Pretty impressive...
• Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 - May 2008, Cruz was the first Hispanic Solicitor General in Texas, the youngest Solicitor General in the entire country, not to mention the longest tenure in Texas history.
• Partner at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.
• Cruz has authored 80+ SCOTUS briefs and presented 40+ oral arguments before The Court
• Cruz served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Cruz was the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States
• Described as a ‘superb’ constitutional lawyer, the man’s considerable skills and laser-like focus were on display for all when he took oily reptile Eric Holder by the neck and made him
answer the damn question.
• In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz assembled a coalition of 31 states in defense of the principle that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.
• Cruz presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
• In addition to his victory in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds, the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools and the majority of the 2003 Texas redistricting plan. Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.
• Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission
• Domestic Policy Advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign.
• Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation
• Ted Cruz is currently junior US Senator from Texas. In order to win the 2012 Republican nomination for the Senate seat vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, Cruz had to defeat Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst -heavily favored/backed by the DC old-guard GOP- in the Republican primary runoff. In the event, TEA Party favorite Cruz crushed Dewhurst, 57-43%...
he then beat Democrat Paul Sadler in the general election by a similar margin, 56-41. Cruz is also endorsed by the Tea Party Movement and the Republican Liberty Caucus.
• AWARDS: “America’s Leading Lawyers for Business,” Chambers USA (2009 & 2010) “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,” National Law Journal (2008) “25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century,” Texas Lawyer (2010) “20 Young Hispanic Americans on the Rise,” Newsweek (1999) Traphagen Distinguished Alumnus, Harvard Law School
• On November 14, 2012, Cruz was appointed vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He is now spearheading efforts in the Senate to have root-and-branch...
Godspeed, Senator Cruz- I’m all in.
Monday, March 30, 2015
TED CRUZ - MORE THAN QUALIFIED TO BE POTUS - 2016
Friday, March 13, 2015
Household Debt Soars in Canada, “Stability” at Risk (ZeroHedge)
Submitted by testosteronepit on 03/12/2015 20:41 -0400
Debt by Canadian households is a special phenomenon. Statistics Canada reported today that in the fourth quarter, household debt set another breath-taking record.
Earlier this month, even Equifax Canada, which is in the business of facilitating and increasing this indebtedness, had warned about it. The total indebtedness of Canadian households, according to its own measure, had jumped 7.7% from prior year, which had already been at record levels. The biggest culprits were installment and auto loans. Households are powering consumer spending, and thus the overall economy, with ever larger amounts of ultimately unsustainable debt.
A “a cautionary tale,” the report called it.
The rapid decline in oil prices caught many by surprise. And, that’s the point – consumers and business owners need to be more vigilant. When economic change happens, it can happen very quickly and can challenge previously observed stability of key economic and credit indicators.
In other words, as the price of oil collapsed, as housing stumbled, and as layoffs began – the “economic change” that “can happen very quickly” – the “stability” of different aspects of the economy, including household debt, is suddenly at risk. It’s a warning that consumers might buckle under that mountain of debt.
Now Statistics Canada weighed in. In Q4, household borrowing, on a seasonally adjusted basis, jumped by C$22.6 billion from the third quarter. Credit cards and auto loans accounted “for the majority of the overall increase.” Total household debt (consumer credit, mortgage, and non-mortgage loans) rose 1.1% from the prior quarter to C$1.825 trillion, with consumer credit hitting $519 billion and mortgage debt C$1.184 trillion.
And how did that impact households?
For the third consecutive quarter, disposable income increased at a slower rate than household credit market debt. As a result, leverage, as measured by household credit market debt to disposable income, reached a new high of 163.3% in the fourth quarter. In other words, households held roughly $1.63 of credit market debt for every dollar of disposable income in the fourth quarter.
For the moment, there is still one saving grace to this rising mountain of debt: interest rates have been coming down for years. So the debt service ratio, which measures household interest expense as a proportion of disable income, has been declining as a function of interest rates, though it inched up in Q4 to 6.8%
The chart shows how the ratio of debt to disposable income (red line, left scale) has been rising with a few exceptions, while the debt service ratio (blue line, right scale) has followed interest rates up and down:
The ratio of debt to disposable income picked up speed from 2001 on. It blew through the financial crisis even as US households were whittling down their debt by deleveraging and defaulting. Canadian households didn’t even stop to breathe. They kept spending and piled on debt at an astounding rate. Their incomes rose also, but not nearly enough. It wasn’t until 2011 that the red-hot growth rate started to lose some of its fire, bumping into all sorts of resistance from reality.
With interest rates getting pushed lower year after year, interest expense as a percent of disposable income – the debt to service ratio – has been declining. For the moment, these low interest rates keep the whole thing glued together.
And if interest rates ever rise even by a smidgen? The blue line would do what it started doing in 2006. It would roar higher. With consumer indebtedness at these levels, even a small increase in interest rates will make a big difference in the interest expense consumers would have to fork over.
The Bank of Canada – kicked into panic mode by the collapse of oil prices, the faltering housing market, vulnerable banks, and other nagging issues, including the indebtedness of the consumer, which it pointed out as a risk factor last year – suddenly cut its benchmark interest rate in January. In the past, it communicated such moves in advance. In January, it was a surprise move that shocked the markets.
Today, Rhys Mendes, Deputy Chief of the Bank of Canada’s Economic Analysis Department, told the House of Commons finance committee that the central bank would “not necessarily” be pressured into following the Fed’s rate increases this year. “The bank targets inflation in Canada, and decisions regarding monetary policy in Canada would be based on the outlook for inflation,” he said, presenting the central-bank smokescreen for keeping rates at near zero for other reasons.
The Bank of Canada will have trouble ever raising rates, regardless of the distortion and mayhem near-zero rates are causing. Households can no longer afford higher rates. They have too much debt and not enough income. Higher interest payments would eat into spending on other things. Higher mortgage rates would crash the still magnificent home prices. Consumers would buckle under their burden and default. Not to speak of the already struggling oil companies. And then there are the banks that have lent with utter abandon to all of them.
Years of low interest rates encouraged this dreadful level of leverage. Now it’s an albatross around the neck of the Bank of Canada, and for decades to come. And for the economy, it’s a high-risk burden that could quickly, as Equifax suggested, blow up.
Gravity is already very inconveniently inserting itself into Canada’s incredible housing boom. Read… Housing Construction Skids in Canada, but Crashes in the Oil Patch
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Black Mob Violence Spreads as the President Preaches Victimization in Selma
March 11, 2015
By Colin Flaherty
The President celebrated black victimization at his recent speech in Selma, but around the rest of the country, black people were making the successful transition from victim to predator.
Within a few days of the President’s Selma speech, black mob violence and black on white crime proceeded apace, much of it on video. None of it acknowledged as racial violence in local media.
Here is a smattering from around the country:
At Chuck E. Cheese outside of Cleveland, a large group of black people attending a birthday party said they were unhappy that one of the machines was not working. So they attacked the staff, sending five to the hospital with “serious” injuries, including a teenager girl who was knocked unconscious.
Much the way Congressman John Lewis reminded us on Sunday at Selma that he too was knocked unconscious.
This is just the latest is a series of recent episodes of black mob violence in Chuck E. Cheese stores around the country, including Long Island, Florida, South Carolina, St. Louis, Dearborn, California, Memphis, Commack, Beaumont, Colorado Springs and other places.
From Cleveland, let’s head to Albany, New York, where local journalistic luminary Casey Sieler simultaneously insists black mob violence and the Knockout Game 1) do not exist; 2) exist for very good reasons, like slavery.
While he tries to figure out how he can explain the existence of that which does not exist, the videos from Albany tell a story of regular and large-scale black mob violence. The latest came the night before the President’s Selma speech.
The rap group Migos was at the Armory in Albany and six people were stabbed, at least one person was robbed, and from the stage the members of Migos moderated — and encouraged — the large fight taking place in front of them.
“They are giving them hell now,” said a member of the group, gleefully, while chairs and knives and fists flew. On video.
City officials have tried to stop the Armory from having live entertainment because of the predictable violence, but they have not been successful.
In Queens two nights before the President’s speech, three black people were slashed with broken bottles at a Chedda Da Connect hip-hop concert. The Daily News reports more people were injured in the fighting and stabbing but they refused medical attention.
In Philadelphia, two days after two black people were arrested for the murder of a police officer, and one day before the President’s speech, a large group of black people were fighting, shooting guns and creating mayhem outside of a nightclub. Three people were injured, with one shot. Police fired on a car after they say it was trying to run them over.
In Kalamazoo two nights before the President’s speech, one man was shot after a large group of black people were creating violence, but he refused to cooperate with the police.
In San Bernardino, California, four nights before the President’s speech, a large fight involving two black motorcycle clubs left three people dead and four wounded. The fight later continued at the local hospital.
Large-scale black mob violence is also a regular feature of life in Rochester, New York. From the Lilac Festival to the Liberty Pole, Frederick Douglass High School to movie theaters, residents are resigned to the racial chaos.
The latest episode came during a basketball game the night before the President’s speech. Police had to use pepper spray to break up a large disturbance inside the Blue Cross Arena. The fighting and mayhem continued outside at the newly constructed Transit Center, also the scene of regular black mob violence, often on video.
In Houston, the night before the President’s speech, a championship woman’s basketball game was cancelled midway through the contest after a large episode of black mob violence — involving black players and cheerleaders from Southern and Texas Southern Universities.
A few days before that, a similar case of black mob violence broke out at a game between two black colleges, Tuskegee and Albany State. But this mayhem was limited to the cheerleaders of the black colleges. Cheerleaders and dancers from both schools were banned from the rest of the tournament.
In Fort Lauderdale, two days before the President’s speech, a black student punched a white teacher in the face.
According to WSVN, “[t]he punch stemmed from when the 62-year-old science teacher told a 12-year-old student that he was not allowed to bring a basketball into her lab. ‘I took the ball from him. I thought it was all solved, I said, “Now come in and sit down and let's get started,"' Stadnik said. ‘I was five feet away from him and “pow," came right up and coldcocked me in the face, and I said, “You just punched me in the eye. You just hit me."'"
Three days before the President’s speech, four black people were charged in the murder and home invasion of 94-year old Eva Carmichael. Police say there may be more people arrested.
In Senatobia, Mississippi, the night before the President’s speech, police responding to “an explosive situation” involving a “wall-to-wall” group of black people in a restaurant were accused of being too rough with the people who did not obey their orders to leave.
Black reporter Les Smith said he was not surprised by the mayhem that ensued in Senatobi, saying it was “bound to be volatile,” because of dozens of “teens” were “looking to extend the fun into late night.”
Even so, two mothers said their sons were treated with excessive force when they were arrested that night and other nights all because, said a friend, “for no reason.”
In Akron the night before the President’s speech, more than 100 black people were creating violence and disorder and challenged police when they were asked to leave a roller skating rink. And oh yeah, this has been happening there for a long time:
“Police say the rink has been the focus of the department’s Neighborhood Response Team because of a series of incidents involving teens fighting, blocking traffic, trespassing, menacing and stealing during the past two to three months,” said the Beacon Journal.
On a Greyhound bus bound for Columbus, Ohio three days before the President’s speech, a black woman attacked a state trooper, pushing her down the steps and off the bus. She then straddled and and punched her in the face. Other passengers came to the aid of the female trooper. All on video.
In Fort Collins, Colorado, the night before the President’s speech, police were attacked by a crowd of black people after shutting down a bar for having three times too many people in it. As black mob violence erupted in the parking lot, several men turned their attention to the cops.
According to the NBC affiliate in Fort Collins: “One man, Dominique Artrail Debow, moved toward the deputy and told people to fight the police. Another man, Jaishann Martis Dean, took a fighting stance against another officer, saying they could not arrest Debow. Dean was told to stop and did not, so a taser was deployed.”
The evening of the President’s speech, several black people were arrested for kidnapping and home invasion robbery in Dayton. One of the suspects was in the 17th day of his probation following his conviction for armed robbery. ““There was so much blood at that point I didn’t know what was happening,” one of the victims told the WHIO news. “I was trying to just give them what they wanted.”
In a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. the night before the President’s speech: “Two teenagers were injured and two vehicles damaged when a large fight broke out at Potomac Mills Mall,” said the Sun Gazette newspaper. None of the victims or suspects cooperated with police.
At the paper’s Facebook page, several white people objected to others who noted that all the people involved in that violence and similar episodes at that mall and other area malls were black. They said white kids do it too. None, however, supplied any links or specifics.
The day of the President’s speech in Panama, Florida, a group of black people attacked Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott — a Heisman candidate — and two of his teammates. Bloody pictures and a video soon filled the internet, including one picture of a group of self-proclaimed thugs using Twitter to brag about the assault.
Prescott and his crew were in Panama for Spring break, attending a hip-hop concert by Waka Flocka, which cancelled its upcoming concert at the University of Oklahoma because it did not approve of racism at a fraternity.
And the day before the President’s speech, a Chicago school principal was still trying to explain to local and national media why white and Asian students were removed from a school assembly about “Black Lives Matter.” The remaining black students learned they are victims of white racism and violence, all the time, everywhere, and that explains everything.
Much like the President’s remarks when he was a law student at Harvard and his speech at Selma.
Colin Flaherty is an award winning reporter, best selling writer and the author of Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry: The hoax of black victimization and those who enable it.
The President celebrated black victimization at his recent speech in Selma, but around the rest of the country, black people were making the successful transition from victim to predator.
Within a few days of the President’s Selma speech, black mob violence and black on white crime proceeded apace, much of it on video. None of it acknowledged as racial violence in local media.
Here is a smattering from around the country:
At Chuck E. Cheese outside of Cleveland, a large group of black people attending a birthday party said they were unhappy that one of the machines was not working. So they attacked the staff, sending five to the hospital with “serious” injuries, including a teenager girl who was knocked unconscious.
Much the way Congressman John Lewis reminded us on Sunday at Selma that he too was knocked unconscious.
This is just the latest is a series of recent episodes of black mob violence in Chuck E. Cheese stores around the country, including Long Island, Florida, South Carolina, St. Louis, Dearborn, California, Memphis, Commack, Beaumont, Colorado Springs and other places.
From Cleveland, let’s head to Albany, New York, where local journalistic luminary Casey Sieler simultaneously insists black mob violence and the Knockout Game 1) do not exist; 2) exist for very good reasons, like slavery.
While he tries to figure out how he can explain the existence of that which does not exist, the videos from Albany tell a story of regular and large-scale black mob violence. The latest came the night before the President’s Selma speech.
The rap group Migos was at the Armory in Albany and six people were stabbed, at least one person was robbed, and from the stage the members of Migos moderated — and encouraged — the large fight taking place in front of them.
“They are giving them hell now,” said a member of the group, gleefully, while chairs and knives and fists flew. On video.
City officials have tried to stop the Armory from having live entertainment because of the predictable violence, but they have not been successful.
In Queens two nights before the President’s speech, three black people were slashed with broken bottles at a Chedda Da Connect hip-hop concert. The Daily News reports more people were injured in the fighting and stabbing but they refused medical attention.
In Philadelphia, two days after two black people were arrested for the murder of a police officer, and one day before the President’s speech, a large group of black people were fighting, shooting guns and creating mayhem outside of a nightclub. Three people were injured, with one shot. Police fired on a car after they say it was trying to run them over.
In Kalamazoo two nights before the President’s speech, one man was shot after a large group of black people were creating violence, but he refused to cooperate with the police.
In San Bernardino, California, four nights before the President’s speech, a large fight involving two black motorcycle clubs left three people dead and four wounded. The fight later continued at the local hospital.
Large-scale black mob violence is also a regular feature of life in Rochester, New York. From the Lilac Festival to the Liberty Pole, Frederick Douglass High School to movie theaters, residents are resigned to the racial chaos.
The latest episode came during a basketball game the night before the President’s speech. Police had to use pepper spray to break up a large disturbance inside the Blue Cross Arena. The fighting and mayhem continued outside at the newly constructed Transit Center, also the scene of regular black mob violence, often on video.
In Houston, the night before the President’s speech, a championship woman’s basketball game was cancelled midway through the contest after a large episode of black mob violence — involving black players and cheerleaders from Southern and Texas Southern Universities.
A few days before that, a similar case of black mob violence broke out at a game between two black colleges, Tuskegee and Albany State. But this mayhem was limited to the cheerleaders of the black colleges. Cheerleaders and dancers from both schools were banned from the rest of the tournament.
In Fort Lauderdale, two days before the President’s speech, a black student punched a white teacher in the face.
According to WSVN, “[t]he punch stemmed from when the 62-year-old science teacher told a 12-year-old student that he was not allowed to bring a basketball into her lab. ‘I took the ball from him. I thought it was all solved, I said, “Now come in and sit down and let's get started,"' Stadnik said. ‘I was five feet away from him and “pow," came right up and coldcocked me in the face, and I said, “You just punched me in the eye. You just hit me."'"
Three days before the President’s speech, four black people were charged in the murder and home invasion of 94-year old Eva Carmichael. Police say there may be more people arrested.
In Senatobia, Mississippi, the night before the President’s speech, police responding to “an explosive situation” involving a “wall-to-wall” group of black people in a restaurant were accused of being too rough with the people who did not obey their orders to leave.
Black reporter Les Smith said he was not surprised by the mayhem that ensued in Senatobi, saying it was “bound to be volatile,” because of dozens of “teens” were “looking to extend the fun into late night.”
Even so, two mothers said their sons were treated with excessive force when they were arrested that night and other nights all because, said a friend, “for no reason.”
In Akron the night before the President’s speech, more than 100 black people were creating violence and disorder and challenged police when they were asked to leave a roller skating rink. And oh yeah, this has been happening there for a long time:
“Police say the rink has been the focus of the department’s Neighborhood Response Team because of a series of incidents involving teens fighting, blocking traffic, trespassing, menacing and stealing during the past two to three months,” said the Beacon Journal.
On a Greyhound bus bound for Columbus, Ohio three days before the President’s speech, a black woman attacked a state trooper, pushing her down the steps and off the bus. She then straddled and and punched her in the face. Other passengers came to the aid of the female trooper. All on video.
In Fort Collins, Colorado, the night before the President’s speech, police were attacked by a crowd of black people after shutting down a bar for having three times too many people in it. As black mob violence erupted in the parking lot, several men turned their attention to the cops.
According to the NBC affiliate in Fort Collins: “One man, Dominique Artrail Debow, moved toward the deputy and told people to fight the police. Another man, Jaishann Martis Dean, took a fighting stance against another officer, saying they could not arrest Debow. Dean was told to stop and did not, so a taser was deployed.”
The evening of the President’s speech, several black people were arrested for kidnapping and home invasion robbery in Dayton. One of the suspects was in the 17th day of his probation following his conviction for armed robbery. ““There was so much blood at that point I didn’t know what was happening,” one of the victims told the WHIO news. “I was trying to just give them what they wanted.”
In a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. the night before the President’s speech: “Two teenagers were injured and two vehicles damaged when a large fight broke out at Potomac Mills Mall,” said the Sun Gazette newspaper. None of the victims or suspects cooperated with police.
At the paper’s Facebook page, several white people objected to others who noted that all the people involved in that violence and similar episodes at that mall and other area malls were black. They said white kids do it too. None, however, supplied any links or specifics.
The day of the President’s speech in Panama, Florida, a group of black people attacked Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott — a Heisman candidate — and two of his teammates. Bloody pictures and a video soon filled the internet, including one picture of a group of self-proclaimed thugs using Twitter to brag about the assault.
Prescott and his crew were in Panama for Spring break, attending a hip-hop concert by Waka Flocka, which cancelled its upcoming concert at the University of Oklahoma because it did not approve of racism at a fraternity.
And the day before the President’s speech, a Chicago school principal was still trying to explain to local and national media why white and Asian students were removed from a school assembly about “Black Lives Matter.” The remaining black students learned they are victims of white racism and violence, all the time, everywhere, and that explains everything.
Much like the President’s remarks when he was a law student at Harvard and his speech at Selma.
Colin Flaherty is an award winning reporter, best selling writer and the author of Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry: The hoax of black victimization and those who enable it.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/black_mob_violence_spreads_as_the_president_preaches_victimization_in_selma.html#ixzz3U5GE61y4
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Monday, February 23, 2015
Liberals, Stop Lying About Everything (TownHall.com)
Kurt Schlichter | Feb 23, 2015
The last few weeks have raised a critical question for all Americans: Is the liberal elite unbelievably dumb or unbelievably cynical? Do our over-credentialed, under-educated, would-be betters actually believe the bullstuff they are shoveling, or do they really think that we normal Americans are so stupid that they can lie to our faces and we will just take it?
I’m guessing Door Number Two. Liberals know they are full of it; they just think the rest of us are as foolish as the welfare-guzzling mouth-breathers who vote for them.
It’s time for the lies to stop.
Liberals, stop lying about the weather. There is no climate change crisis. Whatever changes our climate is undergoing are part and parcel of the natural processes that have been going on since the Earth was formed. All the massaged, manhandled, and manufactured data in the world won’t change the simple fact that this is a naked grab for money and power by a liberal elite so concerned about carbon they choose to dump gazillions of pounds of it into the air jetting off to party with their denier denying pals.
Forty years ago we were going into an ice age, and the solution was to give more power and money to liberal elites. Ten years ago, we were a decade away from the Arctic ice cap melting and the polar bears being parboiled, and the solution was to give more power and money to liberal elites. I don’t even want to guess what the next lie is going to be about the perpetual crisis around the corner, but I know to an absolute certainty that the solution is going to be giving more power and money to liberal elites.
Liberals, stop lying about our war with radical Muslims. This bloodshed isn’t “random.” This isn’t about “violent extremism.” Mass enslavement, mutilation and murder isn’t “workplace violence,” and these semi-human freaks aren’t going to stop if someone hands them a mop, bucket and paycheck.
We are at war – war – with radical Islam, and we need to end the lies, the equivocation and dissembling and speak the truth. Our enemies think they are Muslims, and they think the Koran commands their actions. This isn’t about theology – whether their version of Islam is a misunderstanding or misinterpretation is utterly irrelevant. They think they’re pious Muslims even if we, as well as most of the world’s Muslims, disagree.
Liberals babble about how we Americans don’t understand other cultures, but when understanding other cultures becomes inconvenient to their progressive ideology, liberals cease trying to understand and mask the inconvenient truth by applying their own prejudices and preconceptions. That’s what they’ve done to the jihadis. These guys aren’t upset about the 1% not paying them a living wage; they’re upset about the other 99% living at all.
Well, here’s a conservative who says it’s critical to understand the radical Muslims. We need to fully appreciate how they think, their goals, their ideas, their feelings. Understanding them will help us more effectively hunt down and kill them.
Liberals, stop lying about sexual assault. We need to teach liberals not to rape. Where’s the study showing the political affiliation of the majority of incarcerated sex criminals? You know there isn’t one that finds it’s “Republican” because if there was, we’d have seen Brian Williams yapping about it between stories about how he raised the flag at Iwo Jima.
And no, there is no “rape culture.” That’s a lie liberal feminists constructed to solidify their politically-useful victim status and to indict their political opponents without the inconvenience and hassle of actually offering facts and evidence in support of their positions. Like the big lie that both frigid cold and burning heat conclusively prove global warming, the existence of an all-encompassing rape culture is demonstrated both by the agreement that it exists and the denial that it exists. No wonder liberals hate due process – they can’t afford a search for the truth because the risk is too great that someone might find it.
Liberals, stop lying about illegal aliens. They aren’t all hardworking and they aren’t all here because they love America and have dreams and stuff. Some are criminals. Some are bums. None were invited. Their problems are a result of their choices. We owe them nothing. Want out of the shadows? Go home.
Liberals, stop lying about race. There’s a word for people who do as liberals do and assess an individual’s every action, opinion and idea based upon where the subject individual’s great-grandfather came from. That word is “racist.” Here’s some truth: The only mainstream ideology within the American political spectrum that is in any coherent sense racist is liberalism.
Liberals, stop lying about welfare. We all know that your place in life is the result of your good and bad choices. The poor aren’t poor because the Koch brothers went and made them drop out of high school and focus on bong hits instead of calculus.
Liberals, stop lying about taxes. People like us who actually contribute to society by working aren’t bad or greedy because we get mad at our money being taken to subsidize freeloaders. We’re normal.
Liberals, stop lying about Obamacare. That would mean you can never speak of it again.
Liberals, stop lying about Christians and Jews. Our country was built upon a Judeo-Christian foundation, and without it America would just be another festering boil of hideous pathologies like the majority of this planet. There’s no secret cabal of cross and star-clinging theocrats out there just waiting to ruin the liberal’s party – America is not about to be Footloosed even in the off chance it was to elect a Mike Huckabee. Hell, the only people interested in getting into Americans’ bedrooms are the liberal feminists who want to crawl through the window with a notary to ensure there’s proper documentation of the horny co-ed’s consent to let her beau ‘round second base.
Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton. Lena Dunham. Jon Gruber. That woman with the glasses who thinks we should carpet bomb ISIS with want ads. All liberals. All liars.
Liberals, stop lying about everything.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Who Is to Blame for the Chapel Hill Murders? The Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes Industry? (PJMedia)
Craig Hicks: when "Anti-Theists" attack...
by
Robert Spencer
February 13, 2015 - 3:50 pm
Muslims are under siege in the U.S. — don’t you know that? Roving bands of Islamophobes routinely harass and threaten innocent Muslims, and a well-heeled Islamophobia Network spends millions to demonize and vilify Muslims in the American public discourse. Things have gotten so bad that pious Muslim women fear to wear their hijabs in public – and when they do, they’re spat upon and worse. The climate of fear and hatred that the Islamophobes have so assiduously whipped up culminated in the horrific murder last Tuesday of three Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, by a psychopath seething with hatred for Muslims.
That’s the way numerous leftists and Muslims see life in Barack Obama’s America, but in reality, that scenario is almost wholly false. A psychopath really did murder three Muslims in Chapel Hill last Tuesday, but the rest is pure leftist mythmaking, providing an illustrative example of how the Left and the mainstream media ignore inconvenient facts and bend others in order to further their chosen narrative.
Who is Craig Hicks?
The problems with this narrative are many. From the looks of his Facebook page, Hicks is hardly the right-wing, anti-Muslim Islamophobic redneck of their hysterical fantasies; instead, he is a hardcore leftist and fan of the Huffington Post and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Those two are among his huge and revealing list of “Likes,” which shows him much more preoccupied with Christianity than with Islam. He likes the atheists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Bill Maher, all of whom have criticized Islam, but his page includes none of their statements about Islam. He likes many anti-Christian groups but no groups that are critical of Islam, and he even likes a group called “Obama Backs Mosque Near Ground Zero: ‘This is America,’” praising Obama for supporting the Ground Zero Mosque.
Other “Likes” from Hicks’ Facebook page include Bill Nye The Science Guy; Sarah Silverman; Penn & Teller: Bullshit!; Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off; LGBT / Atheist Alliance; Scary Bible Quote of the Day; World Atheists: Lets Kick Islam and Christianity out of Africa; Merry christmyth; Pass The 28th Amendment – Complete Removal Of The Church From The State; The Rachel Maddow Fan Page; Pissing Off The Religious Right; Keep your Bible out of our Vaginas; Mitt Romney Sucks; Separation of Church and State; Still here? Silly Christians; Jesus McChrist; Denying Evolution Won’t Make Your God Any More Real; Dogs Against Romney; The Atheist’s Bible Commentary; Organization for Educating Misinformed Tea Party Patriots; GOPHypocrisy; Liberals Against Conservative Propaganda; Arrest the Pope and Tax Religion; Not wasting my Sundays at church; Network for Church Monitoring; Dominionism is destroying America; Christians vs. Atheists; Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Stop The Westboro Baptist Church!; and many, many more. Oh, and Gun Toting Liberal.
He likes no anti-Islam groups, and his Facebook page contains no criticism of Islam other than one comparison of “Radical Christians” and “Radical Muslims.” From the looks of all this at least, if Craig Hicks had been planning to commit a hate crime, it seems much more likely that he would have targeted “right-wingers,” Republicans, evangelical Christians, etc., than that he would have targeted Muslims because they were Muslims.
What’s more, Hicks’ wife has said:
I can say with absolute belief that this incident had nothing to do with religion of the victims’ faith, but it was related to a longstanding parking dispute that my husband had with the neighbors.
These killings were over parking, not Islam
The Chapel Hill Police said the same thing: these killings were over parking, not Islam. Karen Hicks added that her husband “often champions on his Facebook page for the rights of individuals. … He believes everyone is equal – doesn’t matter what you look like or who you are or what you believe.” U.S. Attorney Ripley Rand stated Wednesday:
“The events of yesterday are not part of a targeting campaign against Muslims in North Carolina,” and that there was “no information this is part of an organized event against Muslims.”
It is demonic madness to murder people over a parking space, but it is not the seismic event that the cold-blooded murder of three Muslims solely because they were Muslims would be. And so many decided to go with the old adage from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
Friday, January 23, 2015
Bill Whittle exposes the TRUTH about gun-loving America vs the rest of the world
By The Right Scoop
This is a fantastic monologue by Bill Whittle that I’m sure you’re going to want to share. He hits back at the Left’s obsession with gun control by pointing out where gun-loving America really sits in the international arena when it comes to our murder rate.
Just watch:
About The Right Scoop
Blogger extraordinaire since 2009 and the owner and Chief Blogging Officer of the most wonderful and super fantastic blog in the known and unknown universe: The Right Scoop
Sunday, January 18, 2015
'Pin' Meet 'Housing Bubble 2.0' (Zerohedge.com)
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/17/2015 18:45 -0500
Housing bubble 2.0 just met Pin 2.0
The 30 Year U.S. Treasury bond yield hit 2.35% yesterday. That is the lowest rate in U.S. history for the 30 Year Treasury. During the deepest darkest depths of the recession in March 2009, after the stock market had fallen over 50%, the yield was 3.5%. One year ago it was yielding 4.0%. Long term interest rates are not controlled by Yellen. They reflect the economic prospects of the country. When they are rising it means the economy is doing well. When they are plummeting to all time lows, the economy is either in recession or headed into recession. Take your pick. No amount of government data manipulation, feel good propaganda spewed by the captured mainstream media, or Ivy League educated Wall Street economist doublespeak, can change the fact this economy is in the dumper and headed much lower. The Greater Depression is resuming its downward march toward inevitable war.
- KBH SEES 1Q BOTTOM LINE ABOUT BREAK-EVEN (against expectations of a 17c rise!)
- KB HOME CFO SAYS FIRST-QUARTER MARGINS EXPECTED TO BE DOWN
- KB HOME PULLED OUT OF `COUPLE’ HOUSTON LAND DEALS, CEO SAYS
- LENNAR CFO SAYS MARGINS ARE POISED TO NARROW ON LESS PRICING POWER
- LENNAR GROSS MARGIN DECLINED & SALES INCENTIVES GREW
- LENNAR CEO SAYS “ACROSS THE BOARD, WE’RE SEEING INTENSIFIED COMPETITION AS BUILDERS GO OUT AND CHASE VOLUME”
KB Home had revenues of $2.4 billion in 2014. They are one of the largest home builders in the country. It’s stock has dropped 30% in the last few days. It’s down 40% from its February 2014 high. It’s down 85% from its 2005 high. It had $9 billion of revenues and delivered 60,000 homes in 2005. Then Pin 1.0 popped the first bubble. Revenues collapsed to $1.3 billion and they lost hundreds of millions from 2007 through 2012.
Lennar had revenues of $7.0 billion in 2014. They are the largest home builder in the country. It’s stock has dropped 9% this week. It had been trading at a seven year high, but is still trading 33% below its 2005 bubble high. It had $14 billion of revenues and delivered 42,000 homes in 2005. Then Pin 1.0 popped their bubble. Revenues imploded to $3 billion and they also lost hundreds of millions from 2007 through 2012.
Their admissions earlier this week are proof Bubble 2.0 has met Pin 2.0. KB Home’s 85% increase in revenue and Lennar’s 130% increase in revenue since 2011 have been nothing but a Federal Reserve/Wall Street/U.S. Treasury engineered scheme to repair the balance sheets of the insolvent Too Big To Trust Wall Street banks. The financial industry oligarchs and their servile lackey puppet politicians decided an easy money, Wall Street created scheme to boost home prices would benefit the .1% and restore some of their fraudulently acquired wealth. It isn’t a coincidence home prices rose in parallel with the Fed’s QE programs. And it isn’t a coincidence the bubble is rapidly deflating now that QE3 is over.
The fraudulent nature of the supposed housing recovery can be deciphered by analyzing a few pertinent data points. 30 year mortgage rates were in the 5% to 6% range during the first bubble. Mortgage rates have been consistently below 4% for the last three years. In a healthy market driven economy, these low rates should have brought in first time home buyers and led to a sustainable long-term recovery.
Instead, the number of homes bought by first time buyers has languished at record low levels. The majority of homes sold in 2011 and 2012 were distressed foreclosures and short sales, and the vast majority of sales in the last two years have been to Federal Reserve financed Wall Street investors, Chinese billionaires and fast buck flippers. New home sales of just above 400,000 five years into an economic recovery are at previous recession lows, despite record low mortgage rates. They languish 65% below 2005 levels, when KB Home and Lennar were minting money. Existing home sales of 5 million are back at 1999 levels and 30% below the 2005 highs. This pitiful result is after $3.5 trillion of QE, extremely low mortgage rates, and tremendous hype from the NAR and the corporate MSM (It’s always the best time to buy).
The falsity of the housing recovery storyline can be seen in the fact that mortgage applications linger at 1995 levels, even though mortgage rates are 400 basis points lower than they were in 1995. A critical thinking individual might ask how home prices could rise by 20% since 2012 even though mortgage purchase applications are 20% lower than they were in 2012 and 65% below 2005 levels. The answer is they couldn’t have risen by 20% without massive monetary manipulation and insider deals between Wall Street banks, Wall Street hedge funds, FNMA, Freddie Mac, The Fed, and the U.S. Treasury.
You see, average Americans buy houses not as an investment, but as a place to live. They save enough for a down payment by spending less than they earn, and then make monthly payments for 30 years from their rising household income. Of course, that was the old days. Real median household income is exactly where it was in 1995. It is currently below the level of 1989. Average Americans have made no headway in 20 years. The median price of a home in 1995, according to the Census Bureau, was $128,000. The median price of a home today is $281,000. When prices go up 120% and your real income remains stagnant, even record low mortgage rates is just pushing on a string. With real wages continuing to fall, young people saddled with a trillion dollars of student loan debt, the full impact of the Obamacare neutron bomb (kills small business, doctors and jobs, but not insurance conglomerates or government bureaucracy) just detonating, and an economy clearly going into the tank, there is absolutely no possibility of a real housing recovery in the foreseeable future.
The Too Big To Trust banks have consistently accounted for 35% to 55% of all mortgage originations in the U.S. over the last four years. Wells Fargo is the undisputed leader. All of these banks have reported dreadful financial results this week, with plunging revenues and profits, even with accounting shenanigans like relieving loan loss reserves and marking their balance sheets to fantasy rather than true market values. In the midst of a supposed housing recovery, with mortgage rates at historic lows, the largest mortgage originator in the world, saw their mortgage originations FALL by 12% over last year. They are down 65% from two years ago. JP Morgan and Citigroup also saw their mortgage businesses contracting. These banks have been firing thousands of people in their mortgage divisions. This is surely a sign of a healthy growing housing market. Right?
Essentially, the entire housing recovery storyline has revolved around the Federal Reserve providing free money to Wall Street banks, who then withheld foreclosures from the market, sold them in bulk at inflated prices to Wall Street hedge funds like Blackstone, who then created a nationwide rental business, driving prices higher. FNMA and Freddie Mac did their part by selling their bulk foreclosures to the same connected hedge funds. The average person had no opportunity to bid on foreclosed homes and reap the benefits of lower prices. Blackstone has since created a new derivative, by packaging their rental income streams into an “investment” to sell to muppets. Their rental properties are concentrated in the previous bubble markets of Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada. What a beautiful business concept. Free money from their Federal Reserve sugar daddy, kicking people out of their homes and then renting their houses back to them, driving prices higher by restricting supply and stopping new household formations, double dipping by creating a new exotic subprime investment opportunity, and then exiting stage left before it all blows sky high again.
The areas of the country with the highest percentage of Wall Street owned rental properties have had the largest price increases over the last three years. Some people never learn. Blackstone and the rest of the Wall Street crowd stopped buying properties in 2014. They’ve achieved their objective – easy profits. They have no intention of being long-term landlords. They are seeking the greater fools to take these properties off their hands at inflated prices. The result will be rapidly falling prices, as there is no real demand for these properties.
The only thing propping up the housing market has been QE, connected Wall Street insiders, Chinese billionaires trying to get their money out of China before their collapse, and the usual flip that house morons you’ve seen on cable TV. QE has ceased. The Wall Street shysters are selling. The Chinese billionaires are only impacting the high end. The low IQ flippers are stuck holding the bag again. It’s no coincidence the Case-Shiller Index has been in a steady DECLINE since the beginning of 2014. Prices have round tripped back to 2012 levels and are headed back to 2009 levels. What a shame. Maybe they can hand out t-shirts that say:
THE FED PRINTED $3.5 TRILLION AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID T-SHIRT
Two of the biggest home builders in the country have already warned that 2015 is going to be bad. And they are surely painting a rosier picture than they will ever admit. Corporate executives aren’t known for honesty or forthrightness. A perfect storm is brewing and the second Fed induced housing bubble of this century is deflating rapidly. The plunge in oil prices is not due to over-supply. It’s due to under-demand. A global deflationary contraction is underway. What higher paying employment growth and capital investment that has occurred since 2009 was spurred by high oil prices. Texas has led the charge. Energy related companies are announcing thousands of layoffs, and the fun has just begun. Lance Roberts explains the ripple effects:
The majority of the jobs “created” since the financial crisis have been lower wage paying jobs in retail, healthcare and other service sectors of the economy. Conversely, the jobs created within the energy space are some of the highest wage paying opportunities available in engineering, technology, accounting, legal, etc. In fact, each job created in energy related areas has had a “ripple effect” of creating 2.8 jobs elsewhere in the economy from piping to coatings, trucking and transportation, restaurants and retail.
Energy companies have accounted for 25% of all S&P 500 capital expenditures. They are slashing cap-ex budgets by billions. Revenues and profits of energy companies are collapsing. Unemployment claims have already begun to rise. Retail sales growth below 3% always portends or confirms recession. People without jobs, burdened with student loan debt, and living on the same income they had in 1989, do not buy houses. Without QE and Wall Street hedge funds to prop up the market, the bubble is popped. Maybe someone should ask Ben Bernanke at one of his $300,000 lunch time speeches for Bank of America what he thinks about the housing market. He does have an Ivy league education and did save the world.
“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.” – Ben Bernanke – July 2005
Merchants of Smear
Obama, Gore other climate alarmists refuse to debate, but love to vilify - and love their money
Paul Driessen
Manmade climate disaster proponents know the Saul Alinksy community agitator playbook by heart. In a fight, almost anything goes. Never admit error; just change your terminology and attack again. Expand your base, by giving potential allies financial and political reasons to join your cause. Pick “enemy” targets, freeze them, personalize them, polarize them and vilify them.
The “crisis” was global cooling, until Earth stopped cooling around 1976. It was global warming, until our planet stopped warming around 1995. The alarmist mantra then became “climate change” or “climate disruption” or “extreme weather.” Always manmade. Since Earth’s climate often fluctuates, and there are always weather extremes, such claims can never be disproven, certainly not to the alarmists’ satisfaction.
Alarmists say modern civilization’s “greenhouse gas” emissions are causing profound climate change - by replacing the powerful, interconnected solar and other natural forces that have driven climate and weather patterns and events since Earth and human history began. They insist that these alleged human-induced changes are already happening and are already disastrous. Pope Francis says we are already witnessing a “great cataclysm” for our planet, people and environment.
However, there is no cataclysm, now or imminent, even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have gone well past the alleged 350 parts-per-million “tipping point,” and now hover near 400 ppm (0.04%). There has been no warming since 1995, and recent winters have been among the coldest in centuries in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, despite steadily rising levels of plant-fertilizing CO2.
As of January 12, 2015, it has been 3,365 days (9.2 years!) since a Category 3-5 hurricane hit the US mainland. This is by far the longest such stretch since record-keeping began in 1900, if not since the American Civil War. Sea levels are barely rising, at a mere seven inches per century. Antarctic sea ice is expanding to new records; Arctic ice has also rebounded. Polar bears are thriving. In fact:
Every measure of actual evidence contradicts alarmist claims and computer model predictions. No matter how fast or sophisticated those models are, feeding them false or unproven assumptions about CO2 and manipulated or “homogenized” temperature data still yields garbage output, scenarios and predictions.
That’s why alarmists also intoned the “peak oil” and “resource depletion” mantra - until fracking produced gushers of new supplies. So now they talk about “sustainable development,” which really means “whatever we advocate is sustainable; whatever we despise and oppose is unsustainable.”
USEPA Administrator Gina McCarthy also ignores climate realities. Her agency is battling coal-fired power plants (and will go after methane and gas-fired generators next), to “stop climate change” and “trigger a range of investments” in innovation and a “clean power future.” What she really means is: Smart businesses will support our agenda. If they do, we’ll give them billions in taxpayer and consumer money. If they oppose us, we will crush them. And when we say innovation, we don’t mean fracking.
As to responding to these inconvenient climate realities, or debating them with the thousands of scientists who reject the “dangerous manmade climate change” tautology, she responds: “The time for arguing about climate change has passed. The vast majority of scientists agree that our climate is changing.”
This absurd, dismissive assertion underscores citizen investigative journalist Russell Cook’s findings, in his perceptive and fascinating Merchants of Smear report. The climate catastrophe narrative survives only because there has been virtually no debate over its scientific claims, he explains. The public rarely sees the extensive evidence debunking and destroying climate cataclysm assertions, because alarmists insist that “the science is settled,” refuse to acknowledge or debate anyone who says otherwise, and claim skeptical scientists get paid by oil companies, tainting anything they say.
The fossil-fuel-payoff claim is classic Alinsky: Target and vilify your “enemies.”
“No one has ever offered an iota of evidence” that oil interests paid skeptical researchers to change their science to fit industry views, :despite legions of people repeating the claim,” Cook notes. “Never has so much, the very survival of the global warming issue depended on so little a paper-thin accusation from people having hugely troubling credibility issues of their own.” The tactic is intended to marginalize manmade global warming skeptics. But the larger problem is mainstream media malfeasance: reporters never question “climate crisis” dogmas...or allegations that “climate denier” scientists are willing to fabricate studies questioning “settled science” for a few grand in illicit industry money.
Pay no attention to the real-world climate or those guys behind the curtain, we are told. Just worry about climate monsters conjured up by their computer models. “Climate change deniers” are Big Oil lackeys and you should turn a blind eye to the billions of dollars in government, industry and foundation money paid annually to researchers and modelers who subscribe to manmade climate disruption claims.
In fact, the US government alone spent over $106 billion in taxpayer funds on alarmist climate research between 2003 and 2010. In return, the researchers refuse to let other scientists, IPCC reviewers or FOIA investigators see their raw data, computer codes or CO2-driven algorithms. The modelers and scientists claim the information is private property, even though taxpayers paid for the work and the results are used to justify energy, job and economy-killing policies and regulations. Uncle Sam spends billions more every year on renewable energy programs that raise energy prices, cost jobs and reduce living standards.
None of these recipients wants to derail this money train, by entertaining doubts about the “climate crisis.” Al Gore won’t debate anyone or even address audience questions he hasn’t preapproved.
As to claims of a “97% consensus,” one source is responses from 75 of 77 “climate scientists” who were selected from a 2010 survey that went to 10,257 scientists. Apparently, the analysts didn’t like the “consensus” of the other 10,180 scientists. Another study, by a University of Queensland professor, claimed that 97% of published scientific papers agree that humans caused at least half of the 1.3 F (0.7 C) global warming since 1950; in reality, only 41 of the 11,944 papers cited explicitly said this.
“Skeptical” scientists do not say climate doesn’t change or humans don’t affect Earth’s climate to some (small) degree. However, more than 1,000 climate scientists, 31,000 American scientists and 48% of US meteorologists say there is no evidence that we are causing dangerous warming or climate change.
Two recent United States Senate staff reports shed further light on other shady dealings that underlie the “dangerous manmade climate change” house of cards. Chains of Environmental Command reveals how Big Green activists and foundations collude with federal agencies to develop renewable energy and anti-hydrocarbon policies. EPA’s Playbook Unveiled shines a bright light on the fraud, deceit and secret science behind the agency’s sue-and-settle lawsuits, pollution standards and CO2 regulations.
The phony “solutions” to the imaginary “climate crisis” hurt our children and grandchildren, by driving up energy prices, threatening electricity reliability, thwarting job creation, adversely impacting people’s health and welfare, and subsidizing wind turbines that slaughter birds and bats. They perpetuate poverty, misery, disease and premature death in poor African and Asian countries, by blocking construction of fossil fuel power plants that would bring electricity to 1.3 billion people who still do not have it.
The caterwauling over climate change has nothing to do with real-world warming, cooling, storms or droughts. It has everything to do with an ideologically driven hatred of hydrocarbons, capitalism and economic development, and a callous disdain for middle class workers and impoverished Third World families that “progressive” activists, politicians and bureaucrats always claim to care so much about.
House and Senate committees should use studies cited above as a guide for requiring a robust pollution, health and climate debate. They should compel EPA, climate modelers and scientists to testify under oath, present their evidence and respond to tough questions. Congress should then block any regulations that do not conform to the scientific method and basic standards of honesty, transparency and solid proof.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (http://www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
Jan 15, 2015
