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Grandson Blake, beginning to lose some of his baby look and yet, only 8 months old.
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Now for a few more newspaper headlines that were likely never read by those who printed them.
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After a minute or two of staring through my scope, I dropped my rifle in the grass, fell to my knees, and prayed for this blessed creature.
I just couldn't pull the trigger.
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GW was demonized for political reasons and he was tagged as the illegitimate president. I have always maintained history will treat him far better than the contemporary press and media and the Left Wing haters. This, however, will not be the case with Obama. History will not treat him well . (See 1 below.)
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This froma very dear and long time friend: "Dick, This was fleet week in San Francisco. It included the commissioning of a new hi-tech US Navy ship, the USS America, and the confluence of many Navy vessels and thousands (tens of thousands ) of sailors. President Obama flew into the San Francisco airport. It was reported that he attended not one Navy event. I hope the reports are wrong. His purpose flying x-country to be here was reportedly limited to fund raising events. What inference(s) can one make about our Commander-in-Chief? ---"
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Go figure the market.
The article I have posted below is basically just a bunch of platitudes. (See 2 below.)
What I am getting ready to write may be no more enlightening.
I have been expecting a market reaction but I did not know when it would arrive. Now that it is here the next question is how much damage will it cause , how far will it drop before bottoming? I do not have a clue any more than the next person.
I do believe the market was pushed up by The Fed's monetary policies, the modest economic recovery as well as decent earnings and low statistical inflation but we all know everything we buy is more expensive.
Europe's economy is softening, Germany is probably back in recession mode, China is slowing and the Middle East is in flames. As for our nation, we are continuing to hemorrhage red ink and we have yet to feel the true effect of Obamacare and The Fed's ending of stimulus. These weighty issues face investors and you can add that the president is unpopular, people have a low opinion of D.C. and government's ability to solve problems and, in fact, have come to believe whatever government touches it ruins.
Against this kind of back drop one has to conclude it is not favorable near term so I would expect more decline and I believe cash will purchase lower prices and produce better yields if one is patient.
I also believe we will witness increased volatility and, as we begin third quarter earning releases they could give us a clue just how bad things might get.
Energy stocks are suffering because oil is dropping below levels not seen for several years and that could deter or disrupt fracking development of our domestic energy sources and this would also impact rig operators and service companies like Halliburton,Schlumberger etc.
A slowing Chinese economy has played havoc with raw material demand and we have seen corrections in gold, copper and silver miners and I would expect we could be near a bottoming area but I doubt any recovery will be swift. .
For truly long term investors, opportunities in yield stocks are beginning to open and AT&T is well above a 5% yield and even Deutsche Telecom is re- flirting with that yield level.
Selected technology and health care stocks offer excellent long term opportunities for modest appreciation and decent yield but they too are subject to demand and cost issues so are best avoided for the time being.
I suspect matters will clarify over the remaining months of this year but the problems impacting The Middle East will continue to cast a heavy pall over psychology.
Perhaps once the November elections are behind us that could bring some relief, particularly if Republicans take The Senate in the hope it might lessen the political log jam, but I believe Obama will only dig his heels in so I would not expect any effort by Republicans to bring about changes in taxation etc. is a sound bet.even if they make an earnest effort. Why would Democrats want to help Republicans improve the economy? Because they are patriotic - how foolish can you be!
(What Liberals fear - see 3 Below.)
I am just sitting and observing for the time being and am asking myself will the decline in energy prices prevent stocks like LINE, BBEP, KMI etc. from paying extraordinary dividends that presently yield between 5 and 8 plus percent.
If I miss the bottom I already own stocks and am not anxious to spend cash reserves until some of the pressures I have outlined lessen.
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The Kurds are learning what Israel knows about being hung out to dry! (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) Panetta Book Bombshell: Challenges to Obama's Legitimacy Affected His Presidency
Largely lost in the hubbub over former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s new book Worthy Fights is one intriguing revelation. As reported in the New YorkTimes, the accusations that Barack Obama was not what he appeared to be, perhaps not even a natural-born citizen, caused him to become tentative on the national stage. “Those challenges have encouraged the president’s caution and defensiveness, which in turn has emboldened further challenges,” Mr. Panetta wrote.
As the originator of one of those challenges, namely that terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers helped Obama with his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father, I can confirm the validity of Panetta’s accusation. When challenged, Obama has become not only defensive but also downright dishonest.
Obama’s insecurity has caused him to violate the promise he made to his assembled staff on his first full day in office. “I will also hold myself as President to a new standard of openness,” said the newly minted president. “Information will not be withheld just because I say so. It will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well grounded in the Constitution.” As I document in my new book, You Lie, Obama has dishonored this promise in a hundred different ways.
In the last six years, the White House has withheld information large and small, public and private, petty and grand. A perfectly instructive and heretofore unsung incident took place at a CNN studio on September 23, 2009. The guest was bestselling celebrity journalist, Christopher Andersen. The show was CNN’s "American Morning", and the host was a young woman named Kiran Chetry.
An establishment journalist with credentials of the first order, Andersen was there to plug his twenty-eighth book and his fourth biography of a presidential couple,Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage. Despite Andersen’s credentials and his apolitical background, the interview almost did not take place.
“It’s important to note,” Chetry told Andersen on air, “we reached out to the White House for a response to the book. They declined to comment but made it known they weren't happy. In fact, they pulled a previously scheduled interview we had with a senior adviser once they learned you were on the show.”
This Andersen already knew. “About as senior as you can get,” he confirmed. Andersen expressed surprise that the White House would do such a thing, “I was dismayed because the USA Today story on the book said it was a glowing portrait of a rock-solid marriage, and that is exactly what it is. It's a very positive look at what I think is a remarkable first family.”
This move must have seemed all the more puzzling to Chetry because at the time Obama’s transparency myth remained largely intact. The folks at CNN, at least those who had not read Andersen’s book, had to wonder why Obama would object to his presence, let alone which “separate authority” raised constitutional objections.
Andersen’s surprised reaction, however, was just a shade disingenuous. By this time, he knew what a poison pill he had slipped into this otherwise innocuous brew of a book. The night before his CNN guest shot he appeared on two national cable shows, "Hardball" with Chris Matthews and "Hannity." Matthews, who likely had not read the book, interviewed Andersen in the nonconfrontational style Andersen expected. “You‘re an amazing, successful guy,” said Matthews at interview’s end. “You have a winning streak here.”
Although equally agreeable, Sean Hannity called attention to this toxin in the brew. On air, Hannity cited Andersen’s claim that Bill Ayers had assisted Obama in the writing of Dreams from My Father. He quoted Andersen to the effect that "literary devices and themes [in Dreams] bear a jarring similarity to Ayers’s own writings.” Asked Hannity, “Bill Ayers helped him with his book?” Andersen confirmed the same and quickly changed topic. As a celebrity journalist, Andersen may not have realized initially how the Ayers bombshell would alienate his potential audience and unnerve the White House.
Nor was the Ayers revelation an incidental part of the book. Relying on two sources in Chicago’s Hyde Park, Andersen relates in six pages of detail the how, when, and why of Obama’s collaboration with Ayers on Dreams. If true, his claim revealed Obama to have been a shameless liar in his disavowal of Ayers during the campaign. His claim also made a total sham out of the literary world's anointment of Obama as "the best writer to occupy the White House since Lincoln," the understanding on which the Obama genius myth was based.
To its humble credit, CNN did not yield to White House pressure, not on the surface at least. The network allowed Andersen to appear despite the intimidation. What “The Worldwide Leader in News” failed to do, however, was explore the Ayers connection, the one newsworthy item in the book. After discussing the White House threat, Chetry moved immediately to “some of the interesting parts” of the book, starting with the ever-pressing question of how the Obamas balanced work and domestic responsibilities. Someone at CNN apparently knew what the president wanted and obliged him.
This combination of White House strong-arming and media sycophancy worked well for Obama. Very nearly every major news outlet in the English-speaking world felt compelled to review Andersen’s book. Yet not a single mainstream reviewer dared mention the book’s most explosive revelation, let alone follow up on it.
Lost in the kerfuffle was CNN’s open admission that the White House had attempted, and largely succeeded, in suppressing information, both from Andersen and from the adviser who had been scheduled to speak. This gesture had nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with Bill Ayers. “Information will not be withheld just because I say so,” said Obama on day one. Well, if he did not “say so,” someone very close to him did, and that someone would not have been anyone’s idea of a “separate authority.”
The Andersen shutdown was mere prelude to what would happen with Benghazi. “Several times when I reached out to Congress or the press without prior White House approval,” Panetta wrote, “I was chastised for it.” As forthcoming as he appears to be, one suspects Panetta knows a lot more than he is saying.
Jack Cashill’s newest book, You Lie: The Evasions, Omissions, Fabrications, Frauds and Outright Falsehoods of Barack Obama is now
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2) Buy low, sell high -- that's a well-known stock market mantra.
It's great advice, except for one problem: it's incredibly hard to tell the peak or the nadir.
Billionaire Carl Icahn has made a lot of money off his investments. Even he says, "No one is smart enough to know when to buy at the bottom."
After the worst stock market drop of the year, plenty of people wonder if it's time to sell. The argument goes something like this: The S&P 500 is up nearly 200% since it bottomed out in early 2009. There hasn't been a correction since 2011, let alone a true "bear market" where things really drop. Surely it's time to exit...
But here's the truth: Most of us are better off doing nothing.
Yes, you read that right. Think about these points:
1) Put the recent market dip in perspective. The market is down, but only a tad off its all-time highs from September.
"This is not earth shattering," says Jurrien Timmer, director of Global Macro for Fidelity. "Volatility happens. A couple of percent is not a big deal. The market will correct by 10% almost any time. Over the course of history, it shows up as really nothing more than noise."
2) Never sell in a panic. Selling when you're anxious often means you sell at the low point and end up buying back in at a higher one -- the exact opposite of what you hope to do.
"The worst time to decide to get out of the stock market is when it's falling or right after a big drop," says Kate Warne, an investment strategist at Edward Jones. "If you look at the days with the best market performance, a lot of them follow days with the worst market performance."
Even if you do manage to get out a the right time, it can still hurt you in the end.
"If you decide to get out, you have to make two decisions correctly: both when to get out and when to get back in," Warne says.
Think of it like rolling two dice and having to guess BOTH numbers correctly.
3) Let history be your guide: Many of the biggest stock market upswings happen within days of a downturn. You could be off celebrating that you exited the market perfectly only to look like a fool for not catching the surge.
Consider this: Fidelity looked at the returns of the S&P 500 from 1980 through June 30, 2014. They found that an investor who missed only the best five days in the market would end up with a portfolio worth about 35% less than the one that had been fully invested the whole time.
I ran a similar analysis just for 2014 for the S&P 500.
Your return if you stayed in the market and did nothing: +3%
Your return if you managed to miss the 10 biggest down days: +21%
Your return if you managed to miss the 10 biggest positive days: -9%
This is totally hypothetical. No one is that good or bad at market timing.
But it illustrates the key point: Everyone wants to be the superman or superwoman with the 21% return and miss all the worst days. But what you really want to avoid is being the person who missed out on the gains.
4) Get a long-term plan and stick to it. If you are worried about the stock market right now, the best use of your time is to make sure you have the right plan.
Do you have the right mix of stocks and bonds and other assets?
"The typical long-term investor who has most of his or her investments in a retirement account of some sort needs to a) have a plan and b) stick with the plan," says Timmer.
From time to time, investors should look at their portfolios and ask if they need to rebalance. Given the phenomenal rise of equities since March of 2009, it's possible that you need to trim your stock allocation a bit.
But be wary of throwing out the entire game plan. Stocks still give the best return by far over the long run.
As humans, we worry a lot about those down days. But we forget that the bigger risk is missing the upswings.
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3) What the Next Two Awful Years Will Look Like
e things to fear about a Republican Congress
By Rebecca Leber, Naomi Shavin, and Elaine Ten
The Gutting of Dodd-Frank
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 )LEAVING a US ALLY OUTGUNNED by ISIS
In President Obama ’s Sept. 11 speech about combating Islamic State jihadists, he said that America “will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq.” But the president said that U.S. military advisers “are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.”
If this is the plan, little in terms of weaponry or training has reached Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq—and they are begging Washington to make good on its promises.
In the meantime, in the front-line town Khazar, between Islamic State-held Mosul and the Kurdish capital, Erbil, Peshmerga forces drive unarmored pickup trucks and carry AK-47s as they face off against Islamic State, aka ISIS, fighters armed with U.S.-made tanks, armored Humvees and heavy artillery. The imbalance is replicated across the entire border of almost 650 miles that Kurds share with ISIS in Iraq.
In three trips to the Kurdistan Region since ISIS invaded Iraq in early June, I have seen the situation improve as a result of U.S.-led airstrikes, but little has changed in terms of the supply of equipment and training for our Kurdish allies.
The coalition that supports the airstrikes should take immediate action to provide the Peshmerga with the offensive and defensive equipment they need to match the firepower of ISIS. Failing to do so increases the likelihood—despite President Obama’s vows not to involve U.S. forces—that America and other coalition countries, which include France, Australia and the U.K., will have to send in troops to defeat ISIS.
In a letter sent on Oct. 2 to U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that until now has not been made public, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Minister of Peshmerga Affairs Mustafa Sayid Qadir pleaded for help, saying that his forces still carry “outdated AK-47s, Soviet Dragunov rifles and other light arms.”
The letter, which I was given access to by the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, tabulated the surprisingly small amount of equipment received from international allies. In addition to AK-47s, the U.S. has provided fewer than 100 mortars and just a few hundred rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs. The Peshmerga haven’t received a single tank or armored vehicle from coalition countries. The problem is compounded by the fact that Iraqi security forces denied the Peshmerga access to the thousands of tanks and armored vehicles the U.S. left behind for Iraq when the military pulled out in 2011. Meanwhile, ISIS fighters have commandeered U.S.-provided tanks and Humvees abandoned by Iraqi forces fleeing from battle.
The U.S. effort to arm and train Peshmerga forces is hindered by at least three factors. First, U.S. diplomats continue to follow the so-called One Iraq Policy, which considers giving direct assistance to the Kurdistan Regional Government—whether military or nonmilitary—a potential blow to Iraqi national unity. Whatever U.S. interest this policy may have served in the years before ISIS emerged, it now endangers our closest ally in Iraq and puts Peshmerga forces at a significant disadvantage in their fight against ISIS.
Second, the U.S. continues to abide by the Iraqi government’s insistence that all shipments to the Kurds stop first in Baghdad, where Iraqi officials can delay or even block the shipments from ever reaching the Kurdisstan
Region.
Third, State Department regulations prevent the Kurdistan Regional Government from purchasing American-made weapons and equipment without “end-user certificates” issued by Baghdad—certificates that the Iraqi government makes extremely difficult to obtain.
The Kurdistan Regional Government estimates it has more than 150,000 soldiers in the Peshmerga forces—about five times more than the highest estimates of ISIS fighters. The Peshmerga are committed to fighting ISIS and can be the “boots on the ground” that the U.S.-led coalition wants to avoid having to deploy. Yet they are struggling against ISIS because they lack even basic tactical equipment used by modern armies. Peshmerga Brig. Gen. Hazhar Ismail recently told me that less than 5% of the Peshmerga fighters even have helmets.
The U.S. can change this situation by: (1) supplying the Kurds with heavier weapons and needed defensive equipment, in particular armored Humvees, tanks and anti-armor rockets; (2) refusing to let Baghdad delay or block such shipments; (3) changing State Department regulations to permit issuance of end-user certificates by the Kurdistan Regional Government; and, (4) transferring to the Kurds some excess U.S. military equipment (including armored vehicles) stored on U.S. bases in the region.
In his Sept. 16 testimony to Congress, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey suggested that American ground troops may eventually be needed to fight ISIS. His message was met with criticism by those who oppose sending U.S. troops into combat in Iraq again. To reduce the chances of Washington having to confront that choice, the U.S. should make good on its promises and ensure that the Peshmerga are no longer outgunned by ISIS.
Mr. Tafuri, the U.S. State Department’s rule of law coordinator in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, is a partner at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Squire Patton Boggs. He serves as legal counsel to the Kurdistan Regional Government.
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