigration law to restrict certain religions. It would be easier to just reduce immigration drastically for a few decades.
We don’t have to go back to the crusades to find the true meaning of American Christianity, just go back a few decades to when lynchings were still going on in the south.
To be fair, American Protestant Fundies, who have plenty of skeletons of their own in their closets, had nothing to do with the Medieval Crusades. That said, I have heard many of them be rather approving of them.
There’s nothing like pimping history in order to push your religion onto other people’s children:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-06/texas-schools-caught-manipulating-quotes-push-christianity-students
Barrack Obama for abandoning a stable Iraq
Thanks for the chuckle on a stable Iraq.
On Iraq, Dick Cheney Used to Be a Truth
http://www.theglobalist.com/on-iraq-dick-cheney-used-to-be-a-truth-teller/Teller
Before he became Vice President, Cheney acknowledged that Iraq could disintegrate following a U.S. invasion.
On April 7, 1991 Cheney appeared on ABC news’s This Week:
“I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire.
Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shi’a government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular, along the lines of the Ba’ath Party?
Would it be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all.k
Dick Cheney 1991
“Because the only answer to all this Muslim hating stuff is genocide. And that ain’t gonna happen. At some point we have to learn how to live with each other…
…I have thought it through. There is no acceptable end game to all this hate and fear.”
Bravo. +Eleventy-billion.
here is a friend of mine howard bloom.
A Deep Dive Into the Mind of ISIS
The Mohammed Code
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/308430#longdescr
http://howardbloombooks.com/
Jesus would be disgusted by stingy, hateful people like you. I really hope your mythology is correct, and I get to see your face as St. Peter pushes the flush button and sends you screaming to hell.
“Jesus would be disgusted by stingy, hateful people like you.”
Which one?
2Fruit, the Sanctimonious.
Race-baiters will be flushed too, phony. Hate to tell you.
Maybe Gunga Din will give you a ladle of water, though. He’s a better man than I.
LMAO
This is the gospel according to AmazingRuss and Oddfellow.
This is an absolute joke of an article, replete with a photo of millennial sex goddess Lena Dunham, reporting on the student loan $1.3+ trillion elephant in the room that was discussed here 5 years ago, but then again MarketWatch isn’t known for harvesting anything beyond the low hanging fruit:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-why-millennials-will-never-grow-up-2015-08-05
A nation of broke @ss loosers
No “pent-up demand” for $500,000 starter homes here
Maybe one day they will learn voting democrat and wishing for bigger and bigger government did not solve any of their problems (unless some of them become public union goons).
Yes, and smaller and smaller government brings shortened school years and empty classrooms in Kansas, where they wait for “trickle down” and the “invisible hand” to solve the problems that voting for supply-side republicans cause.
Kansas per pupil spending was $12,959 for school year 2013-2014.
If you can’t pay a teacher, buy a chalkboard and fill the room with desks and chairs for that then clearly there is an issue.
It’s not money. It’s administration, unions, overhead, etc. You know - bigger and bigger government, bereaucracy, etc
Seriously.. almost $13,000 a year.
A private school can do it for less than half that.
When you want to deflect or obfuscate an argument, using per capita stats is a tried and true method. The per capita stats don’t change the fact the school year was shortened, and teachers are leaving in droves. It’s so bad Missouri is recruiting the Kansas teachers who are leaving
http://kmuw.org/post/kansas-becoming-hard-place-teach-so-teachers-are-crossing-state-line
It’s all a part of the ALEC/Koch strategy, cut schools, keep the kids ignorant so they’ll be good drones that watch Fox and click Breitbart.
It’s not money. It’s unions. What would that be?
*bureaucracy
Millennials may yet challenge Boomers as the most worthless generation in human history.
Millennials’ greatest redeeming quality is the promiscuity of their women
They also have a heretofore inconceivable capacity to fiddle-fart around.
Millennials’ greatest redeeming quality is the promiscuity of their women
Just make sure you wear two rubbers, Goon. Those promiscuous girls can be deadly.
“…millennial sex goddess Lena Dunham…”
I’d hate to see her when she’s aged like one of Bill Cosby’s accusers.
I can barely tolerate the sight of her now.
All cultures are equal
Diversity is our strength
Keep importing muslims - they all vote democrat so it is a win-win
Would this constitute a micro-aggression?
——————
ISIS executes 19 girls for refusing to have sex with fighters
The Daily Mail | August 6, 2016 | Jay Akbar
ISIS executes 19 girls for refusing to have sex with fighters as UN envoy reveals how sex slaves are ‘peddled like barrels of petrol’
A translated version of the document (left) was shared online by humanitarian and peace prize winner Dr Widad Akrawi, and reads as follows:
We have received news that the demand in Women and Cattle market has sharply decreased and that will affect Islamic State revenues as well as the funding of mujahideen in the battlefield, therefore we have made some changes. Below are the prices for Yazidi and Christian women.
The price for Yazidi or Christian women between the age of 40 - 50 is $43 (£27)
$75 (48) for 30 to 40-year-olds
$86 (£55) for 20 to 30-year-olds
$130 (£83) for ten to 20-year-olds
$172 (£110) for one to nine-year-olds
Customers are allowed to purchase only three items with the exception of customers from Turkey, Syria and Gulf countries.
Dated and sealed by ISIS in Iraq October 16, 2014.
‘Sometimes these fighters sell the girls back to their families for thousands of dollars of ransom.’……
The trucking companies coming to our loading docks for pickup in the very late afternoon usually have very few pallets loaded up. My un scientific survey over the past few years which has been by talking to the truck drivers as well as looking at the cargo inside the trailers confirms the article below as same in the US. We also deal with most major trucking companies.
British and German factories see sharp slowdown in manufacturing
Stock markets fall across UK, Europe and US as sluggish eurozone and global conflict hit economies
Factories in Britain and Germany suffered a sharp slowdown in September, raising fears that economic recovery is losing momentum against a backdrop of global political turmoil and the flagging eurozone economy.
In the UK growth in manufacturing activity was the slowest in 17 months as demand for British goods waned at home and abroad.
In Germany, long the powerhouse of the eurozone, the sector shrank for the first time in 15 months, hit by Russian sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and general malaise across the economies of the currency bloc.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/01/british-german-factory-slowdown-manufacturing-eurozone
Germany is a big exporter to China of high value goods. China’s coming depression is going to hit Germany particularly hard.
Intersting take on trucking - a big tell on the health of the economy.
I recall there was a guy reporting a while back the volume of material
on his truck - he is a route driver from LA to I think it is Nashville TN and he said that he has noticed a sharp downturn in the last year in volume on truck and the number of loads he has been hauling. Says this has become a topic of conversation among the trucking literati at the stops.
I will see if I can find the article and interview.
“I recall there was a guy reporting a while back the volume of material on his truck - he is a route driver from LA to I think it is Nashville TN and he said that he has noticed a sharp downturn in the last year in volume on truck and the number of loads he has been hauling. Says this has become a topic of conversation among the trucking literati at the stops.”
This is not good for an economy that is roughly 70% consumer driven. You’d think other businesses would band together against the housing industry; the Sixpacks shouldn’t be expected spend their entire paycheck on shelter.
That was in the fall of 2014. How is it now?
There has been a slight increase this spring but nothing substantial. Our shipment volume has picked up as our franchises do a lot of work for the Realtors, Fannie mae, Banks and Property preservation companies. Most of the work our franchises do is all need based and we are celebrating our 30th year in business.
One trucker remarked about a saying among trucking “ Buy stocks when the trucking companies are hiring and sell stocks when they are laying off”.
My own index, the occupied dock index, is at historic lows. I’d be selling stocks.
Jobless Claims in U.S. Hover Near Lowest in Four Decades
Filings for U.S. unemployment benefits are hovering near the lowest levels in four decades, a sign the strong labor market will bolster U.S. growth.
Jobless claims rose by 3,000 to 270,000 in the week ended August 1, a report from the Labor Department showed on Thursday in Washington. The median forecast of 41 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 272,000. The 255,000 reading two weeks earlier was the lowest since November 1973.
Firings are at historically low levels as employers hold on to more workers in response to increased demand following a slump in early 2015. More hiring would help convince Federal Reserve policy makers that the economy can withstand an increase in the benchmark interest rate this year.
“The labor market stands in a fairly healthy position,” said Millan Mulraine, deputy head of research and strategy at TD Securities (USA) LLC in New York. “The economic recovery has regained some positive momentum and that’s likely to translate into further acceleration in job growth in the next few months.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-06/jobless-claims-hover-near-four-decade-lows-as-u-s-firings-wane
“Labor Force Participation Has Hovered Near 37-Year-Low for 11 Months”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/628-labor-force-participation-has-hovered-near-37-year-low-11-months
Record 93,626,000 Americans Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Declines to 62.6%
By Ali Meyer | July 2, 2015 | 8:42 AM EDT
(CNSNews.com) - A record 93,626,000 Americans 16 or older did not participate in the nation’s labor force in June, as the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.6 percent, a 38-year low, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In June, according to BLS, the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, hit 250,663,000. Of those, 157,037,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.
The 157,037,000 who participated in the labor force equaled only 62.6 percent of the 250,663,000 civilian noninstitutional population, the lowest labor force participation rate seen in 38 years. It hasn’t been this low since October 1977 when the participation rate was 62.4 percent.
Funny coincidence that both the U.S. labor force participation rate and the homeownership rate are tanking in tandem…
Fewer and fewer have jobs to get laid off from. Fewer and fewer kids growing up with a working parent.
Let’s hear from some real journalists
New York Times - I’m not mad, that’s just my resting bitch face
Article highlight: “men view serious women as less sexually attractive than those who look friendly”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/fashion/im-not-mad-thats-just-my-resting-b-face.html
Keep scowling your way toward your future of cats and boxed wine, ladies
And Matthew McConaughy spoke the truth in Dazed and Confused, LOLZ
Damn, Goon. If you’re ever found severely beaten and clawed in a back alley, I think half the female demographic of Denver might be considered suspects.
There is a joke in here somewhere…
———————-
Lamp post destroyed by urine falls in street, just misses driver
SF Gate | August 5, 2015 | Lizzie Johnson
Concerns about San Francisco’s decaying light poles were ignited Monday night after one corroded by urine toppled onto a car, narrowly missing the driver.
The three-story-tall lamp post at Pine and Taylor streets snapped around 6:30 Monday and landed on a nearby car, almost crushing the driver. No one was injured.
That’s Californica…… indecent exposure everywhere, bums, hookers and every other low-life. What a hole.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-down-BART-escalators-3735981.php
When it rains the subway platforms become the de-facto homeless shelter. It’s bad for your next election to be associated with driving the homeless back on the rain-soaked streets.
So it wasn’t corroded by the salt-water air then?
The debates are going to be really interesting!
“The other reason is that I hate the way our government spends our taxes. I hate the way they waste our money. Trillions and trillions of dollars of waste and abuse. And I hate it.”
—————
Donald Trump Just Admitted Something No Other Candidate in History Has Said
The Political Insider | August 5, 2015
Conservative Presidential candidate Donald Trump is leading every poll by historic percentages. He is blunt, to the point, and speaks the truth. In a world run by slick, focus-group tested politicians, Trump is a breath of fresh air. He speaks like someone you might go to the bar with, but he’s also a successful billionaire businessman. After two terms of Obama, Trump may be exactly who America needs in the White House.
But not Trump! In a recent interview on CBS Face the Nation, Donald Trump admitted he pays as little taxes as possible, just like you and I try to do. America’s tax rates are too high, and too much of our income goes to paying for government. Taxes have increased during the era of Obama, which is why smart businessmen must do everything possible to avoid taxes.
After all, money is more productive in the hands of entrepreneurs like Trump than in the hands of socialists like Barack Obama!
Presidential candidate Donald Trump said Sunday that he pays as little in taxes as possible just like every other taxpayer in America. “I fight like hell to pay as little as possible for two reasons. Number one, I’m a businessman. And that’s the way you’re supposed to do it,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation. “The other reason is that I hate the way our government spends our taxes. I hate the way they waste our money. Trillions and trillions of dollars of waste and abuse. And I hate it.” Then he turned the tables on the reporter and blasts CBS on the issue they should be focused on: Hillary Clinton’s criminal email usage:
Trump, da-dump-dump-duuump! Wassee up to?
Donald Trump talked politics with Bill Clinton weeks before launching 2016 bid
Former president Bill Clinton had a private telephone conversation in late spring with Donald Trump at the same time that the billionaire investor and reality-television star was nearing a decision to run for the White House, according to associates of both men.
Four Trump allies and one Clinton associate familiar with the exchange said that Clinton encouraged Trump’s efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party and offered his own views of the political landscape.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bill-clinton-called-donald-trump-ahead-of-republicans-2016-launch/2015/08/05/e2b30bb8-3ae3-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html
Alpha! is that you? I think of you from time to time as I pass the signs directing drivers to Slothington.
One question that eluded me - how could you call yourself Alpha sloth if you are out driving by the hippie’s donut shop every morning at 7:30 am?
I was on my way home?
America’s tax rates are too high, and too much of our income goes to paying for government.
Oh, that’s where it goes.
money is more productive in the hands of entrepreneurs like Trump
An American myth/lie. Money is more productive in the hands of the middle-class. Why? Because it creates demand. SupplySide has been tried for 35 years. Fail.
Sorry, Folks, Rich People Actually Don’t ‘Create The Jobs’
http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-create-jobs-2013-11#ixzz3i4O3JERh
In this war of words (and classes), one thing has been repeated so often that many people now regard it as fact.
“Rich people create the jobs.”
Specifically, by starting and directing America’s companies, entrepreneurs and rich investors create the jobs that sustain everyone else.
This statement is usually invoked to justify cutting taxes on entrepreneurs and investors. If only we reduce those taxes and regulations, the story goes, entrepreneurs and investors can be incented to build more companies and create more jobs.
This argument ignores the fact that taxes on entrepreneurs and investors are already historically low, even after this year’s modest increases. And it ignores the assertions of many investors and entrepreneurs (like me) that they would work just as hard to build companies even if taxes were higher.
…Entrepreneurs and investors like me actually don’t create the jobs — not sustainable ones, anyway.
Yes, we can create jobs temporarily, by starting companies and funding losses for a while. And, yes, we are a necessary part of the economy’s job-creation engine. But to suggest that we alone are responsible for the jobs that sustain the other 300 million Americans is the height of self-importance and delusion.
So, if rich people do not create the jobs, what does?
A healthy economic ecosystem — one in which most participants (especially the middle class) have plenty of money to spend.
“Tesla Model S Gets Even Higher Performance with 0 to 60 in 2.8 Seconds Faster”
I love this. Greenies in Priuses played the wimp role. Now, when a battery-powered Tesla comes up to the line, a Greenie owns the road. A Tesla with 2.8 0-60 time will leave any Corvette standing still at the line. There’s only a small handful of exotic cars that can beat a Tesla.
It’s all over for the internal combustion engine. You can’t beat the instantly available torque of an electric motor. If you want to feel 1.1 g’s of acceleration that slams your back into your seat when you punch the accelerator, go Green. When you are halfway up the freeway ramp, the dinosaur juice car is still waiting for the tachometer to spin up.
tesla=failed jjjjjjjjjjjjjjyunk
… so says Mafia Blocks aka Senior Housing Analyst, as he sees the Telsa taillights pulling away.
You’re short-cicuiting again PovertyLover.
It’s all over for the internal combustion engine.
As long as you have $100,000 to spend on a car.
As long as you have $100,000 to spend on a car.
New technology always costs more. A 386 PC with a 20 MHz CPU and a 2400 modem used to cost $3,000, maybe $4,000 in today’s dollars. Now you can get better performance in a $100 Android phone. With time the price of electrics will come down.
Cars are not equal to computers.
Cars are big with lots of moving parts (both electric and gas).
The internal combustion engine will be around for a long time.
“With time the price of electrics will come down.”
Until then,Fail.
The Prius didn’t cost more when it was new. The higher cost of the Tesla does not reflect new technology. It reflects a higher cost of materials and construction because it’s an expensive thing to make.
…Despite all the tax breaks, subsidies, etc?
I’d love to know what a Tesla would cost without all the corporate welfare.
It’s not my fault you’re poor. Maybe you should get your lazy a$$ to work instead of complaining about the things your betters have.
I had an opportunity to view the wonders of owning a Tesla during my last outing to my former homebase of California. Next to the McDonalds at State Line I observed a couple sitting on the pavement with a small child waiting for their “exotic” Tesla to complete a charge.
The temps were over 107 degrees and the trailblazers were doing their best to stay cool with blankets over their heads and water bottles at their temples.
My car “only” has a 0-60 of about 4.2 seconds. However, in any race over about 180 miles I will always beat the Tesla.
IMHO: Without ZIRP and numerous other Central Bank manipulations companies like Tesla wouldn’t exist.
From the Detroit Free Press:
“Tesla would share its charging stations if other vehicles could handle the power and wants to open up to 10 stores in Michigan.”
Tesla is trying to taunt the other car companies into adopting its charging station standards, but I don’t think the other car companies are dumb enough to pay for charging stations that Tesla would then use as a selling point for their cars. The government may subsidize Tesla, but its competitors aren’t going to.
Why didn’t they enter the air-conditioned McDonald’s building? Did they not have money for cheeseburgers?
They might the the smell of cheeseburger on them.
Sure, an electric can be faster by virtue of energy storage to torque efficiency, but you would be hard pressed to find a car enthusiast that wouldn’t take the feeling of a v8 muscle car over an anemic sounding electric.
If you’re only looking at speed and acceleration, go ahead and plop down the 100K for a Tesla S. I’ll stick with my “slow” 69 Challenger.
but you would be hard pressed to find a car enthusiast that wouldn’t take the feeling of a v8 muscle car over an anemic sounding electric.
Quite a few car enthusiasts have been won over so I don’t buy the “hard pressed” generalization. But you’re right, there will always be fans who desire the vroom-vroom sound.
“Top Gear, as you’ll know, is not one to blithely embrace the latest, shiniest fad, particularly when it comes to alternative fuels. But the P85D truly feels like a paradigm shift in motoring, the point at which the electric car moves from interesting theory into petrol-pummeling reality.”
I’ll stick with my “slow” 69 Challenger.
Only American “Car Enthusiasts” think highly of that kind of car. Some people think cars should be able to go around corners too and have “advanced features” like rack and pinion steering, 4 wheel disk brakes, and 4 wheel independent suspension.
I would rather go around a corner in a 69 Challenger than a Camry.
And some people prefer cars that they can actually work on.
And some people would say that if you can’t work on an electric car, then you aren’t smart.
Maybe each person just has their own use for a car. You want a hobby. I want transportation. One person wants something big to make themselves feel stronger. Another wants something expensive. They all enthuse over it.
“go Green”
My dog produces no crap. I trained him to go in the neighbor’s yard. He is one clean dog.
Who needs to accelerate that fast?
Yesterday, I needed to drive about 300 miles round trip to visit a property and tour the market. There was no break in the day for 45 minutes to wait around for my car to get recharged–because I needed to leave before afternoon traffic screwed me.
Until pure electric cars have better batteries and faster recharging, there are people like me who will keep buying gas-powered vehicles.
Oh, and if you use “ludicrous” mode, the range goes down and down and down.
And car enthusiasts definitely buy Tesla’s. I know a guy who has the Tesla roadster in question on order, but he’s not going to be giving up his Ford GT, Ferrari, Porshe, etc. any time soon. Even he admits that the range on the Tesla is limiting, unless you have time to sit around for charging.
Trying to talk up your crashing TSLA stock, WPA?
Hey Millenials - stop whining and get to work!!!
I say this because I had a mentor in architecture school many years ago - a Brit from Manchester - brilliant guy with issues as it were. As we neophyte grad students stood in a line and listened to the professorial diatribe openings from our teachers - this guy really stood out and made an impression on me that has stuck to this day - THAT is what good mentors do - extend grace to you and scare the crap out of you at the same time!!!
Anyway there he is - shock of gray hair, black beady eyes, pale Brit skin, black shirt, black pants, black cowboy boots - white cigarette twixt some trembling fingers. This guy stared at us said a couple of mumbly words and turned heel and as he walked out the room said in a very audible voice “GET TO WORK!!!” as the door slammed behind him. I looked about and said to a couple of folks near me - holy sh*t - what am I doing here?
Knowing what I know now - I am sure he was laughing his a$$ off walking down the hall - a great act!! We / I were too stoooopid to really understand what that was all about at the time!
And ya know - it was the best thing that could have happened to me at least. He has become a friend - got reconnected a while back on Linkedin.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/08/06/participation-trophy-nation/
That’s a pretty wacky poll. Maybe the poor people would like trophies to sell for the value of the scrap metal.
Having three millenials me self - I keep thinking what would they do if they ran into my grad prof as described above - I would think they would just walk out and not even try to participate.
Boomers got their problems but at least we kept trying - at least those that I know. And ya we whine too!!
You raise another issue. If the millenials are the children of the boomers and the millenials are also a mess, maybe we can also blame the boomers for being bad parents.
How are Boomers the parents of Millenials? My mom was a Boomer born in 1950, and I’m X-Gen.
RJ chicago stated that he’s a boomer and that his kids are millenials. He was probably born sometime after 1950.
Boomers lived the most privileged lives of anyone.
IIT, perchance?
Saudi Arabia is running budget deficits:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/06/news/economy/saudi-arabia-oil-deficit/index.html
I would be for subsidies to frackers if it would drive Saudi Arabia into bankruptcy.
The Saudis remain profitable at $10/bbl; not sure how low they can go.
But profitable enough to pay for the massive handouts it takes to keep the citizenry quiet? We’ll see.
They need it at $90/bbl.
Do any street thugs have normal names?
Depending on the races involved - obama will be offering his condolences regarding this thug who could have been his son.
————————
Police: Teenager shot, killed while attempting to rob adults in St. Paul
bringmethenews.com | August 4, 2015 | By Shaymus McLaughlin
A 16-year-old West. St. Paul boy was fatally shot by an individual police say he was trying to rob.
The boy was killed when police say he, along with three other teenagers, approached two adults near Summit Avenue and Mississippi Boulevard in St. Paul last Friday night, according to FOX 9.
Police say the teenager pulled a gun on the adults, FOX 9 reports. One of the robbery victims, with a valid permit to carry, took out his own firearm and shot the boy, according to authorities.
The teen who died was later identified by family members as Lavauntai Broadbent, heading into his junior year at Henry Sibley High School, reports note.
Do any street thugs have normal names? (Lavauntai Broadbent)
Depending on the races involved - obama will be offering his condolences regarding this thug who could have been his son.
I know it wasn’t your intention at all but the above could be construed as a racist calling our President a racist.
An ‘unarmed’ white teen was shot dead by police. His family asks: Where is the outrage?
No protests or riots following death of while teen
by Abby Phillip | Washington Post | August 6, 2015
Zachary Hammond was on a first date when he was fatally shot by a police officer in his car during a drug bust in South Carolina, his family says.
At the time the 19-year-old was shot and killed, his date, Tori Morton, was eating an ice cream cone, according to the family’s attorney, Eric Bland.
Morton, 23, was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana — all 10 grams of it — which, according to police, was the reason undercover agents set up the drug buy.
The official police report never mentioned the two gunshots that killed Hammond on July 26 in a Hardees parking lot. Seneca police say a second report — which has not been released to the public — details the officer’s account of the shooting.
If he was black you’d say he did something to deserve it.
You are that self-aware, right?
Not at all.
Hell he’s white and he doesn’t even look like he could be my son.
Someone call the Census Bureau and tell them the vermin count is off by one.
This is a few years old, but relevant to yesterday’s discussion:
Why Workers Are Losing the War Against Machines
In the 21st century war of man vs. machine in the workplace, what if man isn’t supposed to win?
ERIK BRYNJOLFSSON AND ANDREW MCAFEE OCT 26, 2011
At least since the followers of Ned Ludd smashed mechanized looms in 1811, workers have worried about automation destroying jobs. Economists have reassured them that new jobs would be created even as old ones were eliminated. For over 200 years, the economists were right. Despite massive automation of millions of jobs, more Americans had jobs at the end of each decade up through the end of the 20th century. However, this empirical fact conceals a dirty secret. There is no economic law that says that everyone, or even most people, automatically benefit from technological progress.
People with little economics training intuitively grasp this point. They understand that some human workers may lose out in the race against the machine. Ironically, the best-educated economists are often the most resistant to this idea, as the standard models of economic growth implicitly assume that economic growth benefits all residents of a country. However, just as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson showed that outsourcing and offshoring do not necessarily increase the welfare of all workers, it is also true that technological progress is not a rising tide that automatically raises all incomes. Even as overall wealth increases, there can be, and usually will be, winners and losers. And the losers are not necessarily some small segment of the labor force like buggy whip manufacturers. In principle, they can be a majority or even 90% or more of the population.
If wages can freely adjust, then the losers keep their jobs in exchange for accepting ever-lower compensation as technology continues to improve. But there’s a limit to this adjustment. Shortly after the Luddites began smashing the machinery that they thought threatened their jobs, the economist David Ricardo, who initially thought that advances in technology would benefit all, developed an abstract model that showed the possibility of technological unemployment. The basic idea was that at some point, the equilibrium wages for workers might fall below the level needed for subsistence. A rational human would see no point in taking a job at a wage that low, so the worker would go unemployed and the work would be done by a machine instead.
Of course, this was only an abstract model. But in his book A Farewell to Alms, economist Gregory Clark gives an eerie real-world example of this phenomenon in action:
There was a type of employee at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution whose job and livelihood largely vanished in the early twentieth century. This was the horse. The population of working horses actually peaked in England long after the Industrial Revolution, in 1901, when 3.25 million were at work. Though they had been replaced by rail for long-distance haulage and by steam engines for driving machinery, they still plowed fields, hauled wagons and carriages short distances, pulled boats on the canals, toiled in the pits, and carried armies into battle. But the arrival of the internal combustion engine in the late nineteenth century rapidly displaced these workers, so that by 1924 there were fewer than two million. There was always a wage at which all these horses could have remained employed. But that wage was so low that it did not pay for their feed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/why-workers-are-losing-the-war-against-machines/247278/
Don’t be a one trick pony.
should I buy some facebook shares today?
Hey kiddies - you got no excuse now to see what is coming.
—————————
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Plunder and Deceit’ by Mark Levin
Washington Times | 8/5/15 | Ian Walters
In his latest book, “Plunder and Deceit,” Mr. Levin predicts a grim future for today’s 18- to 35-year-olds if current political, economic and social trends continue. Bluntly and honestly, Mr. Levin expresses doubts that these young people can look forward to a future as bright as the one their parents and grandparents enjoyed.
He shines a light on a republic in decline and visualizes the long-term impact of today’s mass dependence on unfunded government entitlements.
One really gets a sense of Mr. Levin’s worldview. He sees a nation he loves in peril; undermined by a dysfunctional system of government run by those who seek to enrich the few at the expense of the many. It’s a world divided between “us” and “them” — the “statists” versus the rest of us.
From chapter to chapter, Mr. Levin details the consequences of decades of government largesse, of the skyrocketing federal debt, Obamacare, education and the environment, which he sees as being visited on these young people. They may not have initiated the ruinous policies that he believes are destroying their future prospects, but suggests that to a large extent they have only themselves to blame, noting the irony of a generation of young people in love with the very things that will lead to the financial and cultural difficulties they will wrestle with in middle age.
On education, Mr. Levin speaks directly to young people, addressing the many problems facing a system that puts pensions, tenure and deals with textbook companies above actual education. He cites statistics on how education dollars get spent and he explains how the young are manipulated by teachers’ unions and school administrators more interested in social engineering than readying students for the real world. He takes on the massive education debt shouldered by today’s young people as they start their careers and notes that many are paying far more for an education than can be justified by future earnings.
Ultimately though, his message to young people is a positive one, because he is convinced they have it within themselves to avoid the coming catastrophe. This book is a clarion call to today’s youth, who if they understand the problems they face and are willing to do the hard work, they can set the nation back on the right course and secure their futures.
Gee, this guy really cranks out the books. It wasn’t that long ago that he put out one suggesting many constitutional amendments. I saw some sort of summary of what he was suggesting and they mainly would serve to benefit rich people at the expense of the majority of the population. It’s no surprise that his latest contains anti-union sentiments.
Dunno about his specific positions on things, but I do know I feel sorry for the “kids” who are trying to get started these days.
Article for Downlow Joe:
http://www.nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/08/why-straight-men-have-sex-with-each-other.html
Article for Social Justice Warriors:
http://www.businessinsider.com/college-majors-with-lowest-starting-salaries-2015-8
The Patriots will soon break camp with the ceremonial burning of the rule book and then it’s on to the pursuit of ring number 5.
With another Pete Carroll call, anything is possible.
“With another Pete Carroll call, anything is possible.”
The decision to throw that ball on the 1 yard line with Beastmode in the backfield may be the only decision in the world that was worse than the decision people made to buy a $450k McMansion in Port Saint Lucie Fl. in 2006.
Yeah no chit. I’m a fan of neither team but almost fainted when Wilson passed the ball.
Meanwhile, ‘hood dwellers who voted for hope ‘n change sink deeper into poverty.
http://cityobservatory.org/lost-in-place/
Chinese bagholders pulling out of the Ponzi markets.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-06/one-third-all-chinese-gamblers-have-shut-their-equity-trading-accounts
Anybody use Waze?
NFSW :
https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/3fvuai/tifu_by_reporting_a_speed_trap_on_waze/
Not that I needed any more reasons to detest Kim Kardashian or Hillary Clinton….
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/kim-kardashian-endorses-hillary-clinton–as-republican-debate-was-taking-place-10444689.html
Man-crush confirmed as The Donald tells Megyn Kelly “I don’t have time for political correctness, and neither does this country.” Amen to that.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/06/trump_to_megyn_kelly_i_dont_have_time_for_political_correctness_and_neither_does_this_country.html
Yawn…Did the clowns leave the stage yet? I could not watch (no Cable TV and I don’t vote anyway).
No, I’m still here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfw8WChneLo - 165k -
California Green Party Promotes “Free Slaps” For ‘Straight White Men’
Sexist, racist banner stokes controversy
by Paul Joseph Watson | August 6, 2015
The California Green Party is attracting controversy after posting an image on its official Instagram page which promotes “free slaps” to be metered out to ‘straight white men’.
The photo shows two women sat behind a table which is covered with a banner that reads “Finally! Free Slaps For Cisgendered Straight-identified White Men.” The image is supposedly designed to draw attention to ‘rape culture’, a perennial obsession for feminists and liberals that has been vehemently debunked.
The word “cisgendered” means someone who identifies as the sex they were born and has become a pejorative term used by social justice warriors to denounce those with “cis privilege.”
The post attracted numerous irate comments, including from one woman who remarked, “Why is it just cis white straight males??? How is that NOT offensive. Are they the only ones (raping). I’m a rape survivor and I hate this.”
“My rapist(s) weren’t just white straight cis males,” she added. “The person who molested me as a child was a woman, the guy who raped me when I was 19 was black.”
“I thought this only existed on tumblr?” commented another individual.”I fully support the Green Party but someone needs to bitch slap these people.”
“This would be a human rights violation if any other group mentioned,” added another respondent.
Of course, the photo is completely sexist and racist, but leftists claim that it is acceptable to behave like this towards men and white people in general because social justice warriors fundamentally don’t believe in equality, adhering instead to a bizarre form of oppression olympics where certain genders and ethnicities are deemed more special than others.
Texas Sheriffs Decry Federal Policies: Criminal Aliens Have Free Rein
These criminals bond out and disappear into the country”
by Lana Shadwick | Breitbart | August 6, 2015
Texas Sheriffs, the Lieutenant Governor, and experts in immigration related issues met at the State Capitol on Wednesday to discuss the federal government’s creation of a sanctuary state for criminal aliens through its Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).
Jackson County Sheriff Aj (Andy) Louderback, immediate past president of the Sheriff’s Association of Texas, told Breitbart Texas that the federal government’s PEP program “has created a sanctuary state for criminal aliens because it has gutted the immigration system.”
A press conference was held on the crisis facing Texas that was created by the new immigration policies of the federal government. The sheriffs complained that aliens are being brought into the criminal justice system in Texas but are being released into the community because of the federal policies.
In the past, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) could place a 48-hour hold on illegal immigrants when they were wanted on immigration related issues. The PEP program replaced the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Secure Communities plan and now that is no longer possible.