Running 'Cause I Can't Fly

“Republicans Question Whether Obama Could Handle Actual Scandal”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:14:00 +0000

“Republicans Question Whether Obama Could Handle Actual Scandal”
by Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)— “President Obama’s handling of controversies about the I.R.S., the Justice Department, and Benghazi has raised “grave doubts” about his ability to cope if he ever became involved in an actual scandal, prominent Republicans said today.

“If this is how he handles this stuff, Lord have mercy on him if he ever has to deal with a real scandal,” said newly elected Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S. Carolina). “Quite frankly, I don’t think he has what it takes. The true test of a leader is this,” Rep. Sanford added. “When he gets in a fix, does he have the presence of mind to lie about his whereabouts? Sadly, I don’t think President Obama passes that test.”

Mr. Sanford’s concerns mirror those of another leading Republican lawmaker, Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana). “If President Obama honestly thinks he’s dealing with scandals right now, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what a scandal is,” Sen. Vitter said. “And that’s very worrisome. When you get that three A.M. phone call, and it’s a reporter claiming that a prostitute said you like to dress up in a diaper, are you prepared for that call?” Sen. Vitter said. “In the case of President Obama, I am afraid that the answer is no.”

- http://www.newyorker.com/

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Musical Interlude: Medwyn Goodall, “Vision Quest”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:34:00 +0000

Medwyn Goodall, “Vision Quest”
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIUuyoRfbvw

"A Look to the Heavens"

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:30:00 +0000

“Above this boreal landscape, the arc of the Milky Way and shimmering aurorae flow through the night. Like an echo, below them lies Iceland's spectacular Godafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods. Shining just below the Milky Way, bright Jupiter is included in the panoramic nightscape recorded on March 9.

Click image for larger sizes.

Faint and diffuse, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) appears immersed in the auroral glow. The digital stitch of four frames is a first place winner in the 2013 International Earth and Sky Photo Contest on Dark Skies Importance organized by The World at Night. An evocative record of the beauty of planet Earth's night sky, all the contest's winning entries are featured in this video.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130517.html

Chet Raymo“When The Morning Stars Sing Together”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:25:00 +0000

“When The Morning Stars Sing Together”
by Chet Raymo

"A Chinese proverb: A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. Which might be an acceptable epigraph for this blog. I can't imagine anyone coming here looking for answers. Certainly, providing answers is the last thing on my mind. I would like to think you come for song.

We are, I think, by and large, a community who distrusts answers, at least answers that are vehemently held. We are made uncomfortable by stridency. By dogma. By the desire to proselytize. We wear our truths lightly, gaily, as a song bird wears its feathers. We are grateful to those who push back the clouds of ignorance and hold the reins of passion (click to enlarge). With Blake, we sing their praises, a song we have spent a lifetime learning.

We sing to celebrate. We sing because we have a song.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

Musical Interlude: Inka-Vision, “My Music, My Passion”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:47:00 +0000

Inka-Vision, “My Music, My Passion”
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0CqsbLeCYE

The Daily "Near You?"

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:37:00 +0000

Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA. Thanks for stopping by.

"Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust"

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:45:00 +0000

"Wells Dry, Fertile Plains Turn to Dust"
by Michael Wines

HASKELL COUNTY, Kan. — "Forty-nine years ago, Ashley Yost’s grandfather sank a well deep into a half-mile square of rich Kansas farmland. He struck an artery of water so prodigious that he could pump 1,600 gallons to the surface every minute. Last year, Mr. Yost was coaxing just 300 gallons from the earth, and pumping up sand in order to do it. By harvest time, the grit had robbed him of $20,000 worth of pumps and any hope of returning to the bumper harvests of years past. “That’s prime land,” he said not long ago, gesturing from his pickup at the stubby remains of last year’s crop. “I’ve raised 294 bushels of corn an acre there before, with water and the Lord’s help.” Now, he said, “it’s over.”

The land, known as Section 35, sits atop the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers. And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet. On some farms, big center-pivot irrigators — the spindly rigs that create the emerald circles of cropland familiar to anyone flying over the region — now are watering only a half-circle. On others, they sit idle altogether.

Two years of extreme drought, during which farmers relied almost completely on groundwater, have brought the seriousness of the problem home. In 2011 and 2012, the Kansas Geological Survey reports, the average water level in the state’s portion of the aquifer dropped 4.25 feet — nearly a third of the total decline since 1996. And that is merely the average. “I know my staff went out and re-measured a couple of wells because they couldn’t believe it,” said Lane Letourneau, a manager at the State Agriculture Department’s water resources division. “There was a 30-foot decline.”

Kansas agriculture will survive the slow draining of the aquifer — even now, less than a fifth of the state’s farmland is irrigated in any given year — but the economic impact nevertheless will be outsized. In the last federal agriculture census of Kansas, in 2007, an average acre of irrigated land produced nearly twice as many bushels of corn, two-thirds more soybeans and three-fifths more wheat than did dry land.

Farmers will take a hit as well. Raising crops without irrigation is far cheaper, but yields are far lower. Drought is a constant threat: the last two dry-land harvests were all but wiped out by poor rains. In the end, most farmers will adapt to farming without water, said Bill Golden, an agriculture economist at Kansas State University. “The revenue losses are there,” he said. “But they’re not as tremendously significant as one might think.”

Some already are. A few miles west of Mr. Yost’s farm, Nathan Kells cut back on irrigation when his wells began faltering in the last decade, and shifted his focus to raising dairy heifers — 9,000 on that farm, and thousands more elsewhere. At about 12 gallons a day for a single cow, Mr. Kells can sustain his herd with less water than it takes to grow a single circle of corn. “The water’s going to flow to where it’s most valuable, whether it be industry or cities or feed yards,” he said. “We said, ‘What’s the higher use of the water?’ and decided that it was the heifer operation.”

The problem, others say, is that when irrigation ends, so do the jobs and added income that sustain rural communities. “Looking at areas of Texas where the groundwater has really dropped, those towns are just a shell of what they once were,” said Jim Butler, a hydrogeologist and senior scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey.

The villain in this story is in fact the farmers’ savior: the center-pivot irrigator, a quarter- or half-mile of pipe that traces a watery circle around a point in the middle of a field. The center pivots helped start a revolution that raised farming from hardscrabble work to a profitable business. Since the pivots’ debut some six decades ago, the amount of irrigated cropland in Kansas has grown to nearly three million acres, from a mere 250,000 in 1950. But the pivot irrigators’ thirst for water — hundreds and sometimes thousands of gallons a minute — has sent much of the aquifer on a relentless decline. And while the big pivots have become much more efficient, a University of California study earlier this year concluded that Kansas farmers were using some of their water savings to expand irrigation or grow thirstier crops, not to reduce consumption.

A shift to growing corn, a much thirstier crop than most, has only worsened matters. Driven by demand, speculation and a government mandate to produce biofuels, the price of corn has tripled since 2002, and Kansas farmers have responded by increasing the acreage of irrigated cornfields by nearly a fifth. At an average 14 inches per acre in a growing season, a corn crop soaks up groundwater like a sponge — in 2010, the State Agriculture Department said, enough to fill a space a mile square and nearly 2,100 feet high. Sorghum, or milo, gets by on a third less water, Kansas State University researchers say — and it, too, is in demand by biofuel makers. As Kansas’ wells peter out, more farmers are switching to growing milo on dry land or with a comparative sprinkle of irrigation water. But as long as there is enough water, most farmers will favor corn. “The issue that often drives this is economics,” said David W. Hyndman, who heads Michigan State University’s geological sciences department. “And as long as you’ve got corn that’s $7, then a lot of choices get made on that.”

Of the 800 acres that Ashley Yost farmed last year in Haskell County, about 70 percent was planted in corn, including roughly 125 acres in Section 35. Haskell County’s feedlots — the county is home to 415,000 head of cattle — and ethanol plants in nearby Liberal and Garden City have driven up the price of corn handsomely, he said. “You’ve got $20,000 of underground pipe,” he said. “You’ve got a $10,000 gas line. You’ve got a $10,000 irrigation motor. You’ve got an $89,000 pivot. And you’re going to let it sit there and rot? But this year he will grow milo in that section, and hope that by ratcheting down the speed of his pump, he will draw less sand, even if that means less water, too. The economics of irrigation, he said, almost dictate it. If you can pump 150 gallons, that’s 150 gallons Mother Nature is not giving us. And if you can keep a milo crop alive, you’re going to do it.”

Mr. Yost’s neighbors have met the prospect of dwindling water in starkly different ways. A brother is farming on pivot half-circles. A brother-in-law moved most of his operations to Iowa. Another farmer is suing his neighbors, accusing them of poaching water from his slice of the aquifer. A fourth grows corn with an underground irrigation system that does not match the yields of water-wasting center-pivot rigs, but is far thriftier in terms of water use and operating costs.

For his part, Mr. Yost continues to pump. But he also allowed that the day may come when sustaining what is left of the aquifer is preferable to pumping as much as possible. Sitting in his Ford pickup next to Section 35, he unfolded a sheet of white paper that tracked the decline of his grandfather’s well: from 1,600 gallons a minute in 1964, to 1,200 in 1975, to 750 in 1976. When the well slumped to 500 gallons in 1991, the Yosts capped it and drilled another nearby. Its output sank, too, from 1,352 gallons to 300 today.

This year, Mr. Yost spent more than $15,000 to drill four test wells in Section 35. The best of them produced 195 gallons a minute — a warning, he said, that looking further for an isolated pocket of water would be costly and probably futile. “We’re on the last kick,” he said. “The bulk water is gone.”

- http://www.nytimes.com/

"How It Really Is"

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:17:00 +0000

Always remember the real "Golden Rule": whoever has the gold, makes the rules...

- CP

“Operation Vigilant Eagle: Is This Really How We Honor Our Nation’s Veterans?”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:13:00 +0000

“Operation Vigilant Eagle:

Is This Really How We Honor Our Nation’s Veterans?”
By John W. Whitehead

“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”— James A. Baldwin

“Just in time for Memorial Day, we’re being treated to a generous serving of praise and grandstanding by politicians, corporations and others with similarly self-serving motives eager to go on record as being pro-military. Patriotic platitudes aside, however, America has done a deplorable job of caring for her veterans. We erect monuments for those who die while serving in the military, yet for those who return home, there’s little honor to be found.

Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 23 million veterans who have served in World War II through Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan, the plight of veterans today, while often overlooked, is common knowledge: impoverished, unemployed, lacking any decent health benefits, homeless, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, thoughts of suicide, marital stress.

Making matters worse, thanks to Operation Vigilant Eagle, a program launched by the Department of Homeland Security in 2009, military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are also being characterized as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.” As a result, these servicemen and women—many of whom are decorated—are finding themselves under surveillance, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, or arrested, all for daring to voice their concerns about the alarming state of our union and the erosion of our freedoms.

An important point to consider, however, is that the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is locking up individuals trained in military warfare who are voicing feelings of discontent. Under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as ticking time bombs in need of intervention. In 2012, for instance, the Justice Department launched a pilot program aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.

In the four years since the start of Operation Vigilant Eagle, the government has steadily ramped up its campaign to “silence” dissidents, especially those with military backgrounds. Coupled with the DHS’ dual reports on Rightwing and Leftwing “Extremism,” which broadly define extremists as individuals and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” these tactics have boded ill for anyone seen as opposing the government.

One particularly troubling mental health label being applied to veterans and others who challenge the status quo is “oppositional defiance disorder” (ODD). As journalist Anthony Martin explains, an ODD diagnosis “denotes that the person exhibits ‘symptoms’ such as the questioning of authority, the refusal to follow directions, stubbornness, the unwillingness to go along with the crowd, and the practice of disobeying or ignoring orders. Persons may also receive such a label if they are considered free thinkers, nonconformists, or individuals who are suspicious of large, centralized government… At one time the accepted protocol among mental health professionals was to reserve the diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder for children or adolescents who exhibited uncontrollable defiance toward their parents and teachers.”

The case of 26-year-old decorated Marine Brandon Raub—who was targeted because of his Facebook posts, interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys—is a prime example of the government’s war on veterans. Raub’s case exposes the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that is targeting Americans—especially military veterans—for expressing their discontent over America’s rapid transition to a police state.

On Thursday, August 16, 2012, a swarm of local police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub’s home, asking to speak with him about posts he had made on his Facebook page made up of song lyrics, political opinions and dialogue used in a political thriller virtual card game. Among the posts cited as troublesome were lyrics to a song by the rap group Swollen Members and Raub’s views, shared increasingly by a number of Americans, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.

After a brief conversation and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, law enforcement officials then handcuffed Raub and transported him first to the police headquarters, then to a medical center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were “terrorist in nature.” Outraged onlookers filmed the arrest and posted the footage to YouTube, where it quickly went viral. Meanwhile, The Rutherford Institute came to Raub’s assistance, which combined with heightened media attention, may have helped prevent Raub from being successfully “disappeared” by the government.

In a hearing on August 20, government officials pointed to Raub’s Facebook posts as the sole reason for their concern and for his continued incarceration. Ignoring Raub’s explanations about the fact that the Facebook posts were being read out of context, Raub was sentenced to up to 30 days’ further confinement in a psychiatric ward. While in the psych ward, Raub reported being interrogated by medical staff about his views about the government and threatened by a doctor with brainwashing. Raub’s legal team, provided by The Rutherford Institute, immediately began petitioning the courts for his release.

On August 23, Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett declared the government’s case to be lacking in factual allegations and ordered Raub immediately released. However, for the tens of thousands of individuals detained—wrongfully or otherwise—under civil commitment laws every year, regaining their freedom is nearly impossible, predicated as it is on a bureaucratic legal and judicial system.

Within days of Raub being seized at his Virginia home on August 16, 2012, and forcibly held in a VA psych ward, news reports started surfacing of other veterans having similar experiences. That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) these veterans is diabolically brilliant. With one stroke of a magistrate’s pen, these service men are being declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights. Make no mistake, these returning veterans are being positioned as enemy number one.

Given the government’s increasing view of veterans as potential domestic terrorists, it makes one think twice about a new Michigan law that adds a veterans designation on Michigan driver's licenses and state IDs. Hailed by politicians as a way to “make it easier for military veterans to access discounts from retailers, restaurants, hotels and vendors across the state,” it will also make it that much easier for the government to identify and target veterans who dare to challenge the status quo.

Particularly telling is a training exercise for the Explorers program, which trains young people for careers in law enforcement, in which teenaged boys and girls dressed like quasi-SWAT teams and armed with pellet guns attempt to take down “a disgruntled Iraq war veteran [who] has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.” As a side note: this Explorers program, an extension of the Boy Scouts, is unnervingly similar to the Hitler Youth program used by the Nazis to indoctrinate young people into a police state mindset, chillingly documented by H.W. Koch in "The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922-1945".*

This brings me back to present-day America, with its penchant for endless wars that empty our national coffers while fattening those of the military industrial complex. Does anyone else find it heartbreaking and ironic that we raise our young people on a steady diet of violence and military action, sell them on the idea that defending freedom abroad by serving in the military is their patriotic duty, then when they return home, bruised and battle-scarred and suddenly serious about defending their freedoms at home, we treat them like criminal suspects?

Brandon Raub understands this all too well. While still serving with the Marines in Afghanistan in November 2011, Raub put pen to paper in order to flesh out some of his concerns about the dismantling of freedom in America. His concerns echo those of countless Americans like myself dismayed at the nation’s descent into authoritarianism: "America has lost itself. We have lost who we truly are… They are controlling your media. They have dumbed you down through your school systems. They have systematically dismantled the constitution. It is in rags. The bill of rights is being systematically dismantled. Men have spilled their blood for those rights. Your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters, and America’s best young men and women are losing their limbs. They are losing their lives. They are losing the hearts. They do not know why they are fighting. They are killing. And they do not know why. They have done some extraordinary acts. Their deeds go before them. But these wars are lies. They are lies. They deceived our entire nation with terrorism. They have gotten us to hand them our rights… We gave them the keys to our country. We were not vigilant with our republic. There is hope. BUT WE MUST TAKE OUR REPUBLIC BACK.”

- www.rutherford.org.

•

* “Explorer Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More”
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?_r=0

“Too Big to Jail - Enough to Make Your Blood Boil”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:30:00 +0000

“Too Big to Jail - Enough to Make Your Blood Boil”
By MoneyMorning

“Shah Gilani writes: Here are two items that will upset you... First, back in February, Attorney General Eric Holder christened the unofficial official doctrine of "Too Big to Jail." He told Congress, "The size of some of these institutions [TBTF banks] becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute - if we do bring a criminal charge - it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy."

Of course, it was only the christening of another neat little name. The actual doctrine has been official policy of America's Congress, successive presidents and their administrations, and the alphabet soup of regulatory bodies for as long as anyone can remember. But a funny thing happened on Tuesday. Someone pushed back...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the Justice Department, the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was a short letter. The jist of it was, how come you guys always let banksters settle and never take them to trial? She summed up her letter by reservedly pointing out, "If large institutions can beat the law and accumulate millions" - I'm not sure why she didn't say billions - "in profits and, if they get caught, settle by paying out of those profits, they do not have much incentive to follow the law."

You go, Elizabeth! Only, someone might want to tell her... too big to jail is the law. Anyway, one day later, yesterday, the always beleaguered Eric Holder (because he's always been out of his league) said this: "Let me be very clear, there's no bank, there's no institution, there's no individual that cannot be prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice. We have had thousands of financially based cases over the last four years." In other words, completely changing his story. You go, Eric... hopefully into retirement. Try Mexico, they like you down there.

Then there's this IRS scandal. Who knew the IRS was an arm of government? I thought it was an extortion arm of the mafia. But lo and behold, the IRS acts on behalf of the government, which apparently includes terrorizing conservatives. Yesterday the acting IRS Commissioner, Steven Miller, stepped down amid accusations the agency was giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups who applied for federal tax exemptions. That's not very nice.

I'm just glad the IRS is two-sided. They impact the President's friends and family, too. Everyone apparently gets theirs. The President's half-brother certainly "got his" from the IRS - in the form of a very special favor. A few years back, the Prez's half-brother, Abon'go "Roy" Malik Obama, also the best man at his wedding, set up the Barack H. Obama Foundation to solicit tax exempt contributions (for what, no one really knows). Only there was little problem. Roy Boy didn't set up a 501(c) tax-exempt entity.

In May 2011, the national Legal and Policy Center filed an official complaint against the non-entity entity. No worries. The IRS was all over it. One month later, on June 26, 2011, in record time (just ask any of the conservative groups waiting three years and longer for an IRS ruling on their tax-exempt status), the Foundation was granted tax-exempt status... retroactively (unheard of!) back to December 2005. According to The Daily Caller, "In addition to running his charity, Malik Obama ran unsuccessfully to be the governor of Siaya County in Kenya. He was accused of being a wife beater and seducing the newest of his 12 wives while she was a 17-year-old school girl." Nice guy. Sure glad they helped him out.

All I'm saying is that it's good to be an American, or not, or a bank, or 501(c). Have a nice day.”

- http://moneymorning.com/

“The IRS and the Real Scandal”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:16:00 +0000

“The IRS and the Real Scandal”
by Robert Reich

“This systematic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation, or two,” said David Camp, the Republican chairman of the House tax-writing committee, at an oversight hearing Friday morning dealing with the IRS. “This is not a personnel problem. This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too intrusive, too abusive.”

David Camp has it wrong. There has been a “systematic” abuse of power, but it’s not what Camp has in mind. The real scandal is that: The IRS has interpreted our tax laws to allow big corporations and wealthy individuals to make unlimited secret campaign donations through sham political fronts called “social welfare organizations,” like Karl Rove’s “Crossroads,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and “Priorites USA.”

This campaign money has been used to bribe Congress to keep in place tax loopholes like the “carried interest” rule that allows the managers of hedge funds and private equity funds to treat their income as capital gains, subject only to low capital gains taxes rather than ordinary income taxes, and other loopholes that allow CEOs to get special tax treatment on giant compensation packages that now average $10 million a year.

Despite a growing number of billionaires and multi-millionaires using every tax dodge imaginable – laundering their money through phantom corporations and tax havens — the IRS’s budget has been cut by 17 percent since 2002, adjusted for inflation. To manage the $594.5 million in additional cuts required by the sequester, the agency will furlough each of its more than 89,000 employees for at least five days this year.

Finally, all of this, coming at a time when the Supreme Court has deemed corporations “people” under the First Amendment and when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than they’ve been in over a hundred years, has enabled America’s financial elite to further entrench their wealth and power and thereby take over much of American democracy.

This is the real scandal and the real abuse, Congressman Camp. Your indignation over the IRS’s alleged “targeting” of conservative groups is a distraction from the main event.”

- http://www.commondreams.org/

“Oh Look, It's Nixon!”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:57:00 +0000

“Oh Look, It's Nixon!”

by Karl Denninger

“Oh boy, here we go. "President Barack Obama will not cooperate in a “partisan fishing expedition” over who knew what and when about revelations that groups seeking tax-exempt status were subject to extra Internal Revenue Service scrutiny. “We are going to work with Congress, as the president said, in legitimate oversight,” Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to Obama, said today on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” program. “What we’re not going to participate in is a partisan fishing expedition designed to distract from the real issues at hand.”

With all due respect Mr. President (and that would be "none" as far as this goes, if you care) this isn't under your control and never was. That's why we have a government with checks and balances, and three distinct branches. You only head up one of them. The others are equals to you, not your subordinates. Congress has every right to subpoena whatever it wants. You can try to fight that but there is no valid "executive privilege" claim available when it comes to abuses by the IRS.

Finally, I will remind you of this:

    "Article 2

    Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.

    This conduct has included one or more of the following:

            He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

            He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance.

            He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, authorized and permitted to be maintained a secret investigative unit within the office of the President, financed in part with money derived from campaign contributions, which unlawfully utilized the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in covert and unlawful activities, and attempted to prejudice the constitutional right of an accused to a fair trial.

            He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities concerning the unlawful entry into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and the cover-up thereof, and concerning other unlawful activities including those relating to the confirmation of Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General of the United States, the electronic surveillance of private citizens, the break-in into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, and the campaign financing practices of the Committee to Re-elect the President.

            In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

    In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

    Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office."

Care to do it again Mr. President? I'll remind you, Mr. Obama, that this is not under your control either.”

- http://market-ticker.org/

"How It Really Is"

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Sun, 19 May 2013 02:01:00 +0000

The Roman poet Juvenal asked, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

(“Who will guard the guards themselves?”) Still a good question...

- CP

“Wal-Mart Warns Of Economic Disaster… Are You Prepared?”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:55:00 +0000

“Wal-Mart Warns Of Economic Disaster… Are You Prepared?”

by Phoenix Capital Research

“If you want to get a sense of what’s happening in the world, your best bet is to ignore Government data and focus on corporate revenues. Why revenues? Because earnings can be massaged any number of ways (depreciation methods, laying off staff to cut costs, depletion of loan loss reserves for banks, etc.). But you cannot fake actual money coming in the door.

With that in mind, I want to draw your attention to the recent drop in corporate revenues at a number of corporations including Proctor and Gamble, Starbucks, AT&T, CB Richard Ellis, Safeway, American Express, IBM. If this doesn’t serve as evidence that real economy falling to pieces, I don’t know what does. To top it off, we can now add Wal-Mart, the single largest retailer, to the list. Wal-Mart just reported that same-store sales fell 1.4%. This is the first time this has happened in six quarters.

So much for the “recovery” theory. If you look at the real economy, things are getting worse and worse. When even Wal-Mart reports that people are spending less (remember that corporate email that February sales were a “disaster”?) you KNOW things are bad.

Folks, something awful is brewing in the economy. And yet, against this backdrop, stocks continue to rally hard. This bubble is worse than anything I’ve seen in my career, including the 2007 top. Investors, take note… stocks are always the last to “get it.” This bubble will end as all bubbles do: in disaster. If you are not already preparing for a potential market collapse, now is the time to be doing so.”

- http://investmentwatchblog.com/

"Life's Tough..."

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:47:00 +0000

“Life’s tough… it’s even tougher if you’re stupid.”
- John Wayne

Satire: “Obama Denies Role In Government”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:01:00 +0000

“Obama Denies Role In Government”
by Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)— “President Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to reassure the American people that he has “played no role whatsoever” in the U.S. government over the past four years. “Right now, many of you are angry at the government, and no one is angrier than I am,” he said. “Quite frankly, I am glad that I have had no involvement in such an organization.”

The President’s outrage only increased, he said, when he “recently became aware of a part of that government called the Department of Justice.” “The more I learn about the activities of these individuals, the more certain I am that I would not want to be associated with them,” he said. “They sound like bad news.”

Mr. Obama closed his address by indicating that beginning next week he would enforce what he called a “zero tolerance policy on governing.” “If I find that any members of my Administration have had any intimate knowledge of, or involvement in, the workings of the United States government, they will be dealt with accordingly,” he said.”

- http://www.newyorker.com/

“The IRS Is Seeing Everything You Do Online”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:46:00 +0000

“The IRS Is Seeing Everything You Do Online”
By Michael Kling

“The IRS may be watching your online activities — including what you post on social media sites, what you sell online, even what you write in emails and text messages. Some tax experts and civil liberties groups are disturbed by what they call the agency's secretive practices. Taxpayers know little about how it uses big data and "robo-audits." "It's well-known in the tax community, but not many people outside of it are aware of this big expansion of data and computer use," Edward Zelinsky, a tax expert at Cardozo Law School and Yale Law School, told U.S. News & World Report. "I am sure people will be concerned about the use of personal information on databases in government, and those concerns are well-taken." Anything you do or say on the Internet can be used against you in IRS enforcement actions, he stressed.

The IRS spent about $1 billion in its recent data-mining modernization. As a result, the agency's is rolling out an effort to deploy sophisticated data-matching and pattern-recognition technology, and match up taxpayer returns with third-party information, according to U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. The IRS is collecting massive amounts of data, tracking Internet users' online movements, and using Social Security numbers, health records, credit card transactions and other information that private companies cannot obtain, according to U.S. News.

The IRS Criminal Tax Division has long believed that it can read your emails without a warrant, said American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, citing IRS documents. The ACLU examined 247 pages of IRS records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to learn if the IRS obtains search warrants before reading emails, texts, and other digital communications. "So does the IRS always get a warrant?" Wessler wrote in an ACLU blog post. "Unfortunately, while the documents we have obtained do not answer this question point blank, they suggest otherwise."

The agency should be upfront about its policies and obtain warrants, he argued, saying the federal law on email access is hopelessly outdated. "Let's hope you never end up on the wrong end of an IRS criminal tax investigation. But if you do, you should be able to trust that the IRS will obey the Fourth Amendment when it seeks the contents of your private emails." The Sixth Circuit Court Appeals Court in United States v. Warshak ruled that the IRS must obtain a warrant to read private emails, but the IRS has not said if it now obtains warrants everywhere or only in the Sixth Circuit.”

- http://www.moneynews.com/

"How It Really Is"

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:12:00 +0000

Satire: “A Letter from John Boehner”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:06:00 +0000

“A Letter from John Boehner”
by Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)— “Today Speaker of the House John Boehner issued the following letter to the American people:

"Dear American People,

Yesterday, your hardworking House Republicans tried, once again, and failed, once again, to repeal Obamacare. And I really thought we had a good chance this time. That’s because we were all united in our hatred for this infernal and takes-too-long-to-read law. Every last one of us cast his vote to strike it down, from crazy little Paul Ryan to that arrogant bastard Eric Cantor. And I wish you could have seen the faces of those freshman Republicans as they voted to repeal Obamacare—so innocent, so full of hope and wonder. As I told them yesterday, “You’ll never forget your first time.”

It’s important for you to know that even as scandals swirl about the cesspool known as the White House, some folks in Washington are still working hard for the American people. It was a gruelling week for me, what with popping up in front of the TV cameras every five minutes saying, “Who’s going to jail?,” plus trying to rid our land of Obamacare. But I don’t want your thanks. Save that for the dedicated House Republicans who have now voted thirty-seven times to repeal. You can’t put a price tag on that kind of performance. Well, actually, you can: it’s cost the taxpayers over fifty million dollars. And worth every million, damn it.

One last thing. I know some of you are probably thinking that after suffering this latest defeat, we House Republicans are just going to take our bat and ball and go home. Well, there’s an old saying where I come from: the thirty-eighth time’s the charm."

"Courage,"

John Boehner

- http://www.newyorker.com/

The Economy: “Has Dr. Bernankenstein Created a New Monster?”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:29:00 +0000

“Has Dr. Bernankenstein Created a New Monster?”

by Bill Bonner

"When a man is up to no good, it doesn't help that he gets lucky. A fellow goes to rob your house. He finds the door unlocked. He enters without breaking. He steals everything. Mission accomplished. Later on, he is arrested for robbing a bank. He gets 10 years in the slammer. He would have been better off if he had found the door locked tight... and gave up!

So the latest news from the Congressional Budget Office is not good, either. Now the politicians can stop worrying about deficits... and continue to rob the future. Good news is bad news. From The New York Times: "Since the recession ended four years ago, the federal budget deficit has topped $1 trillion every year. But now the government's annual deficit is shrinking far faster than anyone in Washington expected, and perhaps even faster than many economists think is advisable for the health of the economy. That is the thrust of a new report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, estimating that the deficit for this fiscal year, which ends on September 30, will fall to about $642 billion, or 4% of the nation's annual economic output, about $200 billion lower than the agency estimated just three months ago."

Even dumbbell economists believe lower deficits are bad news... but for an entirely different reason. They believe lower deficits will reduce GDP and jobs. They think the only reason the economy is doing so well is that the feds have been willing to spend money they didn't have on things they didn't need.

And that's another reason the budget news is bad news: It makes people think the Great Experiment is a success! Here's US Trust bank with analysis: "We believe the policy response we call the Great Experiment is appropriate and has helped the economy heal and normalize. As gun-shy investors see the policies working they are returning to the risk markets and a secular bull market is beginning. Other countries have responded to this success by trying these bold initiatives with the Bank of Japan now the most prominent example..."

A New "Normal": Whoa! Did we hear that right? The Great Experiment helped the economy normalize? Something funny about that. "Normal” is what you get when you don't experiment. Normal comes from... well... normal. If you want a normal outcome, you have to make sure you're not doing anything too extraordinary, no? So how can you get to normal from a Great Experiment?

We will leave that for the philosophers of tomorrow. Today, we'll merely suggest that maybe this economy isn't so normal. What's normal about an economy in which the major financial institutions can borrow money at negative real interest rates? What's normal about an economy in which people who have run their businesses so recklessly that they had to be bailed out by the government are still running their businesses... and can now borrow at lower rates than good businesses? And what's normal about an economy in which the feds still spend $1.60 for every dollar they get in tax receipts... and make up most of the difference by printing money?

This is not a normal economy at all... but a strange and grotesque one... with wires going into its brains and tubes feeding into its veins. The Great Experiment in monetary policy has produced an experimental economy – just as you'd imagine. The word "normal” refers to what eventually happens to an economy no matter how hard the feds try to stop it. It's where you end up after the Great Experiment fails... and you realize that Dr. Bernankenstein has produced a monster... not a normal economy.”

- http://www.thedailyreckoning.com

Greg Hunter, “Weekly News Wrap-Up 5/17/13”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:53:00 +0000

“Weekly News Wrap-Up 5/17/13”
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"This Week’s Wrap-Up series of stories I call “Scandal-topia.” Benghazi, IRS targeting conservative groups, Department of Justice seizing phone records of the Associated Press (AP) and yet another sex abuse scandal in the U.S. military. While all of these stories are important, they are taking our eyes off other stories of great importance. Let’s run down the list:

Benghazi, the White House is releasing some emails, but Republicans want many more released. The left wants to paint this as a “witch hunt,” but lots of questions go unanswered. Mark Thompson, one of the Benghazi whistle-blowers, was in charge of the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST.) This team is comprised of people like Special Ops, FBI and security experts that can go in for a rescue. Thompson’s testimony in front of Congress said FEST was “taken out of the menu of options.” There was never any intention to mount a rescue, and this was a policy decision that came very early on 9/11/12. The Accountability Review Board says you can’t blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the murder and non-rescue of four Americans. Really? The person in charge isn’t to blame?

Next up, the scandal involving the IRS targeting of hundreds of conservative groups. If this isn’t against the Constitution and the law, I don’t know what is. This was nothing short of an attempt to stop opposition to the Obama administration and its policies. End of story. I think Speaker of the House John Boehner got it stop on when he said, “Who’s going to jail for this?” Well, don’t hold your breath because it was just announced that the person in charge of tax-exempt organizations (Sarah Hall Ingram) just got a promotion and is going to be in charge of the IRS part of Obama Care. I cannot make this stuff up. The President said he knew nothing about this scandal until he saw news reports.

Then, you have the scandal involving Attorney General Eric Holder and Justice Department secretly subpoenaing the phone records of dozens of AP reporters. There was a legitimate security leak involving a foiled bombing plot in Yemen. The mainstream media seems to have finally woken up, and 50 news organizations now say it was out of line. I call it swatting a fly with a cannon. This is what it took for the media to finally wake up? The Patriot Act, NDAA, targeted drone murders and trashing of the rest of the Constitution didn’t cause a problem? That’s rich. Holder says he didn’t know anything about the AP subpoenas. What? How can that be?

Finally, yet another sex scandal in the military where women are charging they are being sexually assaulted. In this case, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel really does not know anything about this as he just got the job a few months ago. Still, he’s going to be the one to clean it up. This couldn’t come at a worse time. The Middle East is boiling over in places like Syria, and tensions are mounting with Iran and Israel. Let’s not forget about nuclear armed North Korea that is still simmering on a back burner.

Meanwhile, there is a total disconnect with the Wall Street economy and the main street economy. The real unemployment rate is 23%. 47 million Americans are on food stamps. The latest date says the economy is rolling over; and yet, the stock market is hitting fresh all-time highs.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he gives his analysis of these stories and more."

- http://usawatchdog.com/

The Universe

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:25:00 +0000

"Everyone's scared. Few carry on.

I mean really carry on, as if it were your reason for being."

"Keep calm,"
The Universe

"Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!"
- www.tut.com

Paulo Coelho, “The Well of Madness”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:34:00 +0000

“The Well of Madness”
by Paulo Coelho

“A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad. The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison.

The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’ The king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country?”

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:06:00 +0000

Keauhou, Hawaii, USA. Thanks for stopping by.

Satire: “Republicans Agree to Stop Using Word “Scandal” in Every Sentence If Obama Resigns”

noreply@blogger.com (CoyotePrime) — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:01:00 +0000

“Republicans Agree to Stop Using Word “Scandal”

in Every Sentence If Obama Resigns”
by Andy Borowitz

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)— “Arguing that the American people are sick and tired of hearing the word “scandal,” a growing chorus of Republican lawmakers said they would stop using the word “scandal” in every sentence if President Obama resigns from office immediately. “Mr. President, for the past week, the American people have heard nothing but scandal,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California). “Scandal, scandal, scandal, and more scandal.” “You have called for investigations to get to the bottom of these scandals,” he added. “But the American thing to do is to quit.”

Agreeing that America was suffering from “scandal fatigue,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S. Carolina) said, “If even one of these scandals turns out to be real, it will be bigger than the creation of the universe,” adding that he and his fellow Republican senators were prepared to take turns standing in the well of the Senate chanting the word “scandal” until President Obama steps down. “Rand Paul has personally offered to say the word ‘scandal’ for eleven hours,” he said.

On Fox News Channel, host Sean Hannity said that the American people were weary of hearing “nothing but scandal, scandal, scandal,” noting that Fox personalities had used the word “scandal” no fewer than thirty thousand times in the past four days. “The only way President Obama can bring these scandals to a satisfying resolution is by resigning from office. Otherwise, he’s subjecting the American people to the ugly spectacle of scandal upon scandal upon scandal,” he said, adding, “Upon scandal.”

- http://www.newyorker.com/