Total Public Debt Outstanding Stuck At $16.738 Trillion For Over Two Months

The normal explanation for this would be that redemptions of Treasury securities are running at precise equilibrium with issues, which might imply there has been a big shift away from note and bond purchases by the public since the end of May when Ben Bernanke first floated the possibility of a tapering of Fed purchases in the secondary market. Bond outflows in June of nearly $62 billion dramatically reversed a trend (albeit declining) of purchases in 2013 through May.

Theoretically total public debt outstanding occasionally goes down in the rare cases when redemptions exceed issuances, but the maintenance of a consistent level equilibrium is indicative of a deliberate policy, that is, a policy not to exceed the debt limit of $16.7 trillion. This is effected by recourse to extraordinary measures on the part of the US Treasury Dept.

Tax revenues are also running higher in 2013, helping remove pressure from the situation as is the sequester which is curbing outlays. Revenue has also increased from the GSEs, in excess of $59 billion according to Reuters, here. The Associated Press has reported here for July 18th that the current fiscal year deficit is projected to come in over $300 billion less than last year when all is said and done.

Now you know why Congress felt it could take the traditional August recess without doing anything about the debt ceiling. They'll just let Jack Lew sweat it out.

Obama Biographies Deliberately Omitted That His Mentor Was A Flaming Communist

Including for the Associated Press, and both biographies by John Meacham and David Remnick.

Herbert Meyer, here:

For example, during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Associated Press ran two articles about Obama's life in Hawaii, one specifically about Frank [Marshall Davis]. The AP described him to voters desperate for insight about the Democratic candidate merely as an advocate of "civil rights amid segregation" and a crusader for the U.S. Constitution. The only Frank quote the AP offered its readers -- chosen from decades of vicious, anti-American newspaper columns Frank wrote in Hawaii -- was this: "I refuse to settle for anything less than all the rights which are due me under the Constitution."

Newsweek's John Meacham told readers only that Frank wrote about "civil rights and labor issues." David Remnick, who wrote for The Washington Post, who now is editor of The New Yorker, and who authored The Bridge, which to date is perhaps the most comprehensive biography of our president, managed to completely ignore Frank's communist ideology and told readers only that Frank "wrote fierce columns about the suppression of unions, conditions on the plantation, the power of oligarchic Hawaiian families, race relations." Somehow, this Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist failed to notice -- or chose to ignore -- Frank's incendiary, near-treasonous columns blasting Harry Truman and the Marshall Plan, accusing the U.S. of trying to re-Nazify Germany, and defending the Soviet Union at every turn.

Ron Fournier: Obama Is An Incompetent, Obfuscatory, Demagogic, Bungling Political Quack And Buffoon

Well, that about covers it from the former Washington Bureau Chief of the Associated Press.

Ron Fournier says all that, and more, for National Journal here.

Republican Sen. Rob Portman Of Ohio Flips On Same Sex Marriage

As reported by The Associated Press, here:

Portman said his views on gay marriage began changing in 2011 when his son, Will, then a freshman at Yale University, told his parents he was gay and that it wasn't a choice but "part of who he was." Portman said he and his wife, Jane, were very surprised but also supportive. ... Portman told reporters Thursday that his previous views on marriage were rooted in his Methodist faith.

Portman voted for DOMA in 1996 as representative from Ohio's 2nd Congressional District, and was elected to the Senate in 2010 with Tea Party support.

Portman's wife, who used to work for Democrat Tom Daschle, flipped to the Republican Party when Portman agreed to flip to the Methodist Church.

There's a whole lotta flippin' goin' on, especially toward the voters. If Sen. Portman had an integrity, he'd resign.

How The Mujahideen Fight Against Drones

How the Mujahideen fight against drones, according to The Associated Press, here:

1 – It is possible to know the intention and the mission of the drone by using the Russian-made “sky grabber” device to infiltrate the drone’s waves and the frequencies. The device is available in the market for $2,595 and the one who operates it should be a computer-know-how.

2 – Using devices that broadcast frequencies or pack of frequencies to disconnect the contacts and confuse the frequencies used to control the drone. The Mujahideen have had successful experiments using the Russian-made “Racal.”

3 – Spreading the reflective pieces of glass on a car or on the roof of the building.

4 – Placing a group of skilled snipers to hunt the drone, especially the reconnaissance ones because they fly low, about six kilometers or less.

5 – Jamming of and confusing of electronic communication using the ordinary water-lifting dynamo fitted with a 30-meter copper pole.

6 – Jamming of and confusing of electronic communication using old equipment and keeping them 24-hour running because of their strong frequencies and it is possible using simple ideas of deception of equipment to attract the electronic waves devices similar to that used by the Yugoslav army when they used the microwave (oven) in attracting and confusing the NATO missiles fitted with electromagnetic searching devices.

7 – Using general confusion methods and not to use permanent headquarters.

8 – Discovering the presence of a drone through well-placed reconnaissance networks and to warn all the formations to halt any movement in the area.

9 – To hide from being directly or indirectly spotted, especially at night.

10 – To hide under thick trees because they are the best cover against the planes.

11 – To stay in places unlit by the sun such as the shadows of the buildings or the trees.

12 – Maintain complete silence of all wireless contacts.

13 – Disembark of vehicles and keep away from them especially when being chased or during combat.

14 – To deceive the drone by entering places of multiple entrances and exits.

15 – Using underground shelters because the missiles fired by these planes are usually of the fragmented anti-personnel and not anti-buildings type.

16 – To avoid gathering in open areas and in urgent cases, use building of multiple doors or exits.

17 – Forming anti-spies groups to look for spies and agents.

18 – Formation of fake gatherings such as using dolls and statutes to be placed outside false ditches to mislead the enemy.

19 – When discovering that a drone is after a car, leave the car immediately and everyone should go in different direction because the planes are unable to get after everyone.

20 – Using natural barricades like forests and caves when there is an urgent need for training or gathering.

21 – In frequently targeted areas, use smoke as cover by burning tires.

22 – As for the leaders or those sought after, they should not use communications equipment because the enemy usually keeps a voice tag through which they can identify the speaking person and then locate him.



Sen. Marco Rubio Avoids Talking About Defacto Amnesty On Rush Limbaugh

And Rush avoided bringing up the subject. All Rubio said was that we have "an existing problem":

Look, I think there's this false argument that's been advanced by the left that conservatism and Republicans are anti-immigrant and anti-immigration. And we're not. Never have been. 

On the contrary, we are pro-legal immigration. And we recognize that our legal immigration system needs to be reformed. We also recognize, because conservatism's always been about common sense, that we do have an existing problem that needs to be dealt with in the best way possible.

But it came up on Mark Levin's show, as Washington Watcher noted at VDare, here:

In promoting his amnesty on the Mark Levin show last week, Rubio came up with what appeared to Levin to be a novel argument. Rubio claimed that by not enforcing the law, we currently have a “de facto amnesty”—which will continue unless we support his plan, which involves illegals supposedly paying a fine, community service, learning English and various other bits [of] unenforceable window-dressing. Levin, who has been solid on immigration in the past (and, it should be noted, has not come out in support of Rubio’s amnesty), found this argument compelling. He noted:

"We have de facto amnesty right now. When he said it, it set a light bulb off. Maybe I am a little slow. I said, ‘Well he’s right, we do have de facto amnesty.’ Which is exactly why Obama wants to really do nothing." . . . 

[D]espite Mark Levin’s “light bulb” moment, this argument is not novel. Thus in 2007, John McCain said "For us to do nothing is silent and de facto amnesty."  [GOP Candidates Shy Away From Bush, by Glen Johnson, Associated Press, June 6, 2007]  Even Barack Obama has sold amnesty as a punishment . . ..

It's clear Sen. Rubio is sensitive to negative feedback. He's fine tuning the message for the skulls full of mush out there in order to build the case for the Senate Gang of Eight amnesty plan. But as Washington Watcher says in his article, only the first of several reasons the status quo is preferable is that an outright amnesty will trigger a deluge of illegal immigration to take advantage of it.

The country is already full of unassimilated foreigners, so, pace Sen. Rubio, they represent the reason for conservatives to be against more legal immigration, not just the illegal kind. The law and the law-abiding have been the victims in this charade, not the illegals, and it is they who need to pay. It's about time so-called conservatives started saying so instead of cooking up compromises with the devil.

Women Bore The Brunt Of Unemployment, But Voted For Obama Anyway

men's unemployment level falls below old ceiling

women's unemployment level remains above old ceiling

You can argue all you want about equality between the sexes, but it's more obvious than ever before that women have a double standard when it comes to equality.

Women by a significant majority still think someone else has an obligation to take care of them when things head south, whether it's daddy, hubby or The State. In 2012, despite bearing the brunt of four years of the worst unemployment since World War II, they didn't blame those four years of zero progress on Obama. Instead they voted for more of it, believing in the commitment of government to help them even though it isn't.

While the number of unemployed men has fallen below the previous peak reached during the recession of the early 1980s, the number of unemployed women has not and remains at record levels.

HuffPo reported on the phenomenon here two weeks after the election: 

This year Obama campaigned on giving a leg up to those needing education, health care or job training. Romney talked about shrinking government, except for the military, and said overgrown social programs were creating a culture of dependency. Their arguments fit the long-running fissure of the gender gap.

"Women stuck with Obama," said Karen Kaufmann, a University of Maryland associate professor who studies the gender gap. "We didn't see a lot of movement from women. The movement was really men going back to the Republican Party."

Women's support for Obama dropped just 1 percentage point from 2008; they voted for him by 55 percent to 44 percent this time. Men's support for Obama dropped 4 points, flipping them to Romney's side, by a 52-45 margin. Women were 10 percentage points more likely to vote for Obama than men were, according to the survey of voters at the polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.

This is the political price the country has had to pay for eschewing marriage and for non-commitment in relationships generally. And whatever else may be said, the dependent sex is proving that it is still the weaker sex, and if men aren't paying the weaker sex directly with emotional commitment and financial support, the whole country is paying it in the form of higher taxes and larger deficits, and getting family breakdown and legions of socially dysfunctional offspring in the process.

The sexual revolution has been bad for America in every way, Obama aims to prolong it, and women by a significant majority, being weaker, see no alternative and won't until men provide one.

To The Associated Press, Sadomasochism Is Just A "Subculture"

Crown Roast of Wiener

Seen here:

[Castro District] Supervisor Scott Wiener's proposal would make it illegal for a person over the age of 5 to "expose his or her genitals, perineum or anal region on any public street, sidewalk, street median, parklet or plaza" or while using public transit.

A first offense would carry a maximum penalty of a $100 fine, but prosecutors would have authority to charge a third violation as a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and a year in jail. Exemptions would be made for participants at permitted street fairs and parades, such as the city's annual gay pride event and the Folsom Street Fair, which celebrates sadomasochism and other sexual subcultures.

Since about 1994 sadomasochism et cetera have not been considered mental illnesses by medical authorities when such deviancies are "consensual". Evidently the public in San Francisco no longer consents to the regular assaults against their eyes from assorted naked exhibitionists of deviancy, which should on that logic make such malefactors henceforth technically mentally ill once again.

Wow, wasn't that easy?

Accordingly we should now be able to say that, since libertarians advocate freedom for such deviancies but habitually fail at the polls, libertarians also are mentally ill because they do not enjoy the consent of the governed. 

The followers of libertarian Jude Wanniski continue to assert that the electorate always gets it right, so since the electorate repudiates libertarianism time and time again libertarians must be mentally ill.

It remains unknown if libertarianism ever was considered a mental disorder by authorities, however.

Needless to say, the date from which civilization may be said to have ended now has been postponed thanks to San Francisco Castro District Supervisor Scott Wiener.

Great name.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Milliman Study Ups Ante On Unfunded Public Pensions By $443 Billion

The Pew Center on the States study discussed by The Associated Press here in June put unfunded public pension liabilities for 2010 at $757 billion.

Now in October Reuters reports here that the sum is more like $1.2 trillion according to a different study by Milliman actuaries.

Both stories refer to unrealistic earnings expectations for public pension funds, which sometimes are in the vicinity of 8 percent when actual experience in the past five years has been more like 3 percent.

With long-term interest rates continuing to fall well below 2 percent and the Fed explicitly suppressing interest rates as a matter of long-term policy, such expectations seem more outrageously optimistic than ever. If taxpayers don't wake up they'll be left holding the bag for the shortfall.

Not mentioned in the Reuters story is the other problem, almost as big, mentioned by AP:

"Pensions aren't the only retirement problem. States also faced a $627 billion shortfall in health care services for retirees. Essentially, for every $1 they'll eventually have to pay out in health care, states had set aside only 5 cents."

Promises to public sector workers at all levels far exceed what private sector workers can expect for themselves, and promise only to bankrupt municipalities and states. 

It is high time we change the promises.

We Already Got The Change From Obama, And It Sucks

Obama can't run on change, or on economic achievements. So says a Vanderbilt political scientist in this report from The Associated Press:

"He can't run on change because he's the incumbent, and he can't paint too rosy a scenario because things aren't that rosy," said John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. "He's got to come up with a theme that appeals to voters, especially middle-class voters, alleviates their fears and gives them reason to believe the future will be better."

In other words, we already got the change, and it sucks.

High Gasoline Prices Are In The News Again: Up 55 Percent Since 2007

For example, from The Associated Press:

The national average for gasoline began the year at $3.28 a gallon. The average price for February so far is $3.49 a gallon. That's up from $3.17 a gallon last February, a record at the time. Back in 2007, before the recession hit, the average for February was $2.25 a gallon. ...

Americans spent 8.4 percent of their household income on gasoline last year when gas averaged an all-time high of $3.51 a gallon. That's double the percentage a decade ago. They could pay even more this year, even though demand is the lowest in 11 years as people drive fewer miles in more efficient cars, says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at OPIS. ...

World oil demand is expected to increase by another 1.5 percent to 89.25 million barrels a day in 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Read the complete story here.

Associated Press Says Obama Is Still Pushing Plans That Already Flopped

Here:

Kim Jong Mentally Ill Leaves Terrestrial for Celestial North Korea, Meets Christopher Hitchens!

The Associated Press announces tonight, tonight!, that Kim Jong Il has died.

What a week for Christopher Hitchens. The Iraq war ends, he dies, and now he's stuck with a dwarf playboy, forever.

Kim Jong Il supposedly died of heart failure at the age of 69 on a train.

Obama's Lies on Taxes Obvious Even to the Associated Press

Today, in a fact-check piece by Stephen Ohlemacher :

President Barack Obama makes it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said Monday. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

The rest summarizes all the data, here.

AP Reports Householders Converted to Renters Total 3 Million

With 3 million more expected by 2015:

Since the housing meltdown, nearly 3 million households have become renters. At least 3 million more are expected by 2015, according to census data analyzed by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies and The Associated Press.

Read the rest of the story here, which says that the GSEs presently own 250,000 foreclosures.

States of Disaster Depended on $316 Billion of Federal Stimulus in Last Fiscal Year

And that help for current operations is coming to an abrupt end as the new fiscal year begins on July 1.

The Associated Press reports, adding these staggering numbers on top of the current budget data:

The 50 states have a combined $689.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $418 billion in retiree health care obligations.

Read the complete details here.

ObamaCare, Medicare, and Social Security aren't the only back-breakers out there. The individual states have plenty of their own which they can't pay for, either. The whole country is stuck on stupid spending.

Obama Refuses to Secure America's Dangerous Nuclear Waste

For The Associated Press Jonathan Fahey and Ray Henry have an excellent story here about the problem America shares with Japan: "US Spent-Fuel Storage Sites Are Packed".

Nearly 72,000 tons of dangerous waste is being stored all over the US at reactor sites, 75 percent of it in vulnerable cooling pools just like Japan's.

We could have started moving it to Yucca Mountain long ago, but an unholy alliance between Nevada's people, its Senator Harry Reid of Obamacare fame, and President Obama himself keep the radioactive waste exposed to misfortune, mayhem and mischief in places like Illinois, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New York and North Carolina, the top five states storing spent nuclear fuel totaling over 27,000 tons:

For long-term storage, the government had looked to Yucca Mountain. It was designed to hold 77,160 tons - 69,444 tons designated for commercial waste and 7,716 for military waste. That means the current inventory already exceeds Yucca's original planned capacity.

A 1982 law gave the federal government responsibility for the long-term storage of nuclear waste and promised to start accepting waste in 1998. After 20 years of study, Congress passed a law in 2002 to build a nuclear waste repository deep in Yucca Mountain.

The federal government spent $9 billion developing the project, but the Obama administration has cut funding and recalled the license application to build it. Nevadans have fiercely opposed Yucca Mountain, though a collection of state governments and others are taking legal action to reverse the decision.

Despite his Yucca Mountain decision, President Barack Obama wants to expand nuclear power. He created a commission last year to come up with a long-term nuclear waste plan. Initial findings are expected this summer, with a final plan expected in January.

Obama the feckless simply kicks that can down the road while he globe trots with GE's chairman Jeff Immelt in search of deals for GE's nuclear reactor business, for example in India which has had plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on nuclear, and most recently in Brazil.

In exchange look for Obama to get GE to finance his presidential library and millions in walking around money for his future "charitable" foundation which will rival Bill Clinton's.

For every operational 1000 megawatt nuclear plant a year, another 25-30 tons of the stuff piles up with no place to go.

And with Obama in charge, nowhere is where it's at.

Republican Super-Majority in MT Scares the Bejeebers Out of Dem. Governor

And out of the Associated Press, showcasing a story designed to inflame reaction in the moribund left:

Some residents, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer and even some Republican lawmakers say the bills are making Montana into a laughingstock. And, they say, the push to nullify federal laws could be dangerous.

"We are the United States of America," said Schweitzer. "This talk of nullifying is pretty toxic talk. That led to the Civil War."

More at the link here.

Obama: The God That Failed

The Associated Press is reporting today here that unemployment holds high and steady at 9.6%:

Unemployment has now topped 9.5 percent for 14 months in a row, the longest stretch since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Flash back to the beginning of the year when we were in month six of the fourteen:

"And the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs -- why would I resist that? I wouldn't. I mean, that's my point, is that -- I am not an ideologue. I'm not."

-- BHO, Baltimore Q and A, January 29, 2010

What else but devotion to a failed ideology would work like such a charm and keep unemployment so high for so long?

OBAMA'S LAZY CLEAN AIR AND ENERGY POLICIES

The Associated Press is reporting today "President Barack Obama wants federal workers to cut down on business travel and commuting by car as he seeks to reduce heat-trapping emissions produced by the federal government." Remarkably, the report indicates "the federal government is the largest energy consumer in the US economy," which does make sense when you consider that with 2.7 million employees, it's also the biggest employer. By using mass transit, Obama thinks emissions like CO2 can be reduced by federal commuters by 13% in the next ten years, which doesn't make much sense. The federal vehicle fleet comes to about 600,000 vehicles, so that leaves a minimum of 2.1 million federal workers who aren't all going to be fitting on the Washington Metro, the expansion plans for which involve only a million daily riders by 2030. The rest will have to take . . . the bus?

More to the point about clean air, is Obama so uninformed that he doesn't know that CO2 emissions from CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles are nearly 40% fewer than from  conventionally powered ones? Does he realize that barely 1% of the federal fleet uses CNG (just 6,472 vehicles)? Does he know that 8-11 million vehicles worldwide use CNG, but that in the US there are only 150,000 doing so, most of which are buses? Does he know that huge deposits of shale gas in this country have been discovered in just the last few years, giving us 45 years of energy independence, if we want it? Does he know that Honda Motor Company already has quite a long history of successful production of its CNG powered Civic, sold now in several states besides California?

Has he ever looked at this map of the existing infrastructure for the US natural gas pipeline network and pondered its potential?

Every passing day proves that Obama is a man without a grip on reality, and with very little imagination.