Friday, April 26, 2013

US 1Q 2013 GDP big miss, grows by only 2.5% on expectation of 3.0, biggest miss since Sept. 2011

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4/26/13, "Overhyped Q1 GDP Grows By Only 2.5%, Biggest Miss To Expectations Since September 2011," Zero Hedge

"Less than an hour ago we speculated that "it wouldn't be surprising for GDP to come substantially weaker than expected, only to be revised higher (or lower) subsequently." Sure enough, we have gotten at least the first part right for now, with the advance Q1 GDP number printing a very disappointing 2.5%, on expectations of a 3.0% increase, up from 0.4% in Q4, and the biggest miss since Q3 2011. The reason for the big miss: Inventory and Fixed Investment came well below expectations, comprising 1.03% (of which autos represented 0.24%) and 0.53% of the 2.5% annualized increase GDP. Kiss the great CapEx investment story goodbye.

The only silver lining in today's otherwise very weak report: Personal Consumption Expenditures, which were a sizable 3.2% versus the 2.8% expected, and amounted to 2.24% or virtually all of the net Q1 GDP growth. So far so good .The bad news, however, is that this number will not sustain into Q2 and look for expenditures to plunge in the coming quarter. Finally, let's not forget that it rained like 5 days in March, so there's that. And of course, very soon, all GDP will be revised to add intangibles, so in retrospect Q1 GDP will likely have grown by a Ministry of Truth blush-inducing 10% or so.

And for those confused why the spending spree led "recovery" won't last, the answer is simple: the US consumer is out of money, as can be seen by this savings (or lack thereof) rate chart." (at link)...

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4/26/13, "Oops! Economic Growth Wasn't So Great After All," Reuters

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4/26/13, "The World Reacts To The US GDP Miss (Or Spot The Odd Market Out)," Zero Hedge.

"The worst miss for US GDP since September 2011 was greeted by financial markets around the world in a variety of ways. Gold surged; the USD weakened (with JPY surging in an anti-Abe way); and Treasury yields plunged (amid increasing growth concerns). But the one market that anyone in power cares about, the US equity market, did nothing, absolutely nothing. We have two words for what the monetary policy heroine has done to our once useful 'markets', comfortably numb. It seems the bad-is-good, moar-QE trade is on in every asset class except stocks (for now)."...





UK Muslim bomb plotters played foreign currency markets, went broke so UK gov. gave them 10's of thousands in loans, group also collected money on sidewalks pretending to be charity workers-BBC

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4/26/13, "Terror plot: Eleven jailed for Birmingham bomb plan," BBC

"Having recruited others, the group posed as legitimate charity workers on the streets of Birmingham and collected thousands of pounds from unsuspecting members of the public.

Posing as Muslim Aid charity street collectors they raised £12,000 for themselves, but were forced to apply for tens of thousands of pounds in loans after losing more than £9,000 of the money playing foreign currency markets.

Naseer played a key role in sending Ishaaq Hussain, Khan, Naweed Ali and Khobaib Hussain to Pakistan to receive training."...photo of group posing as charity fundraisers, bbc


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Earth's inner core is 1000C hotter than previously thought, will affect many earth measurements including earthquakes, Science study-BBC

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4/26/13, "Earth's core far hotter than thought," BBC, J. Palmer

"New measurements suggest the Earth's inner core is far hotter than prior experiments suggested, putting it at 6,000C - as hot as the Sun's surface....

Experiments outlined in Science used X-rays to probe tiny samples of iron at extraordinary pressures to examine how the iron crystals form and melt....

Measurements in the early 1990s of iron's "melting curves" - from which the core's temperature can be deduced - suggested a core temperature of about 5,000C.

"It was just the beginning of these kinds of measurements so they made a first estimate... to constrain the temperature inside the Earth," said Agnes Dewaele of the French research agency CEA and a co-author of the new research.

"Other people made other measurements and calculations with computers and nothing was in agreement. It was not good for our field that we didn't agree with each other," she told BBC News.

The core temperature is crucial to a number of disciplines that study regions of our planet's interior that will never be accessed directly - guiding our understanding of everything from earthquakes to the Earth's magnetic field. 

"We have to give answers to geophysicists, seismologists, geodynamicists - they need some data to feed their computer models," Dr Dewaele said.

The team has now revisited those 20-year-old measurements, making use of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility - one of the world's most intense sources of X-rays."...


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Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband gets California high speed rail deal worth nearly $1 billion. Richard Blum is principal owner of Tutor Perini

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4/17/13, "Tutor Perini Joint Venture Selected for $985 Million California High-Speed Rail Design-Build Contract," Yahoo Finance Business Wire

"Tutor Perini Corporation (TPC), a leading civil and building construction company, today announced that its joint venture’s bid, valued at approximately $985 million, was recently identified by the California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) as the “apparent best value” for the design and construction of the initial Madera to Fresno segment of the California high-speed rail system.

The Authority’s Board of Directors is expected to approve the design-build contract for this project in the coming weeks. Once the contract is awarded, Tutor Perini’s portion of the contract value will be added to the Company’s backlog.

Tutor Perini is the managing partner of the joint venture team, which includes Zachry Construction Corporation of San Antonio, Texas and Parsons Corporation of Pasadena, California. Initial work on this project is planned to begin by July 2013. The project is anticipated to create more than 1,000 construction jobs per year over its four-year duration."...

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Citation, Tutor Perini principal owner is Richard Blum, husband of  Dianne Feinstein:

4/25/13, "Sen. Feinstein's Husband Gets Contract For CA High Speed Rail," liveleak
 
"The Perini-Zachary-Parsons bid was the lowest received from the five consortia participating in the bidding process, but “low” is a relative term. The firms bid $985,142,530 to build the wildly anticipated first section of high speed rail track that will tie the megopolis of Madera to the global finance center of Fresno. Do the division, and you find that the low bid came in at a mere $35 million per mile.

And that doesn’t include the cost of rolling stock (that’s engines and cars to the normal among us). Nor does it include the cost of electrifying the route. Does it at least include the cost of land acquisition? No, it does not.

As this fiasco progress, remember that this $35 million per mile represents the best California can do on the section of track the High on Crack Speed Rail Authority selected to go first because it will be the cheapest.

…the principal owner of Tutor Perini is Richard Blum, the husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein (D – CA.) who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee which oversees the Dept. of Defense. Since joining the US Senate, Senator Feinstein and her husband have enjoyed billions of dollars in defense contracts. She voted for the Afghanistan War and their company is rolling in contracts directly related to the war right now.

the selection of Tutor/Perini/Zachary/Parsons, was quickly followed by a crash when news outlets revealed the winner’s checkered past with a proven record of high cost over runs. The below budget construction number does not include the cost of purchasing land or providing mitigation for damages to properties.

Engineering contacts say Tutor-Perini is noted for bidding low, targeting program inadequacies and writing change orders as fast as a waitress writing breakfast orders at a truck stop- fast and furious.

Keeping Corrupt Company

Just having Blum/Perini win the contract is corrupt enough. But it gets much more corrupt, says The National Black Chamber of Commerce:

According to the New York US Attorney’s office: “Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn yesterday (March 9, 2011) found Zohrab B. Marashlian, the former president of Perini Corp.’s Civil Division, an international construction services corporation, guilty of fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The charges arose out of Marashlian’s false representation to New York government agencies that Disadvantaged Business Entities (DBE’s) were performing work in connection with major public works contracts, when, in reality, Marashlian had non-disadvantaged businesses favored by Perini Corp. do the work.” Tutor Perini paid Marashlian $14 million in salary while all this was going on. Two days before Marashlian was to receive a multi-year prison sentence he committed suicide. A fellow employee is currently doing a long prison term for the same case.

Perini has been caught doing such things over and over again. They are absolutely ridiculous in California projects. … According to the Seattle News some of the Perini headlines read: “In February, Tutor-Saliba and Perini agreed to pay $19 million to settle racketeering and fraud allegations in a San Francisco airport project.” … “The companies are embroiled in an 11 – year legal battle over $16 million in extra costs on a Los Angeles subway job.” (Emphasis added)"

http://crazifornia.com/2013/04/16/dirty-business-as-usual-at-california-high-speed-rail/

http://ocpoliticsblog.com/bid-results-for-1st-high-speed-rail-build-announced-difi-conflicted/

http://www.examiner.com/article/high-speed-rail-bidding-practice-questionable

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4/21/13, "High-Speed Rail bidding practice questionable," examiner.com, Kathy Hamilton

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Another citation for Richard Blum, Tutor Perini principal, husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein:

4/16/13, "Dirty Business as Usual at California High Speed Rail," crazifornia.com

"Out of the entire universe of those who could have won the first phase construction contract for California’s high speed rail boondoggle, who would stand out as the last person who would win it if there were no political patronage.

Put another way, who is the most likely person to win it if there is political patronage?

Both questions have the same answer: Richard Blum, the husband of California senator Diane Feinstein.

So, who won the contract?  Blum, of course, as the principle owner of Tutor Perini, the lead firm in the three-firm consortium selected by the California High Speed Rail Authority.

Yes, Diane, it really does look that bad to us little people."...via Free Republic



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If John McCain says 'the battlefield is the United States of America' that might be valuable information-Zero Hedge

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4/25/13, ""The Battlefield Is The United States Of America"," Zero Hedge, Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog

"When you’ve got a guy like Senator John McCain who says “The battlefield is the United States of America,” it tells you that almost nothing is safe in the Land of the Free.

Whatever remains of civil liberties is going to feel the full brunt of the state’s boot heel.

They’re already regulating some of the most fundamental aspects of life, from how we are allowed to educate our children to what we can / cannot put in our bodies to the very nature of money.

People are forced to hold their savings in insolvent banks backed by insolvent insurance funds backed by insolvent governments. And those insolvent governments have demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to directly confiscate accounts.

Retirement funds have proven to be an easy, tempting target. A number of countries including Argentina, Ireland, and Hungary have appropriated private pensions. Even the US government temporarily dipped into federal employee pensions.

Western governments are making every possible effort to take over the Internet. Despite every previous attempt (SOPA, PIPA, etc.) failing due to public outcry, they keep trying and trying (ACTA, CISPA, etc.).

They’re raising taxes, creating new ones (including Maryland’s new ‘rain tax’), imposing capital controls, racking up debt, and rapidly devaluing their currencies.

It all reeks of desperation… and it’s all so obvious. At least, for anyone paying attention.

Unfortunately it’s easy to lose sight of the truth. After all, how can there be any economic problems when the stock market is at an ‘all-time high’ and Nobel Prize winning pseudo-scientists tell us that debt levels don’t matter?

Truth is, these enormous challenges shouldn’t be ignored. The entire global financial system is sitting on a bed of dynamite. Central bankers are dousing the pile with gasoline while politicians are standing around smoking....

Governments in trouble almost ALWAYS resort to the same destructive tactics. When things are clearly on the decline, rather than INCREASING freedom and opportunity, they try to control EVERYTHING.

We’re already seeing the early stages of this with competitive devaluation, basic capital controls, and bank withdrawal limits.

These will soon give way to wider capital controls, increased border controls, wage and price controls, asset confiscation, and more.

It only delays the inevitable. The more they control, the more rapid the deterioration becomes. Again, this isn’t some sensationalist prediction; it is the very common historical trend.

The other thing that history shows us, however, is that there are always a handful of people who see the writing on the wall and take action. And that action has almost universally involved looking abroad and diversifying internationally.

This is a time-tested strategy that was once available only to the wealthy landed class. But with modern air transport, digital communication, and global competition, solutions are now available to just about anyone.

I’ll be honest with you– moving one’s assets, business, and even family overseas isn’t easy. These are complicated topics with numerous tax, financial, and professional implications. So go carefully and rationally.

But when structured properly, history shows that a well-informed offshore strategy can have a generational impact should chaos ensue.

And, should nothing ever go wrong in the world, you won’t be worse off for it."

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Ed. note: This doesn't mean I consider McCain to be a sane human being looking out for the country's interests over his own. I see the statement as something that slipped out.


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Another heartbroken caller to talk radio who escaped communism, sees the US becoming what they escaped, and that no one cares, 'socialism is the least of the damage'

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Pablo from Argentina was a devoted Communist in his youth: "I can tell you, I recognize a communist. And we have that in government. And that is a terrible thing that is happening to America that I would've never thought could happen."

4/25/13, "Immigrant: We Don't Want to Turn America into the Same Crappy Place We Came From," Rush Limbaugh transcript

"RUSH: Here's Pablo.  Pablo in Ft. Lauderdale.  I'm glad you called.  Welcome to EIB Network.  Hi.

CALLER:  Thank you very much, Rush.  I was born in Argentina, before I became an American, the best nation that ever was.  I grew up learning songs of praise to Evita. In kindergarten they made us sing and dance songs of praise, that when I hear now kids in school learning songs of praise to Obama, I get a chill in my mind.

RUSH:  I can imagine you do.

CALLER:  Now, I want to tell you this.  Most Hispanics, like me and many friends that I have, we don't want to make America the same crappy place we came from.  That's the last thing in our hope.  Most of us are conservatives.  Some are conservative, I'm a patriot, I love America.

RUSH:  Well, you know what, Pablo, it's a good point.  A mistake is being made in that all Spanish speaking people are being lumped into Hispanics.  But of course you are Argentinean.

CALLER:  I'm American.

RUSH:  American.  Others are Mexican, others are from Cuba, others from Hispanola, El Salvador. They're all over the place, and they do have cultural differences. They're not monolithic.

CALLER:  But most of us do not want to make America the place where we come from. We don't want to destroy America. We are not liberal. We're not Democrats. We're not socialist. We lived our own version of socialism in our nation, and it didn't work.

RUSH:  How many Hispanic arrivals might you be talking about who don't know what the Democrat Party's doing?  They don't know that the Democrats are in the process of turning this country into Argentina or whatever else you escaped.

CALLER:  They learn quickly, like I learned, Rush, when I went from 15 to 21 years old, I was a communist myself in Argentina.  So I know a communist when I hear one, when I see one.  I was one.  I studied.  I can still sing you the International, and I can tell you by heart the manifesto. Of course I'm a patriot, I'm American and a conservative, a hundred percent now.  But I can tell you, I recognize a communist.  And we have that in government.  And that is a terrible thing that is happening to America that I would've never thought could happen.  I mean, if America's gone, there is nothing left.  There's nowhere to go.

RUSH:  That's it.  We are it.  There is no other place on earth that is going to stand up for the freedom of anybody, anywhere.

CALLER:  And I wish most Americans will stop taking all the freedoms for granted and understand that we can also collapse.  I mean, it happened before.  Socialism, what it does to you economically is the least of the damage.  What it does to the spirit of people is absolutely horrendous and that's forever.  I have business in the Ukraine.  I have to go there sometimes, and I deal with people that lived under communism.  And I tell you, their spirits are broken, because they are unable to trust on anything because that's what communism teaches you, to distrust everything, including yourself.

RUSH:  That's exactly right.  That's exactly right.  Broken spirits, no hope, no aspirations, no ambition, no dreaming.

CALLER:  Right.  They become sarcastic and that's the end because at that point they cannot take anything seriously, not even their own freedom, their own life. They cannot fight for their own life. They give up and they believe that that is the normal status of the man, they never saw anything else, and you cannot repair it.  And we have that in Argentina, and that's why Argentina, even though they have the third largest shale deposit in the world, is totally bankrupt and will continue to be that way as a result of Peronism, which was our own version of socialism.

RUSH:  You know, Pablo, I can hear the voice of experience when you talk, I can hear it.  I don't know, I wish people like you ran for office, but I know you don't want the media anal exam that you would get, but keep talking.  Keep talking.  I'm glad you called."

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Talk radio listeners in recent years have heard other callers like Pablo, stunned that America is turning into the kind of place they escaped and that no one cares. Following are three more recent examples, one on 3/27/13 to Mark Levin, one on 2/27/13 to Rush Limbaugh, and at the end of this post a caller on 10/12/12 to Rush Limbaugh from a former Hungarian:

3/27/13, Heartbroken caller to Mark Levin show, grew up under communism, is horrified at what has happened to the US:

8:50pm, Wed., March 27, 2013. A physician who grew up under communism called Mark Levin's show. Said he can't believe what he's seeing in this country, that it's changed into a totalitarian regime, now no different than Europe except for the second amendment. Accent was either Russian or other Eastern Europe. 

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2/27/13, I heard this caller from Romania to Rush's show. Obama's release of prisoners was in the news that day. The caller also notes US media's role of misinformation is the same he saw under Communism:

2/27/13, "Why Totalitarians Release Prisoners," Rush Limbaugh transcript

"RUSH: Here's Sarine in Hollywood. Sarine, it's great to have you on the program. Hello, sir....

CALLER: Rush, dittos, to start with. Mega, mega dittos. All the best to you, my friend. This regime that is elected by the clueless and the uninformed has come very, very close to -- and, in fact, crossed the line of -- breaking the law by releasing these people out of prison illegally like that. Something like this happened in the seventies in Europe, and this is the reason why I'm so impressed with you that you're so astute that you can understand details that people who have lived here all their lives would have no access to. 

They're being pounded with false information all this time. What Ceausescu did in the early seventies is he gave the common thieves and pickpockets and basic criminals that were in prison a choice. They could take a passport to go to Western Europe or stay in prison. So, of course, they chose to leave. That was everybody's dream, thieves or not.

RUSH: This would Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania we're talking about, right?...

CALLER: Thank you...Yeah, so the real purpose was to create absolute havoc in the Western world, in Western Europe, for those who tried to escape -- risking life and limb; crossing at night under the hail of bullets; leaving family, possessions, memories, childhood behind -- just escape and be free. They would ask for political asylum in places like West Germany or France or Italy....So the fact that you mentioned the Marielitos [Castro's Mariel boat lift] and the intent of creating havoc by releasing these people, it is so close in reality and to the truth....Of course, once they hit the streets and saw the naivete of the rich world, which is what everybody looked at it as being, they started pillaging there....

RUSH: I tell you, I'm finding myself in a difficult situation here, because I know that certain words and phrases happen to turn people off in this country. For example... if you say to somebody, "That person over there's a communist," you lose 'em. That doesn't work. So you say, "Okay, socialist." Well, okay, that may make more impact. Call 'em a totalitarian or a statist, they still don't want to hear it.

But it's challenging because that's exactly what's happening. Barack Obama is employing tactics that have been used by people like Nicolae Ceausescu, Saddam Hussein, and Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro released hundreds of thousands of just the most horrible characters from his prisons and they infested south Florida in the Mariel Boatlift -- and the same thing with Ceausescu and releasing his prisoners. Not all of them are political. Some of them were hardened criminals....


Castro was trying to pollute south Florida. He was trying to corrupt it, and the United States in general. Saddam Hussein was trying to corrupt Iraq and Baghdad by letting his most hardened criminals go. It was a punishment, a punishment to the citizens of Iraq for not supporting him, for being complicit in the forthcoming US invasion....

Now, when you say that Obama is imitating the behavior of people like that, my guess is that any low-information voters in the audience who hear me say this are gonna pooh-pooh it and they're gonna start calling me names: "Reactionary, controversial statements," whatever, "extremist racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe," what have you. Because the low-information voter looks at Obama as a prisoner himself of the Republican Party. "Obama's doing everything he can to make life better!...
 

The media is only part of it.  It's a big part of it, but it's not the entire explanation.  We've reached a point in our cultural evolution where the clueless...who think they know everything, by the way, dominate.  I appreciate the call." 


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Following is an article from a former Soviet:

Oleg ran to America from the former Soviet Union but now finds America has turned into the old USSR complete with 1-party rule 
 
11/9/12, “Old Soviet jokes become the new American reality,“ The People’s Cube, by Oleg Atbashian

“At first the move to America from the former USSR made me feel as though I had made a jump in time, from the stagnant depraved past into a distant dynamic future....Today I’m feeling like a time traveler again.

Only this time the productive, honest and self-reliant America is vanishing in the past….
 
Deprived of free political speech, Soviets had developed a culture of underground political jokes. I used to remember thousands of them….
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Americans had no first-hand knowledge of a totalitarian government, ideological uniformity, and shameless propaganda.

But that is changing. The more America “progresses” back to the Soviet model, the more translatable the old Soviet jokes become….
 
The six contradictions of socialism in the United States of America
 
- America is capitalist and greedy – yet half of the population is subsidized.  - Half of the population is subsidized – yet they think they are victims....
 
-The poor keep getting poorer – yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about... yet they want America to be more like those other countries.

There’s more where it came from – or where we’re going, whichever the case may be.”



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A BBC article finds former Soviets in a Brooklyn, NY enclave:

Emigres from the former Soviet Union living in Brooklyn remember Communism, its "big government and anti-business programmes." Too bad they vote Republican because the GOP couldn't give a damn:

6/2/12, "New York's Republican enclave," BBC, Reggie Nadelson

"While most of the city is pro-Obama, there is a corner of New York that traditionally votes Republican - the city's holiday destination, Brighton Beach.

"You hear more English in Odessa in the summer than here in Brighton Beach," says Ramon, a waiter at Restaurant Tatiana.

A recent immigrant from Ukraine, Ramon was a waiter on ships all over the world, but, like hundreds of thousands before him, he dreamed of the United States.

"I am so happy to be here," he adds, bringing me a glass of Russian Standard vodka.

It surprises me, finding a whole new cast of young immigrants here in the coastal area of Brooklyn they sometimes call Little Odessa, and, though it is more than two decades since the former Soviet Union fell, you can still get a whiff of the bad old days....

Perhaps the recent memory of too little choice - and sometimes too little food - is still palpable on Brighton Beach...."But why is that slightly scary fellow staring at me? Then I realise it is the "Re-elect Obama" button on my jacket.

This is a little bastion of Republicans in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. 

These are people who remember the Soviet Union all too well and resist what they see as
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Caller to Rush Limbaugh 10/12/12 grew up in socialist Hungary, escaped to America, and is alarmed to see the same socialism happening in the US:

10/12/12, "Private Citizen Buys Airtime to Do Job Mainstream Media Refuses to Do," Rush Limbaugh transcript

"This is a message from an American who was born into communism and using his own money to warn of socialism. An American born to communism, trying to inform the rest of the American people what people at CNN believe in and how it's a dangerous thing.

So CNN's headline is "Rich, Worried and Buying Ad Time -- He's not running for office. He's not part of a super PAC. He's not lobbying for or against any ballot measures. But billionaire Thomas Peterffy is spending millions on television ads this election season with one cautionary message: Avoid socialism."...Here is Mr. Peterffy's ad...(at link)

"PETERFFY: I grew up in a socialist country, and I have seen what that does to people. There is no hope, no freedom, no pride in achievement. The nation became poorer and poorer, and that's what I see happening here. As a young boy I was fantasizing about one day going to America, making a success of myself, the American dream. America's wealth comes from the efforts of people striving for success. Take away their incentive with bad-mouthing success and you take away the wealth that helps us take care of the needy. Yes, in socialism the rich will be poorer, but the poor will also be poorer. People lose interest in really working hard and creating jobs. I think this is a very slippery slope. It seems like people don't learn from the past. That's why I'm voting Republican and putting this ad on television."

RUSH: "And of course the media is offended by this. Their way of life is under assault here in this ad. So an American citizen has to spend millions dollars of dollars of his own money to get his message out because he doesn't find it reflected in the mainstream media of his own country." via Free Republic

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Ed. note: The entire blame falls on the Bush crowd and Fox News. The GOP has merged with the democrats. They couldn't care less about the country. If they did nothing else but get us out of the UN that would be something, but they won't lift a finger.



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Obama continues to withhold vital documents from the American people about his deadly gun operation on the Mexican border known as Fast and Furious

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4/24/13, "Obama resists Republican bid to see gun smuggling operation documents," Reuters

"A U.S. Justice Department lawyer said on Wednesday that if a judge agreed to consider a Republican bid to get administration documents related to a botched operation against gun-trafficking it would prompt a flood of requests for courts to referee Washington political disputes.
President Barack Obama is resisting a congressional subpoena for documents related to how the administration responded to the revelation of the failed operation known as "Fast and Furious" on the U.S.- Mexican border. It has already turned over thousands of pages of documents about the operation itself.

Justice Department lawyer Ian Gershengorn told a hearing the matter was best left to the give-and-take of the U.S. government's two elected branches, the president and Congress, and should not be a matter for the courts....

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was skeptical and told Gershengorn, "There are three branches here, not just two." She did not say how she would rule, but questioned Gershengorn for more than twice as long as she did House of Representatives lawyer Kerry Kircher.

Kircher told Jackson that if she did not intervene, presidents could withhold documents from Congress at will with no consequence and thwart oversight of government agencies....

Both sides agree that the question of whether Jackson will step in goes to the heart of how the U.S. president and Congress interact with each other.

Lawyers cited court precedents from the Watergate era and from a more recent document fight in which Democratic lawmakers sent a subpoena to aides of President George W. Bush.

In a decision that now helps Republicans, U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled in 2008 that he did have the authority to enforce a subpoena by congressional Democrats in connection with the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.

In the "Fast and Furious" operation federal agents trying to build a case against big gun traffickers supplying firearms to Mexican drug cartels did not immediately prosecute low-level traffickers even as they bought 2,000 potentially illegal guns.

The operation came to light after two of the firearms were found in Arizona at the scene of a shooting where a U.S. Border Patrol agent died [was murdered]."...via Lucianne



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Surviving Boston bomber seen in Times Square, November 2012

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"Dzhokar Tsarnaev, pictured in November of 2012 in Times Square with friends - the FBI is in touch with a number of the individuals in this photograph," handout photo via UK Daily Mail

 4/25/13, "Ukrainian Rutgers student arrested taking two IEDs into New York just a week before Boston Marathon bombing," UK Daily Mail, Thompson, Nye, McCormack

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