All he wants is four more years!
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Well deserved nomination for PJTV.Com - "WHAT'S NEW ON PJTV
A Pulitzer Nomination for PJ Media: Reporters Expose Leftists in the Department of Justice
Bill Whittle interviews PJ Media Legal Editor J. Christian Adams and Hans Von Spakovsky about their exceptional work in exposing the dubious hiring practices within the Obama Justice Department. Their research culminated in an eleven-article series called “Every Single One,” which PJ Media submitted for a Pulitzer Prize. Watch the video to hear more about the high level of corruption and extreme amount of bias that exists within the DOJ today."
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One of my dear friends and fellow memo readers was so upset when he found out I did not own a cell phone he found one he though I I could use.
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Get ready for the flim flam strategy as the magician's campaign roars into high gear. (See 1 below.)
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3)Price-clubbed in U.S.
America’s real inflation rate has moved above 8%
By Terry Keenan
It was three years ago this week that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke became the first US central banker to sit down for a vanity interview with “60 Minutes,” an interview in which he heralded the “green shoots” that he was seeing in the economy.
Hence, it is no surprise that in the spring of this election year the “green shoots” brigade is out in force again, aided by an enthusiastic mainstream media that tells us day after day that the economy is getting better. Indeed, the employment picture in America has brightened a bit, with an average of 245,000 new jobs added over the past three months as the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. “Great news for the president” is the conventional wisdom.
Yes, 8.3 percent unemployment is far better than the 10.2 percent we saw back in October 2009. Still, when voters “vote their pocketbook” come November, unemployment is just one — although the main — component of their economic well-being. The other is inflation, and on that front Team Obama has a lot to be worried about.
Remember the Misery Index? Veteran Democrats do, and so do the president’s re-election operatives in Chicago. The Misery Index is the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates, and it’s what did in Jimmy Carter in 1980 as runaway inflation compounded an already bleak economic picture.
On the face of it, the government measure of consumer prices, the CPI, is just mildly alarming — with the government estimating prices to be rising at a 3.1 percent annual rate.
But as anyone who pays the bills or does the household grocery shopping knows, a government-reported 3.1 percent inflation rate is laughably low. Bought cereal or mac and cheese for the kids lately? If so, you’re aware of the near double-digit increase in prices in the supermarket aisles.
So what is the true inflation rate?
Fortunately, the folks at the American Institute of Economic Research have resurrected the idea. Their Everyday Price Index (EPI) strips away the cost of big-ticket items, like homes and cars, and looks at the cost of things that consumers encounter on a daily or monthly basis, such as groceries, prescription medicine, and telephone and cable bills. By that measure, the Everyday Price Index shows inflation galloping ahead at an 8.1 percent annual rate, a reading that would put the current Misery Index at a Carter-like 16.4 percent — not a good recipe for re-election.
Averaging the CPI and the EPI gives us a rate of 5.6 percent, a number most New Yorkers, and probably most Americans, would consider on the mark.
By that estimate, the Obama Misery Index comes in at 13.9 percent, higher than that of any president up for re-election since Carter in 1980, but not too far above the 12.4 percent misery reading when Ronald Reagan ran in 1984.
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Get ready for the flim flam strategy as the magician's campaign roars into high gear. (See 1 below.)
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Bret Stephens is concerned about the size of our current navy and its overstretched mission against n Iranian Fleet that could spell trouble. (See 3 below.)
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The Fed's policy is to lower interest rates, create a wealth effect by reason of a rising market, hope by doing so the economy bounces up enough to sustain itself. The consequences - retirees have to take more risk to earn a return and when and if the economy does recover and starts truly growing, rather than limping, rates will rise and inflation will hit.
It's all a shell game and could prove a costly and dangerous one but as long as Obama is re-elected Bernanke will have paid his dues. So much for the last vestige of an independent Fed.(See 3 and 3a below.)
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I just had an interesting chat with a very dear friend who taught The History of The Supreme Court at the University of Virginian until his formal retirement. He still teaches a class to those 55 and older.
I wanted his take on the Supreme Court's prospective ruling on "Obamascare."
He believes three are opposed to the bill but that it will probably be held Constitutional even though it probably is not because The Chief Justice wants to hold The Court together and Kennedy remains the power vote.
My friend agrees it is an abominable piece of legislation. He also says the second of the six hours of debate is the key one to watch. It is The Commerce Clause Issue.
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I just had an interesting chat with a very dear friend who taught The History of The Supreme Court at the University of Virginian until his formal retirement. He still teaches a class to those 55 and older.
I wanted his take on the Supreme Court's prospective ruling on "Obamascare."
He believes three are opposed to the bill but that it will probably be held Constitutional even though it probably is not because The Chief Justice wants to hold The Court together and Kennedy remains the power vote.
My friend agrees it is an abominable piece of legislation. He also says the second of the six hours of debate is the key one to watch. It is The Commerce Clause Issue.
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Dick
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1)The Great Obimi Does His Magic Act Again
By James Lewis
Ever wonder why Obama looks so sharp in a dark suit? Ever wonder about that ear-to-ear professional grin he's got? About those little dramatic pauses before he drops a well-rehearsed line? Ever wonder where he keeps his high hat and magic wand?
Well, you don't have to wonder any longer. We're due to see another magic campaign by The Great Obimi. It'll be one stunt after another, like those styrofoam Greek columns at his victory rally in Denver.
Now that the GOP race is settling out, Obama is starting his real campaign. That messianic halo is beginning to hover over his head again. People are beginning to faint at his performances. The other day he asked his audience to stay calm and let that fainting lady or gent be treated by the medics.
"Folks do that all the time when I speak," he said modestly, barely restraining himself from performing a miraculous resurrection of the flesh, right there on stage. In a couple of months he could be doing the full Elmer Gantry, raising his arms and going Heal! Heal! as the victim is carried away.
And the crowds will go wild. They love this stuff, our super-intelligent left.
Sandra Fluke is no fluke. She was a set-up, a full-time radical activist for the last ten years -- after majoring in Women's Rage at Cornell University. Fluke has been so "active" in the last decade, it's hard to see how she even found time for bathroom breaks. At age 31 Ms. Fluke is a "student" at Georgetown Law School, specializing in activism against this Catholic private university. She's a professional victim or an accuser, depending on the needs of the moment.
That's why you are paying your taxes for Women's Studies, Black Studies, Hispanic Studies, the lot. Your money is going to train "activists" to do PR stunts, in order to squeeze out even more of your money. It all feeds the Demagogue Machine.
L'Affaire Fluke comes down to Alinsky Rule 1: Pick the target; freeze it; then polarize it -- "polarize" means a hysterical mob assault on the designated scapegoat of the moment.
Check out Lenin's Hanging Order. It's all there. Nothing has changed, now that we have Vladimir Ilyich Obimi in the White House. Today we are all kulaks.
The U.S. Army used to tell combat soldiers to "find 'em, fight 'em, fix 'em." "Polarize" means to fix 'em, to neutralize the enemy, discredit them, scare them witless, traumatize them. Raging mobs create fear even without the threat of Siberian prison camps and basement executions. We've seen the radical media go after Republicans and conservatives over and over again. No one is immune; two-year-old Trig Palin is still targeted by the utterly shameless left. Apparently little baby Trig isn't covered by International Women's Day. Nor is Governor Sarah Palin, of course.
Obama has refurbished that oldest trick of the theater, the claque -- the wildly applauding gang paid to sit in front of the crowd, ready to cheer on command. With a well-trained claque you can say anything and the audience will still applaud. Most people are afraid to stand out from a maddened crowd. It's how Demagogues operate.
We call our national claque "the mainstream media," and we know they march in lock-step, because they were exposed in the JourNOlist scandal. It's the most significant media scandal ever, and the media are covering it up, of course.
Real journalists don't sing from the same song sheet every single day. Today, our media do that, which means they have no real journalists, just party operatives like George Stepanopoulos. Identical media words every day are a sure sign of coordination. If you ever need to prove the existence of media bias to a friend, just tell him to look at the lockstep headlines.
Right now those "spontaneous" Occupy mobs are being trained by the SEIU to shaft Mitt Romney during the campaign. That "99%" lie they came up with is a setup for the coming campaign. Those 99 signs are not homemade. The 99% slogan is totalitarian, of course, because it tells half the country to shut up and obey orders. It's The Great Obimi practicing his tricks for the big show.
The media beat up Obama's enemies in broad daylight, to make sure he won't have real competition in the campaign. Clarence Thomas called the media a "high-tech lynch mob" when he was up for his 1992 Supreme Court nomination, and they haven't changed their stripes. The mob is now trying to gun down Mitt Romney's opponents, one after the other, saving their biggest ammo for Mitt himself. It's happening in broad daylight, and only conservatives are taking notice.
A century before canned laugh tracks, Italy's La Scala Opera House had claques. So did Benito Mussolini in the 1930s. Opera is in the blood over there, and Mussolini loved to strut on the big opera stage. When the Partisans caught him in the end they hung him upside down next to his mistress, suitably mutilated. They understood the value of drama, too. If it bleeds, it leads.
Bill Clinton was the first Democrat to bring a Hollywood director to the White House to stage his television stunts, but Obama makes the Clintons look like Arkansas hillbillies. The Great Obimi's election opponents in Chi-Town magically disappeared from their campaigns -- twice after sealed divorce records were exposed in public at critical moments. In Chi-Town Axelrod's "opposition research" takes on a whole new meaning.
Hillary and Bill felt the sting of that Obimi whip during the 2008 primaries, when all the media turned on them as racists, on cue. Remember that? Choreographed by the wizard and his crew.
This time the target of Sanda Fluke turned out to be Rush Limbaugh. But it could have been Rick Santorum, or you or me. Obama operates by scapegoating. This administration has tried to scapegoat Israel by using Stalinoid front groups like J Street, staffed by Soros activists. The Great Obimi took on the whole Catholic Church in the run-up to the Fluke stunt. Obama knows he lost any real Catholics a long time ago, so he has nothing to lose by attacking the Church on abortion. The Fluke stunt was timed to peel off female voters for Obimi.
Most American presidents try to combine interest groups. Obama likes to split them. First he carves out the True Believers. Then he tries to sweep up the wishy-washies toward election time.
Admittedly, Rush walked right into the trap by calling the lady a tramp. He lost his deft touch, and just a few blundering missteps turned him into the target of the day. Sandra Fluke is even now being turned into a martyr of leftist womanhood. She's now Saint Fluke the Martyr for abortion rights, all free from the taxpayer.
This is the second time Rush has been honored by presidential attention from a Democrat. Bill Clinton tried to blame Rush for the Oklahoma City bombing. Now The Great Obimi has him assaulting American womanhood in the person of Sandra Fluke. It's Dixiecrat gag number 3. Robert Byrd would have loved it.
On the other hand, Rush is making out fabulously from all the notoriety. All the talk show hosts in America are wishing The Great Obimi had picked on them instead.
So everybody's having fun, except for the American people, who are being suckered.
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4)In the Persian Gulf, A Vulnerable Fleet
The Navy's capabilities are impressive. But we need more ships.
MORE IN OPINION »
Aboard USS Bunker Hill
It didn't take Chief Warrant Officer Jason Echevarria more than a glance through the ship's binoculars to figure out what the Iranian-flagged dhow 3,400 yards off the starboard beam wasn't doing.
For one thing, the gaily colored boat was larger than the dhows that typically ply the confined waters of the Persian Gulf. Its deck was clear of netting and tackle, and the paint job seemed fresh. The Furuno radar was another giveaway. And it was shadowing us, coming at one point within a mile.
"If that's a fishing boat, I'm a monkey's uncle," said Mr. Echevarria, a native of Melbourne, Fla. Later, the boat would be photographed flying the colors of the IRGC-N, the naval branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Nobody on the Bunker Hill—a 567-foot, 9,800 ton guided-missile cruiser serving as the principal surface escort for the nearby carrier USS Carl Vinson—was surprised by the arrival of the Iranians. With Aegis radar, Seahawk helicopters and electro-optical scanners, Bunker Hill had been tracking the dhow long before it became visible in the morning haze. Michael Ford, the ship's captain, had been watching the Iranians even longer, ever since he first deployed to the Gulf some 20 years ago. Tension with Iran, he says, "ebbs and flows in terms of the rhetoric, but the reality of the interactions is still relatively routine."
That's the point that nearly every senior officer I've met with on this trip seems most eager to make. On Jan. 3, Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, the head of the Iranian military, made headlines world-wide by warning the departing carrier USS John C. Stennis not to re-enter the Gulf. Since then, however, two other U.S. carriers have come here without incident, and the Navy continues to deal with the Iranians—tower-to-air; bridge-to-bridge—generally on the basis of mutual professionalism. Far from being a flash point, the Gulf may be the only place where the U.S. and Iran have something like a functional relationship.
But functional isn't friendly. Vice Adm. Mark Fox, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, stresses that the Navy is "absolutely prepared" for any contingency.
At the same time, he offers a long list of the ways in which Iran has in recent years developed capabilities purpose-built to challenge U.S. maritime dominance: ship-killing missiles; midget submarines of the kind that sank a South Korean corvette in 2010; mines ("the maritime equivalent of an IED," he says); and thousands of fast inboard attack craft—basically, armed Boston Whalers meant to swarm larger U.S. ships. "I respect their capability," says Adm. Fox dryly.
In the face of the asymmetrical threat, the Navy's first defense is an unmatched degree of situational awareness. From the Bunker Hill's blue-lit combat information center, Capt. Ford can see, identify and track everything that moves on or above (and probably below) the Gulf. Any departure from what the Navy calls "pattern of life" on the sea would be noticed long before the Iranians peak their head over the horizon. At that distance, the firepower a ship like the Bunker Hill can bring to bear could defeat almost anything Iran can muster.
But the Navy has its own vulnerabilities. Iranian ships could lawfully come awfully close to the Bunker Hill before revealing their intentions, leaving Capt. Ford little time to deter and defend. Last month, The Journal reported that Pentagon war planners had identified "gaps" in military capabilities and needed to spend $100 million to fill them. One such gap: The Vinson currently lacks the Phalanx Close-in Weapons System, a high-powered gatling gun used to stop incoming missiles (or fast boats) at close range. The Navy insists it's covered by other defensive systems, but the absence of such guns was one reason the British Navy lost so many of its ships in the Falklands War.
There's a deeper vulnerability. In our interview, Adm. Fox mentioned he had some 42 ships deployed, including two carriers. But between the Fleet's anti-piracy mission around Somalia and its aerial support for operations in Afghanistan, there are only two major U.S. surface combatants in the Gulf—the Vinson and the Bunker Hill—plus two nuclear attack submarines, four minesweepers and some smaller patrol ships. Were the Iranians to mine the Strait of Hormuz, the ships could be trapped in the Gulf for at least as long as it took the minesweepers to clear the way.
How long would that take? In 1991 it took a year to clear up 1,300 mines in the Gulf. Today Iran is estimated to have some 5,000 mines.
The Navy doesn't like to advertise this, but it is trying to fulfill its traditional global role with a fleet of 285 ships—the smallest it has been since before the First World War, even if modern warships are more capable than ever before. That number is likely to decline further under President Obama's proposed budgetary cuts. If you sleep better at night knowing that a powerful American Navy ensures the freedom of the seas in places like the Gulf, the time to start worrying about the Navy's future is now.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)Uncle Sam's Teaser Rate
Low interest rates disguise the federal debt bomb.
MORE IN OPINION »
One business story these days is how companies are crashing the debt markets to raise money at today's bargain rates. The same goes for the world's biggest borrower, Uncle Sam, which is also quietly benefitting from historically low interest rates that cannot last. The latter deserves more attention because the next President and Congress are likely to be stuck paying the bill when rates inevitably rise.
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First, a couple facts: the U.S. Treasury currently has $10.7 trillion in outstanding publicly-held debt, and more than $8 trillion of it must be repaid within the next seven years. More than $5 trillion falls due within the next 36 months.
This relatively short-term debt sheet is no accident. Like a subprime borrower opting for a low teaser rate, the government has structured its debt to keep current interest payments low. This is a political temptation for every Administration because it means lower budget deficits on its watch.
The Obama Administration has added close to $5 trillion to the U.S. debt. So it much prefers to finance all of this at a rate, say, of 0.3% in two-year notes than at 2% in 10-year notes. The nearby charts show how federal debt has soared during the Obama years, yet net federal interest payments are lower than they were in 2007 and lower than they were in nominal dollars even in 1997 when public debt was a mere $3.8 trillion. This year the debt is expected to reach $11.58 trillion.
The problem is that this disguises the magnitude of the debt threat and stores up trouble for future Presidents and taxpayers. And maybe not far in the future.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), for example, forecasts that in the period 2014-2017 the average rates on three-month Treasury bills will rise to 2% from less than 0.1% today. CBO expects average rates on 10-year Treasury notes to climb to 3.8%, from 2.03% now. CBO adds that every 100 basis-point rise in government borrowing costs over the next decade will trigger almost $1 trillion in new federal debt.
As of January 2012, taking into account all the various notes and bonds issued by the federal government to the public, Uncle Sam is paying an average interest rate of 2.24%. The government expects to spend in the neighborhood of $225 billion this year making interest payments.
That may seem like a large sum, and it is, but consider what happens if rates quickly rise back toward their historical norms. As recently as early 2007 the government was paying 5% on its debt, which is the average of the last two decades, though of course rates could always go higher. During the 1990s, the average was well above 6%.
If the government had to pay the 5% rate that it was offering before the financial crisis on today's debt, the annual interest payments would be $535 billion, twice CBO's projection for total federal spending on Medicaid this year. If Uncle Sam had to pay 6% on its debt, the annual interest payments of $642 billion would surpass total federal spending on Medicare, currently $484 billion. Such a radical change in budget math could trigger a political panic and intense pressure for tax increases, perhaps even for a European-style value-added tax.
Should Treasury be much more aggressive now in seeking to borrow for the long term at today's low rates? This would seem to be a sensible call, especially given that everyone except perhaps the Federal Reserve Board of Governors expects rates to rise.
Treasury says it is aware of the dangers and is acting on it. In a September 2010 letter to the Journal, Mary J. Miller, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial markets, reported that 55% of Treasury debt was maturing within three years and that this figure was declining. She added that Treasury planned to continue lengthening the average maturity of its debt.
Ms. Miller and her Treasury colleagues have been true to her word. Today, 52% of the debt is due within three years.
The problem is that, amid the astounding Obama-era increase in federal debt, Ms. Miller's letter arrived almost $2 trillion ago. So while short-term debt may be declining modestly as a percentage of Treasury paper, it's part of a much bigger debt pie.
Of course, Treasury can't decide entirely on its own to rely on longer-term financing. Investors watching the mounting Obama debt pile probably wouldn't agree to finance most of it for 30 years at a low rate. The risk of future rate increases or inflation are too great.
Not that we can tell how much private market demand exists for 30-year bonds anyway. The Federal Reserve is now among the largest buyers as it implements "Operation Twist" and other monetary adventures.
This is a useful reminder that fiscal authorities aren't the only ones who will have trouble exiting from this era of profligate government. Sooner or later the Fed has to manage the withdrawal from its historically accommodative monetary policy. Even now many investors suspect that the Fed is keeping rates so low for so long in part to finance federal debt on easier terms.
If the economy gains steam—say, in a new Administration that reforms the tax code, cuts spending and reduces regulation—the Fed may have to raise rates to forestall inflation. But if it raises rates, interest payments on the debt will soar, the deficit may not fall from its Obama trillion-dollar levels, and pressure could build for a tax increase.
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President Obama may not mind this outcome but Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum should, which is why they need to talk about this fiscal nitroglycerin that Mr. Obama and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have created. The two Republicans might also take a moment to wonder how much they really want this job. The next Presidential term may be spent trying to defuse the Obama debt bomb.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)Price-clubbed in U.S.
America’s real inflation rate has moved above 8%
By Terry Keenan
It was three years ago this week that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke became the first US central banker to sit down for a vanity interview with “60 Minutes,” an interview in which he heralded the “green shoots” that he was seeing in the economy.
Hence, it is no surprise that in the spring of this election year the “green shoots” brigade is out in force again, aided by an enthusiastic mainstream media that tells us day after day that the economy is getting better. Indeed, the employment picture in America has brightened a bit, with an average of 245,000 new jobs added over the past three months as the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. “Great news for the president” is the conventional wisdom.
Yes, 8.3 percent unemployment is far better than the 10.2 percent we saw back in October 2009. Still, when voters “vote their pocketbook” come November, unemployment is just one — although the main — component of their economic well-being. The other is inflation, and on that front Team Obama has a lot to be worried about.
Remember the Misery Index? Veteran Democrats do, and so do the president’s re-election operatives in Chicago. The Misery Index is the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates, and it’s what did in Jimmy Carter in 1980 as runaway inflation compounded an already bleak economic picture.
On the face of it, the government measure of consumer prices, the CPI, is just mildly alarming — with the government estimating prices to be rising at a 3.1 percent annual rate.
But as anyone who pays the bills or does the household grocery shopping knows, a government-reported 3.1 percent inflation rate is laughably low. Bought cereal or mac and cheese for the kids lately? If so, you’re aware of the near double-digit increase in prices in the supermarket aisles.
So what is the true inflation rate?
Fortunately, the folks at the American Institute of Economic Research have resurrected the idea. Their Everyday Price Index (EPI) strips away the cost of big-ticket items, like homes and cars, and looks at the cost of things that consumers encounter on a daily or monthly basis, such as groceries, prescription medicine, and telephone and cable bills. By that measure, the Everyday Price Index shows inflation galloping ahead at an 8.1 percent annual rate, a reading that would put the current Misery Index at a Carter-like 16.4 percent — not a good recipe for re-election.
Averaging the CPI and the EPI gives us a rate of 5.6 percent, a number most New Yorkers, and probably most Americans, would consider on the mark.
By that estimate, the Obama Misery Index comes in at 13.9 percent, higher than that of any president up for re-election since Carter in 1980, but not too far above the 12.4 percent misery reading when Ronald Reagan ran in 1984.
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