White nationalists say they are against foreign and military aid to Israel, which has averaged about $3.8 billion annually since 1950

 According to Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes, who agree that Trump broke their hymen, being anti-Israel just means you are educated. Being pro-Israel means you are a moron.

How Much Aid Does the U.S. Give to Israel?

The cucks have spoken.

 

 

Mike Lee is such a phony, advocating for a clean continuing resolution instead of a last minute omnibus, as if there's much of a difference

 Mike hopes you never hear of regular order again.

Here.

Last guy to mention it I think was Paul Ryan in 2015:

"We need to let every member contribute, not once they earn their stripes, but now," he said. "The committees should take the lead in drafting all major legislation: If you know the issue, you should write the bill. Let's open up the process." "In other words," he said, "we need to return to regular order."

What idiot blames waning vaccine effectiveness on the bad behavior of vaccinated people?

 The Qatar study people, apparently:

The vaccine's weakening protection may be due to people's behavior, the study authors noted.

"Vaccinated persons presumably have a higher rate of social contact than unvaccinated persons and may also have lower adherence to safety measures," they wrote. "This behavior could reduce real-world effectiveness of the vaccine as compared with its biologic effectiveness, possibly explaining the waning of protection."

The studies were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 

Like my tetanus shot wanes in effectiveness because I went on a bender last weekend.

 

If the damn thing works, it works. Pfizer's vaccine clearly isn't a vaccine.

 

A golden opportunity to blame SPREAD on bad behavior wildly missed.

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-10-07/studies-show-power-of-pfizer-vaccine-starts-to-wane-after-two-months

Honestly I don't understand how General McKenzie can continue to serve under a Commander in Chief Surrender Monkey and do his bidding with a straight face or a clear conscience

 

U.S. Central Command chief Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, who served multiple tours in Afghanistan, as did his son, appeared somewhat stunned when he spoke to the press on Monday, detailing surprisingly civil interactions with Taliban commanders who oversee the network he has fought to defeat for two decades. When asked how he felt about that, he demurred. 

"I was very conflicted," McKenzie said in a candid moment during a televised briefing at the Pentagon from his headquarters in Tampa, Florida. "I am going to be thinking about that in the days ahead." 

He described Taliban cooperation with the U.S. evacuation mission in recent days as "actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations."

McKenzie detailed that despite assertions from Biden and other top leaders, the U.S. did not withdraw all of its own citizens, nor the Afghans it had pledged it would protect in exchange for their cooperation in the war effort. The military presence on the ground at the airport retained the ability to bring them out of the country, but many were not able to get to the airfield amid the chaos in the capital city. 

"The military phase is over, but our desire to bring these people out remains as intense as it was before," McKenzie said. "The Department of State will now take the lead on it." 

The U.S. would not have been able to accomplish that mission if it had stayed for an additional week or so, he added, batting down suggestions from Capitol Hill and elsewhere that Biden should have ordered an extension to his deadline. ...

McKenzie assesses as many as 2,000 "Hardcore ISIS fighters" are operating in Afghanistan now, some of whom were freed in recent days from jails the U.S. originally ran at Bagram and elsewhere. 

"That's going to be a challenge for the Taliban, I believe, in the days ahead," McKenzie said.

More. 

Al Qaeda is now free to move about the country . . . of Afghanistan

 The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported Monday that Osama bin Laden's chief of security returned to his hometown in Afghanistan earlier in the day accompanied by a band of heavily armed Taliban fighters in brand new military trucks. 

"The video of al Haq is evidence that Al Qaeda commanders now feel secure enough to appear publicly in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan," the foundation's Bill Roggio wrote in an analysis note.

More.

LOL, Ben Stein, cheerleader for "corporations are people", has decided that America has only just now become a fascist state

Now, in the year 2021, the iron curtain has come down hard. With Big Internet Tech and the White House now admittedly colluding to identify and suppress dissidents, even completely nonviolent dissidents, we no longer have a Constitution.

There is just one big corporate–government–IngSoc superstate running everything. Goodbye, America. The GOP, with 50 senators, does nothing. The state legislatures, by far a majority GOP, and the spineless Supreme Court do nothing. And so goodbye to the greatest experiment in the history of the world.

More.

Gee, what's the problem, Ben?

“Liberals don’t understand that corporations are people,” columnist Ben Stein wrote back in 1974. “They are the people who work for the corporation, buy its products, and own its stock. There is no mechanical person who is benefited if corporations make a good profit. Real people benefit, just as real people lose when corporations lose money.” True enough. But it is also true that corporations have as much of a vested interest in the political system (if not more) . . ..

Here.

The corporation in America was the creation of the King of England. Virginia was but one example of thirteen. The damn things rebelled. Samuel Johnson tried to explain it to us, but it, shall we say, kinda went over our heads, and where it didn't was met with what they would come to call a generous demonstration of disapprobation.

And so, what goes around comes around. Or as Reverend Wright would put it, "America's chickens . . . have come home . . . to roost!"

Taxation No Tyranny

 

 

Hysterical Americans, hysterical military

Here:

THE NAVY ON TUESDAY announced it would prohibit the Confederate battle flag from all its military installations, following the lead of the Marine Corps which last week began implementing a ban on its troops displaying the flag in any form. ...

The top officer for the Marine Corps, which is a part of the Navy Department, issued an order in April to all Marines that would prohibit on its bases any rendering of the Confederate battle flag, including on T-shirts, mugs or bumper stickers.

"Anything that divides us, anything that threatens team cohesion, must be addressed head-on," Berger wrote in a message to all Marines at that time.

In a statement last week detailing that order, now in effect, Berger said, "Current events are a stark reminder that it is not enough for us to remove symbols that cause division – rather, we also must strive to eliminate division itself." ...

The Army on Monday broke from its prior hard line and said it would consider renaming 10 bases currently named for Confederate generals, including Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. ...

Gen. Charles Brown, the incoming Air Force chief of staff, said in an emotional video message earlier this week, "I'm thinking about how full I am with emotion ...

Feds bust document forgery operation active for more than a decade in "primarily Hispanic town" . . . in Oregon

Feds: Forgery Operation Produced Over 10,000 Fake Documents:

"The fraud ring operated in Woodburn for more than a decade and produced over 10,000 fraudulent documents that they distributed in Woodburn or mailed to customers around the United States," U.S. Attorney Billy Williams and Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Sax said in the plea agreement posted Tuesday in court documents. Previous detailed court documents remain under seal.

The Fraud Doc Ring communicated with customers using Facebook, email, Snapchat and in person, the plea deal states. Customers emailed, texted or mailed the ring digital passport-style photos for insertion into the fake ID cards, or visited a clandestine photography lab in Woodburn where their photos were taken, the plea agreement says. Customers paid electronically through PayPal, through the mail or in person.

In the apartment, agents found dozens of security images and seals used in legitimate identification documents. They also found stored digital photos of more than 4,000 customers. The Fraud Doc Ring produced a wide array of documents, including drivers' licenses for over 25 different states, Social Security cards, lawful permanent resident cards, U.S. and Mexican birth certificates and marriage licenses.

 

Flashback: Obama campaign fined $375,000 for keeping illegal donations, hiding donors in 2008

Obama Campaign Fined Big for Hiding Donors, Keeping Illegal Donations

Obama 2008 campaign fined $375,000

Mark Levin barked at a caller tonight that doctors aren't in the top 1%, saying that's Marxist crap

Mark is celebrating Milton Friedman's birthday today, so he's in no mood for anyone who has the temerity to question capitalism's idealism.

Meanwhile US News and World Report here says that

"In 2016, a general internist made a median salary of $196,380, according to the BLS. The highest-paid in the profession earned upward of $208,000, while the lowest-paid made $60,080. ...  In fact, a physician's average salary was $201,840 in 2016."

People who made $200,000 or more in 2016 were in the 98.70706th percentile, in other words in the top 1.29294%. There were just 2.1 million such individuals in 2016.

You weren't firmly in the top 1% until you made $250,000 in 2016.

Voter turnout nationally in 2014 at 36.6% vs. 40.9% in 2010

Reported here.

The median priced existing home is affordable only to the highest reaches of the upper middle class

From an interesting discussion recently about what it means to be middle class, here:

One helpful yardstick to judge whether you're middle class: Median household income was $51,017 in 2012, according to the most recent U.S. census data. Robert Reich, a professor of Public Policy at the University of California-Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor, has suggested the middle class be defined as households making 50 percent higher and lower than the median, which would mean the average middle class annual income is $25,500 to $76,500.

If you're in the middle of the middle, however – not lower or upper-middle class – that would be an income range between $39,764 and $64,582, says Aaron Pacitti, an assistant professor of economics at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y.

Again, it isn't official. Nobody gets a membership card to the middle class.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The former spread, $25,500 to $76,500, comes to about 53 million individual wage earners in 2012 according to Social Security wage statistics, out of almost 154 million total. This spread looks like it comes from dividing the total workers into thirds and seeing where the income lines fall . . . in other words, not a wealth driven measure but grading on the population curve. This means a third of wage earners (about 50 million) make less than $25,500 and a third make more than $76,500.

The latter spread, between $39,764 and $64,582, comes to just 20 million individual wage earners in 2012.

Typically, working couples must combine such incomes to enjoy middle class life styles, which usually means homeownership.

Perhaps a better way to measure membership in the middle class is through housing affordability. Often housing is deemed affordable at about 2.6 times earnings on an historical basis, which implies an existing home price to the $39,764 earner at $103,400 or lower, and $167,900 or lower to the $64,582 earner.

Unfortunately the US existing home median sales price in March 2014 was $198,500, which presently requires an income of $76,300 to be affordable. In other words, you've got to have extreme upper middle class household income just to afford the median priced existing home.

But the median household income in 2012 was just $51,017. That only supported an affordable home at $132,600 or less, not much of a home.

Lying Weasel DNI Clapper "Apologizes", But Not Really

What a contemptible, lying weasel coward. He sends a letter on June 21, and claims he was confused.

We don't pay Directors of National Intelligence to be confused. We pay them to be intelligent.

Story here and here.

This Is A Depression, Says Dem. Billionaire Mort Zuckerman

"We believe we live in more normal times—and we do not. Millions of people today are experiencing exactly the same struggle as the millions did in the Great Depression. They can't find work. They depend on government and philanthropy. They live on hope denied. ...

"The reality is, we are experiencing a modern-day Depression. It is harder to find work than it has been in any previous economic recovery period. ...

"The Pew Research Center reports that for the first time in the post-World War II era, middle-class families finished the decade significantly poorer in terms of household net worth—which is down almost 40 percent since 2007—and with lower incomes than a decade earlier. This has hit the middle class harder than any other group. According to Pew, one third of Americans now identify themselves as lower class or lower middle class, a deterioration since 2008 when one quarter identified themselves that way. ...

"We are living through a breakdown of the great American jobs machine. This is not a recovery. Annual GDP growth in 2010 and 2011 averaged a mere 2.4 percent; in 2012, GDP growth slowed to 1.8 percent. In other words, cumulative growth for the last 11 quarters was just 6.8 percent, less than half the 15.2 percent average growth in GDP after previous recessions over a similar period of time. This is the slowest growth rate following all 11 post-World War II recessions. ...

"No recession since the end of World War II has been as deep or as long as this one, severely testing the optimism, confidence, and animal spirits that typify the temper of America. The question of the hour is how can we find a way to avoid becoming a low-wage, part-time country."

Read the full story, "How We Can End Our Modern-Day Depression," from Mort Zuckerman, here. 

Obama Shrugs, Sunsets His (Mostly Ignored) Jobs Council

Safely reelected, Obama's Jobs Council sunsets this week, even though millions still can't find work:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will let his jobs council expire this week without renewing its charter, winding down one source of input from the business community even as unemployment remains stubbornly high. ...

Obama met with the council only a handful of times. During the last meeting, in February 2012 . . . 

Read the rest, here.

"And A Fatherless Child Shall Lead Them"

A fatherless president for a fatherless nation

Americans narrowly re-elected a fatherless child to lead them as "broken families" begin to outnumber intact ones in the voter rolls.

Rebecca Hagelin for USNews.com, here, identifies the broken family trend creating today's voter:

Noted social science researcher Patrick Fagan points out that in 1950, for every 100 babies born in America, 12 were born to a broken family—that is, they were either born out of wedlock or to a family that would suffer divorce. Fast forward to today, and for every 100 babies born in America, over 60 are born to broken families.

The results of the latest census reported by Liz Peek for TheFiscalTimes.com, here, starkly depict the consequent disappearance of traditional America and its replacement by a broken one:

The 2010 Census reported that for the first time in our history, married couples make up less than half of all households. The traditional family with a mom, dad and children now constitute less than 20 percent of American households, down from 43 percent in 1950.

Whatever else may be said about Barack Obama, Americans have re-elected him to a large extent because he resembles them in the most elemental way which people like Mitt Romney and John McCain do not.

Sorry Gov. Romney, We're Not Spain

Romney, last night, in another odd coincidence with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Spain -- Spain spends 42 percent of their total economy on government. We're now spending 42 percent of our economy on government. I don't want to go down the path to Spain. I want to go down the path of growth that puts Americans to work with more money coming in because they're working."

A little dyslexia is going on here, I think. Whatever Spain's expense is as a percentage of GDP, America's is not 42, it's 24.

Here's US News and World Report, in June:

Federal spending was close to 20 percent under the Carter administration, dropped to 18 percent under Clinton, and is currently at an incredible 24 percent of GDP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending may hover around 22 percent for the next decade.

It's a little disturbing Obama didn't catch this mistake. It's a little disturbing Jim Lehrer didn't catch this mistake. In fact, I've heard the soundbite repeated on the radio this morning without anyone referring to the mistake, and that's pretty disturbing, too.

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Michelle Obama Lies About When And Why Obama Gave Up Pot

Neither one can tell the truth

Here's what Michelle Obama has just claimed, as quoted here, in response to a question about her husband's prolific pot-smoking habits:

'When he lost his father, that was one of those click-in moments. And he really buckled down, he transferred schools, went to Columbia, and thought about how to use his life to the fullest.'

This is nothing but the same sort of fictionalization we've come to expect from Obama himself, say, about his girlfriends, experiences with whom are conflated in his book in composite characters, not real ones.

Michelle is lying about the chronology of events which supposedly led to Barack becoming a serious person, pinning it all of the death of Barack Obama Sr. But Obama's father died late in 1982 when Barack was already at Columbia for a year. Barack transferred to Columbia in the fall of 1981. See for example, here.

The death of Obama's father had nothing to do with transferring to Columbia. In fact, the death post dates the move from Occidental to Columbia by two years.

The truth is we don't know when Obama quit smoking weed. But we do know Michelle Obama isn't telling the truth about it.

Moochelle's June Vacay Flight Costs to Botswana and South Africa: Over $400K

As reported here.

There was no mention of any big game hunted while on safari in South Africa.

FORD Owner 'Chris' Slams Auto Companies Receiving Government Bailouts

As reported here:

"I wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That's what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta' pick yourself up and go back to work. Ford is that company for me."

Chris is obviously referring to the fact that Chrysler got bailed out once before long ago in addition to its most recent bailout, which was also taken by GM.

Memo to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann: The auto bailouts are crony capitalism at its worst. Why aren't you talking about that instead of Gov. Perry and Gardasil?

Because you're phonies, that's why!