Eric Cantor Defeated by Dave Brat, Tea Party Challenger, in Primary Upset

Very disturbing and close to home for me

Well, i'm sure this will turn out to be a ridiculous shit show that most of our public rampage shootings are. Sadly, this has everything a liberal would hope for in terms of shock value and I'm sure I will see some stupid ass headline in the Daily Koz pointing to it. Surely, most of our public shooters have mental illness. Yet, it continues to baffle me that we cannot come to the very simple conclusion that this country is obsessed with it's personal anger and with it's equally obsessive belief that it is somehow persecuted to the point of having no freedom. This story flat out disgusts me. If this shit is really true about throwing the Don't Tread on Me Flag on the bodies of the slain officers, I hope it finally starts to wake people up to how fucking whacked a certain segment of our society has become. Oh, and what about the guy with the concealed weapon who walked up and promptly got himself killed?

I don't fear guns, but I very much live in fear of scared people who possess guns.

Eye rolls in Washington

FORT WORTH, Texas — The stage was set for a clash of political titans as three likely presidential candidates and thousands of conservatives gathered here this weekend.
Instead, the Texas GOP convention turned into a blowout bash for Ted Cruz.

The Texas senator was introduced at times as “the next president of the United States.” His speeches were punctuated by chants of “Run, Ted, run!” and supporters mobbed him at his huge exhibition booth. Cruz easily overshadowed fellow potential 2016ers at the event, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and he dominated them in a presidential straw poll held there.

 Cruz’s soaring rhetoric and near-apocalyptic talk about saving the nation, which engenders eye rolls in Washington, brought crowds here to their feet. People responded to the freshman senator’s speeches with “amens;” a “you da man” or two. But the most fervid responses often came when he hinted about his future plans.
“I tell you this: as good as 2014 is gonna be, 2016 is gonna be even better,” Cruz said at the Defense of Texas Marriage event.
Cruz reveled in dinging D.C. The hash tag #makedclisten, popularized by the Cruz team during the shutdown, was plastered on the senator’s posters, and Cruz remarked in his keynote speech on Friday that Ronald Reagan was “despised” by Washington in 1980.
“I hope we see leaders who are willing to suffer the scorn of Washington,” he told reporters later when asked about 2016. “I will say this: Any candidate who is embraced by Washington, D.C., my advice to the people is, run and hide, ‘cause that ain’t how we’re turning this country around.”
In sheer size and noise, the Texas GOP convention made the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington look like a staid gathering of moderate Republicans. The head count as of Friday night was about 7,000 and rising.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/ted-cruz-107566.html#ixzz349RvFQfk

Rand Paul Prisoner Swap

"Mr. President, you love to trade people," Paul said Friday at the Texas GOP convention, according to Politico. “Why don’t we set up a trade? But this time, instead of five Taliban, how about five Democrats? I’m thinking John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, couldn’t we send them to Mexico?”


Paul later said that it was just a joke, except for Pelosi, you can swap her.

Kochs

Dear Rick,

I’m starting to feel like a parrot: “ANOTHER KOCH ATTACK! ANOTHER KOCH ATTACK!”

It’s not even a full sentence. But it gets the point across -- another Koch-affiliated group is attacking Kay on North Carolina television.

With all these attacks, we’re surpassing $16 MILLION spent to defeat Kay. More than any other Senate race in the country.

But my feathers aren’t ruffled -- because I know Kay isn’t backing down. And I know all of you are willing to help her fight back.

U.S.Employment back to pre crisis levels.

U.S. Adds 217,000 Jobs in May, Unemployment Rate Stays at 6.3%

By Dunstan Prial

Published June 06, 2014

FOXBusiness

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The U.S. added 217,000 jobs in May as labor markets seem to be gaining the kind of sustained momentum that has proven elusive as the economy has struggled to recover from the 2008 financial crisis.
The headline unemployment rate was 6.3%, according to figures released Friday by the Labor Department. That rate is the same as in April, when 288,000 jobs were created, far more than had been expected.
Economists had predicted an addition of 218,000 jobs in May and that the unemployment rate would tick higher to 6.4%.
With May's additions the economy has now recovered all of the 8.7 million jobs lost during the recession that followed the crisis.
Since the crisis the economic recovery has occurred in fits and starts, with key sectors such as labor and housing appearing to gain traction only to stumble repeatedly. The May report suggests sustained momentum in the labor sector because it represents the fourth consecutive month in which more than 200,000 jobs were created.
The monthly average for jobs created during the past year now stands at 197,000, just below the 200,000 figure many economists have said would make a significant dent in the unemployment rate.
“The report is hardly shock and awe because it met expectations. But … it supports the theory that the economy is getting stronger following the cold, raw winter we just had, which accounts for the  -1% (first quarter) GDP,” said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital LP in New York.
“The wild card is wage growth, though. It's nonexistent, and it will bring the minimum wage argument back to the front pages,” he added.
For months economists have been digging deeper into the Labor Department’s monthly employment report, looking for significant indicators of strength beyond the headline unemployment rate and the number of jobs created.
The labor force participation rate, a key gauge of the percentage of working-age Americans currently employed, has come under close scrutiny as large numbers of workers have left the workforce each month either due to retirement or out of frustration in finding a decent job.
The labor force participation rate was unchanged in May, at 62.8%, the Labor Department reported. The participation rate hasn’t moved much since October but is down by 0.6% during the past year.
The tepid labor force participation rate, which has hovered for months at its lowest level in four decades, is a primary reason the unemployment rate has fallen rapidly in the years since the recession ended in 2009.
David Kelly, chief global strategist for JPMorgan Funds, said weakness in the labor force participation rate is a reminder of “some sluggish U.S. economic fundamentals.”
“Lack of investment spending in recent years has sapped productivity growth while the retirement of the baby-boom is largely responsible for the weakness in labor force growth and neither of these problems are likely to be remedied over the next few years,” Kelly said ahead of the release of Friday’s labor report.
Given the Fed’s heightened interest in inflation recently, economists are currently keeping a close eye on monthly wage figures.
In May, average hourly earnings for all non-farm employees rose by 5 cents to $24.38. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.1%, slightly higher than the Fed’s target inflation rate.
Wages were essentially stagnant in April, a situation that gave pause to economists.
It will now be up to the Fed to scrutinizing the May report to determine whether April’s leveling off was an anomaly or an indication that wages are in a holding pattern, which would be bad for the overall economy especially in terms of what it means for inflation.
Because the headline unemployment rate has proven misleading as an indicator for the health of the broader economy, the Fed has increasingly focused on the inflation rate to determine future policy decisions such as raising interest rates.
Inflation has hovered at 1% for months, a full percentage point below the Fed’s target rate of 2%. Central bank policy makers have said they won’t start raising interest rates until inflation approaches that target.
Wages will play a key role in pushing inflation higher toward the Fed’s desired threshold. When wages move higher workers spend more money, which creates demand for goods and ultimately pushes prices higher. All of these elements are signs of a strengthening economy, just what the Fed needs to begin raising interest rates.

Congress Abetted the IRS Targeting

Congress Abetted the IRS Targeting of Conservatives

We've filed a Senate ethics complaint against nine Senators who prodded the agency to silence opponents.

By

Bradley A. Smith And

David Keating

June 2, 2014 7:27 p.m. ET

On Monday the Center for Competitive Politics filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics against nine U.S. senators: for interfering with IRS tax proceedings; for misusing official resources for campaign purposes; and for improper conduct that reflects poorly upon the Senate. Attempting to use the IRS to advance a partisan, electoral agenda is a fundamental assault on good government. We believe these elected officials have staged such an assault.

The complaint documents how the senators improperly interfered with IRS adjudications to further their party's electoral prospects. They pressured the IRS to undertake income-tax investigations of specific organizations, to find that specific organizations were in violation of the law, to reach predetermined results pertaining to pending applications by individual organizations for nonprofit status, and to adopt specific regulatory interpretations and policies to further their campaign goals.

A year ago in May it became public knowledge that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative organizations. Republicans have since attempted to find a "smoking gun" directly linking the scandal to the White House. That likely does not exist, because that's not the way these things are done. Meanwhile, their quest has helped enable the press to ignore obvious abuses of power emanating from the Senate.

After the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision on Jan. 21, 2010, Democrats adopted a campaign strategy of attempting to squelch the speech of conservative groups. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.)—named in our complaint—introduced the so-called Disclose Act, saying on Feb. 11 that it would make targeted speakers "think twice" before speaking out. "The deterrent effect should not be underestimated," he added.

At campaign fundraisers in the summer of 2010, President Obama repeatedly denounced conservative organizations for "running millions of dollars of attack ads against Democratic candidates," identifying Americans for Prosperity by name. On Aug. 27 the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a complaint with the IRS against Americans for Prosperity.

Senate Democrats twice failed, on straight party-line votes, to end a filibuster of the Disclose Act. Mr. Obama told Democratic donors that they had "tried to fix" the problem but failed.

The attempt to silence opponents through legislation may be ugly, but such hardball politics are not a violation of Senate ethics rules. After failing to pass Disclose, however, the senators in our complaint began a pattern of improper conduct aimed at pressuring the IRS to harass and investigate their political opponents.

Senators may inquire about agency practices and operations. But they cross an ethical line when they interfere in pending tax exemption applications or pressure an agency to investigate or prosecute specific organizations.

Just days after the final defeat of the Disclose Act in October 2010, Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.)—another senator in our complaint—wrote to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman on his official letterhead to demand that the IRS "quickly examine the tax status of Crossroads GPS," a major conservative nonprofit.

Mr. Durbin accused Crossroads GPS of breaking the law. He later admitted to Chris Wallace on Fox News that he sought the investigation because "they were boastful about how much money they were going to raise and beat Democrats with."

Pressure on the IRS increased after the 2010 midterm Republican landslide. Mr. Schumer stated in one speech, "It's clear we're not going to pass anything legislatively," due to "Republican control" of the House. "But there are many things that can be done by the IRS . . . and we have to redouble our efforts. We have not worked hard enough on this." In a letter to the IRS on March 12, 2012, Mr. Schumer urged the service to investigate various groups identified through reference to news articles.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin wrote at least seven letters to the IRS, and demanded that it investigate specific nonprofits. The IRS's failure to launch these investigations, he wrote in one, was "unacceptable." Mr. Levin also sought confidential nonprofit tax return information from the IRS, even after being warned, repeatedly, by IRS Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement Steven T. Miller, that such information could not be legally divulged.

These are just a few examples of abuse of power for electoral gain. The other six senators named in the complaint are Michael Bennet (D., Colo.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), Al Franken (D., Minn.), Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.), Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) and Tom Udall (D., N.M.). Under the Senate Ethics Committee rules, when such a complaint is received—including by private individuals—"The Committee shall promptly commence a preliminary inquiry . . . of such duration and scope as is necessary" to find whether ethics rules were violated.

There is ample evidence that these efforts affected IRS policy, but the senators' behavior is improper even if it did not. Senate rules require that the Ethics Committee take action. And we as citizens must make sure that the IRS is not abused by Democrats or Republicans for partisan electoral gain.

Mr. Smith is chair and Mr. Keating is president of the Center for Competitive Politics.

Military Spending as a Percent of GDP

As Obama just announced an increase in our military expenditures in Europe, I was wondering how our total military budget compares to the rest of the world.  Here is the answer from the CIA. The biggest spenders are all in the Middle East (surprised?). The European countries generally trail the pack. 


https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

Al Gore commencement speech at Princeton today. Did Global Warming cause Bill to cheat on Hillary?

Global Warming Makes Couples Cheat, Says Dating Website

By Ciara LaVelle Wed., May 28 2014 at 9:00 AM

69 Comments

Categories: Sex/Fetish

Helga Weber/Flickr

If you're married in Miami, you might want to get out of town this summer. No, not to avoid the hurricanes -- to avoid a nasty divorce. A new report blames global warming for rising rates of infidelity, especially bad news for couples in Miami, where rising tides and raging hurricanes remind us all how much extracurricular sex we could be having on a daily basis.
See also: Rolling Stone Predicts Miami Will Be Underwater By 2030
Victoria Milan, a dating website for people looking to cheat on their significant other, surveyed 5,000 of its members, both men and women. A shocking 72 percent of them responded that yes, their own Al Gore-esque stress about unpredictable weather is the cause of their extramarital dalliances. Guess the fact of their existing committed relationships was just an inconvenient truth.
Survey respondents also reported they're more likely to sneak a little on the side in hot weather than in cold. That makes sense -- after all, which would you say is sexier, a steamy Miami day or a polar vortex?
"Summer loving is something everyone experiences when they're growing up, and the excitement and thrill of doing something a bit naughty never fades," Victoria Milan's CEO and founder, Sigurd Vedal, explains in a statement. "It's no surprise that one half of a couple feels the itch when the weather warms up."
So let's recap: Hot, unpredictable weather makes for unfaithful partners. Just when you thought your hope of finding true love in Miami had hit rock bottom, a story like this comes along to prove there's even farther to fall. But hey, we'll all be underwater in 15 years anyway, right?

The perfidy of our administration.

Recently the administration traded 5 dangerous detainees held by the US and traded them for 1 American serviceman.  Did the administration break the law by not working with congress informing them of the potential release of dangerous criminals?

There is no doubt to the detainees.  They have been transferred to Qatar and will be closely monitored for 1 year.  Then what?

What did the US get in return?
The real question is whether he is a hero or a deserter. Significantly, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel pointedly declines to say whether he believes that Bergdahl was attempting to desert the Army or go AWOL when he suddenly left his unit in Afghanistan in 2009 and disappeared. E-mails he sent prior to his capture surfaced in 2012 in Rolling Stone and indicated that he had been considering desertion.

As George Stephanopoulos stated:
This was moving so fast, they couldn’t talk to the Congress. But they also say the president, when he signed this law, said he had the constitutional authority not to live by it, that he had the constitutional authority to go around Congress and simply do what he needed to do to get the detainees back to their home countries.

But Hagel says those facts are immaterial to the decision to engage in the controversial prisoner swap. “Our first priority is assuring his well-being and his health and getting him reunited with his family,” he told reporters. “Other circumstances that may develop and questions — those will be dealt with later.”  What an amazing turn around from Benghazi where nothing was done for the 4 murdered Americans and nothing done to date to bring those to justice for the murders.

The Obama administration’s consistently cavalier attitude toward the rule of law — whether regarding the IRS scandal, Fast and Furious, Obamacare, immigration, or the repeated refusal to answer congressional subpoenas — is profoundly disturbing.  When is a law a law?  A law is a law when Obama likes it and suits his needs, it isn't when he chooses to ignore it.  What can congress do?  Nothing as they lack standing to sue in court.  This like the ACA has set new precedent for the coming future presidents.  I suspect the Democrats will lament the day Obama changed the paradigm of government rule of law.