Boston Marathon Explosions Already Being Blamed on the Right
Before any information was available that might indicate who is responsible for the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce cautioned readers against “jumping to conclusions” and blaming the attack on “foreign terrorism.”
However,
he was compelled to remind people that Monday is the “official Patriots
Day holiday” in Massachusetts, celebrating the Battles at Lexington and
Concord. He also pointed out that April 19, the actual date of the
battles, is connected to Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh, who
apparently considered himself a “waterer of the tree of liberty and the
like,” according to Pierce.
“I’ll
bet good money it’s a right-wing nutjob. Today is April 15, Boston
Harbor was where the original Tea Party took place and the on-going
gun-safety legislation makes it the mostly likely culprit,” commenter
Linda Ginsburg wrote.
Other commenters replied by calling Ginsburg an “idiot” and “disgusting.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/15/boston-marathon-explosions-already-being-blamed-on-the-right/
CNN Analyst Suggests 'Right-Wing Extremists' Could Be Behind Boston Bombing
CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen twice suggested that
"right-wing extremists" could be behind Monday's Boston Marathon
bombings. Yet over an hour later, CNN reported that Boston Police were
not holding anyone in custody as a suspect for the attack.
Appearing on CNN's live coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing with
host Jake Tapper, Bergen was asked to explain if the bombing could have
been an act of terror. Bergen answered in the affirmative, and proceeded
to name possible suspects depending on the type of explosive used.
Who were Bergen's suspects? Al Qaeda and "right-wing extremists."
[UPDATE: 4/15/13 5:04 p.m. EDT] Peter Bergen again tossed out the idea
that a "right-wing extremist group" could have carried out the bombings.
"I think the actual – the constituency inside the bomb will make a big
difference about how we identify the person who did this," he explained
at the end of CNN's 4 p.m. ET hour of live coverage. The perpetrators "could be a right-wing extremist group,"
Bergen insisted, if the matter inside the bomb was not hydrogen
peroxide, which he said is a "signature" of an al Qaeda attack.
CNN
THE LEAD
4/15/13
[4:19 p.m. EDT]
JAKE TAPPER: Peter, does this – obviously we don't want to speculate.
We don't know what this was. But is there reason for people who deal in
counter-terrorism to think that this is an act of terrorism? Or suspect
it strongly, at least?
PETER BERGEN: Sure. Although I'm reminded of Oklahoma City which was a
bombing, which was initially treated as a gas explosion. So first
reports are often erroneous. But the fact that there were two explosions
– two bombings – one of the things I'd be looking at is once the
device, if it is a device, is found, what kind of explosives were used?
For instance, if it was hydrogen peroxide, this is a signature of
al-Qaeda. If it was more conventional explosives, which are much
harder to get a hold of now, that might be some other kind of
right-wing extremists. We've seen a number of failed bombing
attempts by al-Qaeda using bombs, (Unintelligible) and for instance, the
Manhattan subway in 2009, Faisal Shahzad in 2010, the attempt to bring
down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit in 2009. But we've also
seen other extremist groups, right-wing groups, for instance, trying to
attack the Martin Luther King parade in Oregon in 2010.
(...)
[4:59]
TAPPER: And Peter, what are you waiting to hear for – hear about in these coming hours?
BERGEN: I think the actual – the constituency inside the bomb will make
a big difference about how we identify the person who did this. Or the
persons who did this. Because if it's hydrogen peroxide, that puts
(Unintelligible). If it's something else –
TAPPER: Could be a different –
BERGEN: – could be a right-wing extremist group. Or some other group.
Chris Matthews: 'Normally' Domestic Terrorists 'Tend to Be on the Right'
Just hours after what explosions rocked the Boston Marathon on Monday, Chris Matthews speculated, "Normally domestic terrorists, people, tend to be on the far right." He then reconsidered and suggested, "...That’s not a good category, just extremists, let’s call them that."
During live coverage, the Hardball host highlighted a possible
explosion at John F. Kennedy's presidential library and thought this
could be a personal attack on the Democratic Party: " ...But
going after the Kennedy Library, not something at Bunker Hill, not
something from the freedom trail or anything that kind of historic, but a
modern political figure of the Democratic Party. Does that tell you
something?" (Police are now considering the incident at the JFK library to be fire-related.) One can only guess what it tells Chris.
Eyewitness: Authorities Announced “Drill” Before Boston Explosions
An eyewitness to the two explosions at the Boston
Marathon today said that a “drill” was repeatedly announced before th bombs exploded and that he “thought it was odd” bomb sniffing dogs were
in place before the blast.
University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15 News,
“They kept making announcements on the loud speaker that it was just a
drill and there was nothing to worry about. “It seemed like there was
some sort of threat, but they kept telling us it was just a drill.”
The news station also reports that Stevenson “thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.”
Stevenson then describes hearing the explosions as he ran away from the scene, having just completed the marathon.
If this report is accurate, it clearly suggests there
could have been some degree of prior knowledge of the bombing, which
killed two people and injured at least 23.
The fact that the explosions were preceded and
overlapped by a”drill” of an almost identical nature mirrors other major
terror attacks, such as the 7/7 bombings in London.
It is important to emphasize that the New York Times recently reported that
most of the recent domestic terror plots in the United States “were
facilitated by the F.B.I.,” suggesting that today’s incident in Boston
may have been part of such an operation.
It remains to be seen how the media and the Obama
administration will exploit this incident depending who gets the blame,
but Rahm Emanuel’s “never let a serious crisis go to waste” advisory is
sure to be in play.
More on this story as it develops…..
http://www.infowars.com/eyewitness-authorities-announced-drill-before-boston-explosions/
Where Does Your Tax Dollar Go?
Today is tax day - the day when every American has to file with their
income taxes with the Internal Revenue Service. The Heritage Foundation
has come up with a snazzy graphic so that Americans can see where each percentage of every tax dollar that the federal government takes goes:
There's actually been a broad coalition of both conservatives and
progressives on the idea that Americans should actually know where their
tax dollars go. Progressives think that if Americans knew just how much
they were getting from the government for every dollar they spend,
they'd think that paying taxes was important and worthwhile.
Conservatives, obviously, think that if Americans knew where their tax
money was going, Americans would recoil in horror at being ripped off by
the government for their tax dollars.
Back in 2011, a bipartisan group of legislators proposed that the IRS give every American a "receipt" for paying their taxes so that they know where the money goes:
A receipt, they say, would show where each cent of your annual tax
payment goes, making abstract government programs more concrete and
personal opinions on tax cuts, or hikes, better grounded in facts.
"Presumably, Americans will never like paying their taxes," David
Kendall and Ethan Porter write in an article laying out the proposal in
the journal Democracy published this month. "But with the right policy
proposals -- and with their implementation -- they might not despise
doing so."
The document, envisioned as no more than one page, would allow taxpayers
to see and make sense of proportional differences in federal funding
for programs such as NASA, environmental protection, foreign aid and
veterans affairs, they say.
Indeed, showing that kind of bipartisan spirit, the White House has
launched their own "tax receipt calculator" opposite of the Heritage
Foundation's. You can check out how President Obama calculates your taxes right here on WhiteHouse.gov.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2013/04/15/where-does-your-tax-dollar-go-n1568015
President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Department of Labor
engaged in a quid pro quo that could have cost taxpayers $200 million
and covered up the activity, according to a House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform report released late Sunday.
The committee’s report details then-Assistant Attorney General Tom
Perez’s involvement in a St. Paul, Minn. settlement that helped preserve
the dubious legal doctrine of “disparate impact,” which enables
minorities to allege discrimination based upon outcomes, rather than
overt discrimination.
“We have found that Mr. Perez inappropriately used a whistleblower as
bargaining chip and passed on an opportunity to collect $200 million
for taxpayers,” Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said in a
release. “This occurred as part of a deal he arranged to ensure an
ideological pet policy of the Obama Administration would avoid Supreme
Court scrutiny.”
Housing providers successfully challenged St. Paul’s aggressive enforcement of disparate impact in Magner v. Gallagher.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the city’s appeal in 2011 and many
legal observers questioned whether the doctrine could pass
constitutional muster. The committee discovered communications
from Perez telling local officials that withdrawing the case was a “top
priority” and was looking for “leverage” to pressure the city to do so.
Perez found his leverage in a $200 million federal whistleblower lawsuit against St. Paul called U.S. ex rel. Newell v. City of St. Paul.
Perez met with several senior advisers in the Department of Justice’s
Civil Rights Division to discuss dismissing the federal suit if the city
withdrew the case, according to the committee.
“Civil Rights Division Appellate Section Chief Greg Friel’s notes
from the meeting reflect a discussion of the Newell qui tam case,” the
report said. “Friel’s notes stated that ‘[Housing and Urban Development]
is will[ing] to leverage [the] case to help resolve [the] other case,’
presumably referring to Magner.”
Fredrick Newell, a local minister, blew the whistle on a
multi-million-dollar fraud perpetrated by the city in connection to work
training in the Housing and Urban Development Act. Newell was appalled
by Perez’s political gamesmanship.
“The matters at hand are not just—the ethics of [the Department of
Justice] leveraging the … lawsuit to secure the disparate impact
regulations, or the treatment of myself as a whistleblower, or the
influence of the Supreme Court docket,” Newell said in an interview with
the committee. “The way that [Housing and Urban Development] and
Justice have used me to further their own agenda is appalling—and that’s
putting it mildly.”
The Department of Justice did not immediately return calls for comment.
The committee said not only did Perez arrange for the quid pro quo,
he also attempted to cover-up the deal by instructing career Justice
Department attorneys “to omit a discussion of Magner in the
declination memos that outlined the reasons for the department’s
decision to decline intervention in Newell and Ellis, and focus instead
only ‘on the merits.’”
“Perez took steps attempting to cover-up his involvement in the quid
pro quo and offered numerous misleading statements to investigators that
are contradicted by the evidence,” Issa said. “Mr. Perez’s conduct has
stained the integrity of the Justice Department and created serious
doubt about its commitment to protecting the legal rights of
whistleblowers who come forward with legitimate information about abuses
of taxpayer funds.”
The report was released as the Senate takes up Perez’s nomination to
succeed Hilda Solis as U.S. Secretary of Labor. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R.,
Iowa) said the report would play a large role in his confirmation
hearing.
“Mr. Perez will have a lot of questions to answer this week as the
Senate considers his nomination,” Grassley said. “Not only was he the
ring leader of the quid pro quo deal that ensured the taxpayer would not
be able to recover hundreds of millions of dollars, but he has been
misleading and less than forthcoming with our Committees and the U.S.
Civil Rights Commission.”
http://freebeacon.com/quid-pro-quo-no-no/
Gold. Collateral Damage
In reference to the bottom dropping out of the "greater fool" market known as precious metals, let us consider the behind the scenes ramifications of Gold's sudden plummet.
Yes, Gold is used as collateral. It was considered a bullet proof good faith backing for market risks. A speculator or trader could even use Gold to back up his purchases of more Gold. Some exchanges even allow the posting of Gold to serve as margin, or good faith money.
So what happens when Gold drops? If Gold is placed to back other Gold purchases, the drop in the market
creates a domino effect. The Gold owned in the position loses value,
and the Gold placed as good faith money also loses value. So there is
less "good faith" margin or collateral behind the falling value of the
commodity owned. A liquidity problem develops for the financial
guarantor of the customer.
Back in the ancient history of commodity trading
(1930s), there was an extremely bullish Wheat scenario. It became
vogue to buy Wheat futures, and sell Wheat put options. As the market
became top heavy and rolled over, the Wheat futures lost money, and the
Put options gained value. A double dip of sorts for the owners of
Wheat. The owners of Wheat were having their position in a falling market increased as prices declined. Debacle. Option trading on commodities would take several decades to reemerge.
As
Gold drops, the collateral behind many trades vanishes. The margin or
good faith money that backs the financial risk of trades actually could,
in certain circumstances, create cascading financial conditions for
those who accepted Gold and Silver as solid backing for financial risk.
There are those who shook their heads when exchanges accepted Gold as margin.
They are shaking their heads again.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a
hearing on Wednesday in response to the Postal Service’s announcement
last week that it will not go forward with a cost-cutting modification
to its delivery schedule.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) backtracked on Wednesday, April 10, on its pledge to modify
its delivery schedule after its Board of Governors’ met on April 9.
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), long a champion of Postal
Service reform, announced the next day his intention to hold a full
committee hearing on reforms to aid the financially strapped postal
delivery service.
“The Postal Service’s decision to first pursue modified Saturday
delivery and then renege on its cost-cutting plan has seriously set back
efforts to advance postal reform legislation,” Issa said when announcing the hearing.
He promised “to review a wide variety of options to bring the troubled agency back from insolvency.”
USPS lost about $15.9 billion during fiscal year 2012, according to a
Postal Service spokesman. The spokesman attributed the service’s
financial woes to declining mail use and the requirement that the
service pre-fund retiree health benefits.
USPS announced
in February that it would deliver mail on a modified schedule that cut
back regular mail delivery to five days instead of six. The modification
would save the service about $2 billion each year, the service noted in
its announcements.
However, on April 10 the service said it did not have the legal
authority to make the change, citing the Continuing Resolution that
Congress passed in March. The resolution allows the government to continue to operate at current levels.
“By including restrictive language in the Continuing Resolution,
Congress has prohibited implementation of a new national delivery
schedule for mail and packages, which would consist of package delivery
Monday through Saturday and mail delivery Monday through Friday,” the
Postal Service’s statement said.
The resolution contained, as have all past budgets and continuing
resolutions since 1984, a provision that the Postal Service is to
deliver mail on six days if it is to receive an annual reimbursement for
certain services it provides.
Issa argued before Congress passed the funding resolution that this
language did not prevent the USPS from implementing the changes.
“As the chairman of the authorizing committee, I want to clarify that
… this provision would not prohibit the postal service from
implementing this plan of modified 6-day delivery service,” Issa said on the House floor.
The Postal Service could have asked the Office of Management and
Budget to request a modification to the Continuing Resolution quite
easily by noting an “anomaly,” said Oversight Committee staff member Ali
Ahmad.
A Postal Service spokesman did not answer a question about whether
the agency asked the Office of Management and Budget to seek to remove
the provision. The USPS said because the Postal Service did not receive
any funds from the Continuing Resolution, the provision in the
resolution did not apply to it.
The proposal to modify the delivery schedule encountered resistance
from other lawmakers, with Rep. Gerry Connolly (D., Va.) ultimately
asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to provide an opinion
on whether the provision still held. The GAO argued that the provision requiring six-day delivery did indeed still apply to the Postal Service.
Groups opposed to the new schedule praised the Postal Service’s
decision not to go through with the changes, citing the legal barrier.
“We believe that the USPS board of governors properly abided by the
legal findings of the GAO,” said a spokesman for the National
Association of Letter Carriers, the labor union most affected by the
changes.
However, the report did not deem the schedule modifications
illegal—it simply noted that the provision in the resolution still
applied, Ahmad said.
The report explicitly said in a footnote that it does not provide an
opinion on whether the modifications comply with the provision.
Issa lamented the Postal Service’s decision to renege on its commitment to cut back on six-day delivery.
“Just a few months ago, when USPS announced that it would alter
Saturday delivery service, it made no mention that this change could
only occur if Congress eliminated an old and well-known provision of
law. Despite some assertions, it’s quite clear that special interest
lobbying and intense political pressure played a much greater role in
the Postal Service’s change of heart than any real or perceived barrier
to implementing what had been announced,” he said in a statement on the day the change was announced.
While the February announcement does not mention the provision, it
was discussed at the press conference announcing the change, according
to the postal service spokesman.
http://freebeacon.com/undelivered-savings/
The Rising Price of Civilization
Supreme
Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously opined: "Taxes are the
price we pay for civilization." Right, but that price is rapidly rising.
Might we be paying for more "civilization" than we can afford?
When
I filed my 2013 Personal Property Declaration with Jackson County,
Missouri, I noticed that most of what the county assesses concerns
transportation -- automobiles, boats, motorcycles, RVs, airplanes, and
the like. My declaration
was for "all the tangible personal property made taxable by the laws of
the state of Missouri, which I owned or which I had under my charge or
management on the first day of January."
So
if it's late in the year, smart Missourians postpone buying a vehicle
until after New Year's Day. That way they won't have to pay property
taxes for an entire year on a car they owned only at the end of the
year. (Buying a new car in late December is something an émigré from
Kansas might do.)
The county also needs to know the "market value of all farm machinery & equipment," which is a mite strange in that
Jackson County is largely urban. Inspecting my personal property
declaration a little further, I noticed in the lower left that I had to
list my barrows, gilts, replacement ewes, sows and other livestock. If
my animals reproduce, I pay taxes on their newborns. Why can't I just
declare them as dependents?
Finally, I read this: "market value of all grain & other agricultural crops in unmanufactured condition." But what if I'm farming just to feed my family? Is this some nightmarish extrapolation of Wickard v. Filburn, some misbegotten vestige of the New Deal? At least they seem to want to leave my victory garden untaxed. Or does that fall under: "other agricultural crops in unmanufactured condition"?
The
thing is, Jackson County hasn't the means to inspect every farm to see
how many piglets were whelped and calves were dropped and how much
grain's on hand. This is especially so if, as noted above, all the
inspections are conducted on January 1. Last time I checked, New Year's
Day is a holiday, as well as a Big Game Day.
Missouri amended its constitution to exempt household goods,
such as furniture and apparel, from property taxes. That was a relief
as there are few limitations on taxation, and property taxes could
involve police powers that many Americans wouldn't want to put up with.
Imagine "tax assessors" coming to your home and rummaging through your
stuff just to see if your personal property tax declaration is accurate.
("Detective, was this Ethan Allen armoire on this guy's personal property tax declaration?""No, officer, and neither was this brazier".)
The government is big on taxing tangible
property. But why stop there? Why not tax the intangible as well --
even the ephemeral? The president is big on solar power, so let's tax
sunlight. And just as we have "thought crimes" (i.e. hate crimes), we
can have taxes on thought.Why not tax this idea I have for the Great
American Novel that concerns this poor wretch struggling to comply with
the regime's Byzantine tax system? It's sure to make a ton of money, and
hey, that'll be taxed, too.
Latter-day
lawmakers never seem to remember that this nation was founded by a
bloody revolution caused, in part, by unreasonable taxation. Despite
that, one state legislature imposed a pole tax (sic) for attendees of "gentlemen's clubs."
Every expense the
government heaps on us can be thought of as a tax. The costs of
sensitivity training (re-education?) and diversity programs are taxes.
The expenses businesses take to prevent lawsuits (defensive management?)
are taxes. The costs of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities
Act are taxes, and especially onerous ones for small businesses.
And right when you've retired and are beginning to look Eternity
squarely in the face, the IRS up and complicates your taxes with even
more forms and worksheets. (Are they taxing your patience?)
But
regardless of how many types of taxes they institute, government will
still spend more than it takes in. And no matter how high tax rates
are jacked up, it's never enough; government will still run a deficit.
So while we're on the sins of government, let's not forget the "sin
taxes", such as the tobacco tax.
Tobacco
users ought to be miffed about the steep tax on their humble vice as it
is supposed to be a dedicated tax. But tobacco tax revenue has become
yet another government slush fund.As the tax on tobacco continues to
rise, tobacco users should consider growing their own. But they may have to pay property taxes on their crop.
It
remains to be seen whether, in addition to sin, Congress will tax
virtue. If lawmakers do indeed plan to tax virtue, they would do well to
take note of a corollary of an old axiom: If you tax something, you get
less of it.
Happy April 15
How Barack Obama Is Using Health Care to Balkanize America
Last week, adjunct faculty at a local college were asked to sign a petition
to the White House to "explore options to prevent colleges/universities
from cutting adjunct and contingent faculty hours to circumvent [the]
PPACA," better known as ObamaCare. This is in response to the massive assault on the livelihood of adjunct faculty who now face devastating salary cuts as a direct result of ObamaCare.
In addition, because of budget cuts which originated with Obama, cancer clinics are now turning away thousands of Medicare cancer
patients with the result that "patients at these clinics would need to
seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the
capacity to accommodate them."
Oncologists have explained that "the
reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare
on April 1, make it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy
drugs while staying afloat financially." Ted Okon, director of the
Community Oncology Alliance, which advocates for hundreds of cancer
clinics nationwide, explains that "[t]his is a drug that we're
purchasing. The costs don't change and you can't do without it. There
isn't really wiggle room."
Okon's group has sent letters to legislators urging them to exempt cancer drugs from the sequester or, as a back-up, shave only 2 percent off the money they receive to administer the medications.
Such a move highlights the hypocrisy of Obama, who early on claimed that the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) would "launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American[.]
Thus, it is perplexing that the cuts outlined by CMS will negatively
impact cancer patients, making advances in cancer care more difficult to
deliver."
And last month, a petition
posted on the White House website urged Obama to restore the college
tuition assistance program for "America's men and women in uniform"
through an executive order. Clearly, many groups have joined the
bandwagon and are demanding that their special interests be considered
by the White House.
It is important to note that it was Obama who introduced
the idea of sequestration. Although Republicans attempted to make the
sequester cuts "less reckless," the bill was "dead on arrival in Harry
Reid's Senate." Thus, Obama's duplicity emerged, as he sought to blame
the Republicans for sequestration even though he originated it.
What we are now seeing in the country is but one of the many deliberate designs of the Obama administration to pit one group against another and make them beg for some dispensation or waiver. The class warfare
that has been an Obama signature now engages cancer patients and
teachers and the military. Who will be next in line to demand special
consideration?
Obama knows only one way to rule -- and I do mean rule, since governance has gone by the wayside. Bribes and special interest group waivers have marked his presidency since the beginning of his term.
As each group tries to best another group, Obama looks down upon his minions as only a wannabe emperor
can. Though I value my First Amendment right to petition the
government for change, we need far more puissant action. We demand a
total eradication of ObamaCare. And it needs to be done as a united
front. Otherwise, we actually play right into Obama's overarching aims
of divide and conquer by duplicity and coercion.
Thus,
when we do not marshal our respective forces and instead operate
piecemeal, we make it easier for Obama to distract one group and pit one
segment of the population against another. Thus, Americans remain impotent on issues of real concern.
The American
people need to refuse to be placated and appeased. If the government
could not get these unintended consequences ironed out ahead of time,
one must wonder if they were truly unintended. In fact, Obama knows
exactly what he is doing as he continues to damage the American psyche and more.
If
nothing else, these so-called unintended consequences certainly prove
that government intervention on such a massive scale will lead only to
misery, resentment, and anger for many more groups in American society. It is a recipe for violence.
Obama,
however, seems to avoid personal blame for the expensive, unwieldy
health care law which started all these problems in the first place. By
his actions, Obama clearly wants to balkanize and divide as many
segments of the American population as possible.
America,
we need a peaceful one-million-person march on the Washington Mall to
clearly state that "united we stand, divided we fall," and that we will
no longer accept the loss of our liberties and the assault on our values
and livelihood through the continued enactment of ObamaCare. And we
need to do it as one united voice.
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