Each To His Own Ability.....

All the arguments advanced in favor of income equalization within a country can with the same justification or lack of justification also be advanced in favor of world equalization.  An American worker has no better title to claim the savings of the American capitalist than has any foreigner.  That a man has earned profits by serving the consumers and has not entirely consumed his funds but ploughed back the greater part of them into industrial equipment does not give anybody a valid title to expropriate this capital for his own benefit.  But if one maintains the opinion to the contrary, there is certainly no reason to ascribe to anybody a better right to expropriate than to anybody else.  There is no reason to assert that only Americans have the right to expropriate other Americans.

Ludwig von Mises -“Profit and Loss

Keep in mind that by Credit Suisse estimates that if your net worth is just $3700 (this is all assets minus debt including home equity and resale value of all personal items) you are wealthier than 50% of the world population.  If you have net assets that total just $71,000 you immediately go into the top 10% of the world’s wealthiest.   How’s about some of that wealth distribution from your inordinately high standard of living?... and while you are at it, if you want uncontrolled immigration, why don’t you volunteer to give up a bedroom or two...

The Polticians Tackle Ebola

Ebola has arrived in the United States, and our nation’s leaders are wasting no time. They’re consulting experts, holding hearings, and demanding action. Politicians across the spectrum are united in a common goal: exploiting the crisis to win the next election.

William Saletan

Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right.

It’s a tricky maneuver, because they don’t know much about Ebola. But they know their shticks, and that’s enough. With a tweak here and a twist there, they can shoehorn Ebola into their customary talking points. Here are the emerging favorites.

1. The war on Ebola is like the war on terror. After an ugly decade in Iraq, some Republicans took a break to dabble in civil libertarianism. Now they’re ready to get back to being the Daddy Party. President Obama is “not protecting our country and our families from Ebola,” says Rep. Tom Cotton, the Republican Senate candidate in Arkansas. Cotton promises to “rebuild our military and keep your family safe and secure, whether the threat is terrorism or disease.”

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2. Obama has no strategy. When Obama admitted he was thinking through his options against ISIS, Republicans turned his remark into a gaffe. Now they’re applying the same spin to Ebola. Rep. Cory Gardner, the Republican senatorial nominee in Colorado, says Obama has no “strategy to deal with the Ebola virus.” Thom Tillis, the GOP’s candidate for senator in North Carolina, says Obama has “no plan” to stop people who would “come to this nation and threaten our safety and security.” On Thursday, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Tim Murphy convened a hearing on Ebola. He opened it by bashing Obama’s “failed policy” and the “demonstrated failures of the current strategy.”

3. Obama thinks Ebola is the JV. First he called ISIS the junior varsity of terrorism. Then he downplayed Ebola as a junior virus. Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Virginia, chides Obama for having discounted the risk of Ebola reaching the United States. So does Bobby Schilling, a Republican House candidate in Illinois. At Thursday’s hearing, Michigan Republican Rep. Fred Upton sarcastically applauded Obama for leaving the campaign trail “to finally focus on the crisis.”

Republicans are delivering the same precooked talking points they used for Iraq and Syria for the Ebola crisis.

4. We’re on the case. Having ignored Ebola until it reached the United States, elected officials are scrambling to look as though they’re on the ball. The first step is to say you’ve talked to an expert. The number of politicians who claim to have spoken in the last week with Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is almost mathematically impossible. But if you can’t get Frieden on the phone, go to Plan B. In a debate on Wednesday, Gardner told voters he had talked to a nurse. Wendy Davis, the Democratic nominee for governor of Texas, where the virus had arrived from Liberia, said she had talked to a county judge. Don’t worry, said Davis: Everything’s under control. That was two weeks ago. Oops.

5. Screen all passengers. If Ebola is just like terrorism, the solution is obvious: airport security. At Thursday’s hearing, Murphy portrayed Ebola carriers as infiltrators, noting that they could mask their fevers with ibuprofen to sneak through checkpoints. Republicans on the committee complained that screening 94 percent of passengers wasn’t good enough: Everyone had to be checked. Democrats don’t seem inclined to resist the GOP’s demands. “I don’t think any measure is too extreme,” says state Sen. Connie Johnson, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Oklahoma.

6. Ban West Africans. Before the Ebola hearing, Republicans were clamoring for a ban on travel to the United States from the affected countries. Frieden and other health officials testified that this was a bad idea, in part because it could easily be circumvented (by stopping over in Europe), and it might force carriers to hide their symptoms. Republicans were unmoved. After the hearing, they went straight to the TV cameras and delivered precooked talking points they had imported from Iraq and Syria. With colleagues arrayed behind him, Upton called for a “no-fly zone from that region of the world.”

All is not rosy here in this Boomtown, the Truth about Williston from people who deal with it.

(North Dakota ranks last on a recent nationwide survey of worker safety, with 12.4 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2011, versus a national average of 3.5.)

 The first symptom was a rash on Jacki Schilke’s nose. It appeared late in the winter of 2009 and was soon followed by a flood of other health problems afflicting Schilke, her husband, their dog, and many of the animals on their 160-acre ranch near Williston, North Dakota -- a tiny town in the state’s northwest corner that has become the epicenter of the recent Great Plains oil and gas boom. Winters are long and cold here, and animals die from time to time; that’s just a fact of life on the dry, hilly prairie. Long hours in the fields, together with a second job, can wear a body down. Schilke’s face shows it in hard lines and weathered skin. At 53, she’s short and sturdy, with a ponytail of straw-colored hair. She says she’s always been healthy. But since that winter, her body, along with everything and everyone around her, seems to have deteriorated. Schilke lost 25 pounds in the summer of 2009 and started having trouble breathing. She had constant diarrhea and would get lightheaded. Her husband Steve’s asthma worsened, frequently leaving him tired and short of breath. The couple began getting unusual muscle aches. The following winter, Jacki got another rash, a quarter-sized spot on her leg that wouldn’t go away. She visited a neurologist who couldn’t explain what was happening. She noticed an ammonia-like smell in the house and started looking for a source, thinking that might be what was making them sick. "Hell, I hauled shit out of here by truckloads," Jacki says. "I threw everything away. There wasn’t even a bottle of cleaner left in this house." In June 2010, the couple’s Yorkie, Blue, got bloody diarrhea and started coughing up mucus. They had to put him to sleep a few days later. Soon after, the water from a well they used for their animals started bubbling, "like 7UP." Then the creek behind the house started bubbling, too, with a frothy film forming on the water’s surface and white residue appearing on the creek bank. The Schilkes started hauling water in from town. In August, Jacki was out feeding her bull one morning when she lost strength and fell to her knees. From that spot, she could see a giant drilling rig across the property line, a few thousand feet from her house. "It just kind of clicked," she says. While the Schilkes and their animals were suffering from one ailment after another, oil companies were establishing new wells ever closer to their home. At the beginning of 2009, Brigham Oil and Gas began putting in a series of wells about nine miles south, along the route that Jacki often took to Williston, where she managed a bar until she became too sick. That summer Brigham drilled a well six miles to the west of the Schilkes’s ranch, and another one six miles to the south. In January 2010, Oasis Petroleum began drilling the first of two wells a couple of miles to the east. Finally, Oasis put in two wells right on the edge of the Schilkes’s property. There are now dozens of wells in the area, including four within a mile of their home, each sporting gas flares billowing smoke into the sky.

Oil extracted from wells ringing Williston, North Dakota, helped push the state’s surplus to a record $1.6 billion and generate the nation’s lowest jobless rate. Drilling also left the city broke. While the U.S. Census counts about 16,000 residents, Williston says it provides services to more than 38,000, including workers living in temporary camps, hotels, and even vehicles. Keeping up with the load is spurring budget gaps that will deplete rainy-day funds, according to Standard & Poor’s, which cut city debt to BBB+ in December, three steps above junk. The $5.8 million of debt the city sold in December for water and sewer work is a fraction of the $625 million officials say they need for roads, the airport, water supplies and other facilities to handle the Bakken oil boom. The issue, which is exempt from state taxes, included debt due in May 2019 priced to yield 1.5 percent, about 0.75 percentage point above benchmark municipal securities, data compiled by Bloomberg show.“Williston is the epicenter of this and it’s been, to some extent, destroyed,” said state Representative Robert Skarphol, whose district encompasses part of the city. The Republican has sponsored a bill that would return more oil revenue to Williston.

WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — An oil well near the town of Tioga, North Dakota continued to leak oil, gas and fracking fluid on Monday, days after authorities learned about the problem, a local official said.

The well is owned by Denver-based Emerald Oil.


Williams County emergency coordinator Mike Hallesy said he was notified Friday evening of the spill in the western North Dakota's oil patch and that the leak hadn't stopped. The Department of Mineral Resources said the incident occurred at the Ron Burgundy 3-23-14H well, around eight miles northwest of Tioga. Hallesy said that the site's wellhead failed during hydraulic fracturing, the process of a pressurized mix of water, sand and chemicals into a well to fracture rocks and promote the flow of oil and gas.

Alison Ritter, a public information officer with the Department of Mineral Resources, said the well is protected by a confidentiality agreement. As a result, she said, her office could disclose only the name of the well, its general location, its owner and that a spill had occurred. Information about confidential wells is withheld from the public for up to six months.

Life in a fracking boomtown: man-camps, meth labs, strippers, and the gas gold rush In a country with an unofficial underemployment rate of 20%, the tiny railroad whistle-stop of Williston, North Dakota near the Montana border (population 17,000 and spiking) is currently at capacity: There’s not a motel room to be had in the city, housing prices are double what they were a year ago ($300,000 for a two-bedroom home), and the daily onslaught of new arrivals is reduced to living in their cars, RVs, sporadic tent cities or the rapidly proliferating “man camps” – clusters of trailers in an open field that pack in oil patch workers dormitory style, sometimes six to a room. Access to running water and simple sanitation is so rare that public businesses have had to lock their bathrooms to discourage makeshift sponge baths or the dumping of wastewater

The co-op has decided to sell 20 percent of its water to frackers to help keep prices low and pay back state loans. That has not gone down well with the Independent Water Providers, a loose confederation of ranchers, farmers and small businesses that for years has supplied fracking water. Since opening in January, the co-op has tried to limit the power of the confederation with an aggressive legal and lobbying strategy. The Independent Water Providers have fought back, arguing that the co-op shouldn't be selling fracking water at all. The state Legislature stepped in with a law last month designed to quell the tension and nurture competition, but industry observers expect the acrimony to continue."When all of us had nothing (before the oil boom), there was nothing to fight about," said Dan Kalil, a longtime commissioner in Williams County, home to many oil and natural gas wells. "Now, so many friendships have been destroyed because of water and oil."

By Patrick J. Kiger

For National Geographic

Published November 11, 2013

It's well known that water has been key to the shale oil and gas rush in the United States. But in one center of the hydraulic fracturing boom—North Dakota—authorities are finding that the initial blast of water to frack the wells is only the beginning.

The wells being drilled into the prairie to tap into the Bakken shale need "maintenance water"—lots of it—to keep the oil flowing.

So while the water first pumped down the hole to crack rock formations and release the underground oil and natural gas typically totals 2 million gallons (7.5 million liters) per well, each of North Dakota's wells is daily drinking down an average of more than 600 gallons (2,300 liters) in maintenance water, according to recent calculations by North Dakota's Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).

Over the life of the well, which authorities presume will be 30 to 40 years, maintenance water needs could add up to 6.6 million to 8.8 million gallons (25 to 33.3 million liters)—or more than three to four times the water required for the initial fracking.

North Dakota DMR Director Lynn Helms addressed the maintenance water issue in a taped address earlier this fall at the annual meeting of the North Dakota Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties.  "What we're beginning to realize is that these . . . wells will need freshwater for maintenance over their life," Helms was quoted as saying in a report on the presentation in the local newspaper, the Dickinson Press. The implications for water demand are significant in a state that gets less than 13 inches of rainfall each year in its driest areas, and ranks among the bottom 10 states for precipitation. In 2012, the Bakken oil industry used about 5.5 billion gallons (209 billion liters) of water—more than the amount used by the 110,000 inhabitants of Fargo, the state's biggest city. When the Bakken is fully developed in the next 10 to 20 years, the oil and gas play's 40,000 to 45,000 wells may need to consume roughly double that amount—as much as 10.2 billion gallons per year (28 million gallons each day)-in maintenance water to keep the oil flowing, according to a July 2013 DMR presentation to the North Dakota legislature.   The implications for water demand are significant in a state that gets less than 13 inches of rainfall each year in its driest areas, and ranks among the bottom 10 states for precipitation. In 2012, the Bakken oil industry used about 5.5 billion gallons (209 billion liters) of water—more than the amount used by the 110,000 inhabitants of Fargo, the state's biggest city. When the Bakken is fully developed in the next 10 to 20 years, the oil and gas play's 40,000 to 45,000 wells may need to consume roughly double that amount—as much as 10.2 billion gallons per year (28 million gallons each day)-in maintenance water to keep the oil flowing, according to a July 2013 DMR presentation to the North Dakota legislature.

In sparsely populated rural areas, the addition of even relatively few jobs can have a big impact, they say. But the first thing to watch is that industry and media reports tend to overestimate the number of jobs that will come with shale oil and gas development:

an industry funded study authored by Considine et al. (2011) suggests that shale natural gas extraction was associated with 140,000 Pennsylvania jobs during 2010. A similar study by Kleinhenz & Associates (2011) predicted that the natural gas industry would create and support 200,000 jobs in Ohio by 2015, though drilling did not begin in earnest until 2012. These estimates, though large, pale in comparison to a recent study that finds California’s Monterey shale play could create up to 2.8 million jobs by 2020 (USC Global Energy Network, 2013; Vekshin and Nash, 2013). These predictions seem unrealistically high, especially when compared to what has actually happened in booming areas like North Dakota’s Bakken. That region added only 49,000 jobs from 2003 to 2012, and not all of that growth was necessarily related to energy development. That actual growth is a fraction of the growth projected in the industry-backed studies for Pennsylvania, Ohio and California.

Many impact studies also fail to account for possible offsetting negative effects from energy development that may offset the positive effects such as any crowding out of other economic activity that would have occurred otherwise (e.g., entrepreneurs outside of energy may try other locations with more stable labor markets). Higher prices (especially for housing) may also offset some of the benefits of higher wages potentially negatively affecting quality of life in the area. In addition, many of the benefits may trickle away to other areas due to commuting workers, purchases outside the region, and absentee landowners receiving the lease payments. Finally, perceived or real environmental degradation may frighten some current residents and potential residents away— especially in the long-run. The take-away is that communities should be wary of industry funded economic impact studies (regardless of the industry) and should try to verify economic impact estimates with independent experts.

Williston, North Dakota, for example, experienced an energy boom in the 1970s and early ’80s when oil prices peaked. But the boom was followed by a bust.

[After the bust,] Williston’s economy subsequently greatly lagged the U.S. up until the most recent shale boom. Williston (Williams County) did not surpass its 1981 peak in employment until 2010. Generally, poor long-term economic performance is common in extractive resource based economies. This natural resource curse has been documented at every level of geography from countries, to U.S. states and counties. Some reasons for this include weak or corrupt governance, lack of economic diversity, a weak climate for innovation and entrepreneurship in the broader economy, and a reduced human capital development.

Oil drilling has sparked a frenzied prosperity in Jeff Keller's formerly quiet corner of western North Dakota in recent years, bringing an infusion of jobs and reviving moribund local businesses.

But Keller, a natural resource manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, has seen a more ominous effect of the boom, too: Oil companies are spilling and dumping drilling waste onto the region's land and into its waterways with increasing regularity.

Hydraulic fracturing — the controversial process behind the spread of natural gas drilling — is enabling oil companies to reach previously inaccessible reserves in North Dakota, triggering a turnaround not only in the state's fortunes, but also in domestic energy production. North Dakota now ranks second behind only Texas in oil output nationwide.

The downside is waste — lots of it. Companies produce millions of gallons of salty, chemical-infused wastewater, known as brine, as part of drilling and fracking each well. Drillers are supposed to inject this material thousands of feet underground into disposal wells, but some of it isn't making it that far.

According to data obtained by ProPublica, oil companies in North Dakota reported more than 1,000 accidental releases of oil, drilling wastewater or other fluids in 2011, about as many as in the previous two years combined. Many more illicit releases went unreported, state regulators acknowledge, when companies dumped truckloads of toxic fluid along the road or drained waste pits illegally.

State officials say most of the releases are small. But in several cases, spills turned out to be far larger than initially thought, totaling millions of gallons. Releases of brine, which is often laced with carcinogenic chemicals and heavy metals, have wiped out aquatic life in streams and wetlands and sterilized farmland. The effects on land can last for years, or even decades.

Kris Roberts, who responds to spills for the Health Department, which protects state waters, agreed, but acknowledged that the state does not have the manpower to prevent or respond to illegal dumping.

The number of spill reports, which generally come from the oil companies themselves, nearly doubled from 2010 to 2011. Energy companies report their spills to the Department of Mineral Resources, which shares them with the Health Department. The two agencies work together to investigate incidents. In December, a stack of reports a quarter-inch thick piled up on Kris Roberts' desk. He received 34 new cases in the first week of that month alone. "Is it a big issue?" he said. "Yes, it is."

NEW TOWN, N.D. (AP) — Leaders of North Dakota's Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara nations say that while they are thankful for the money that oil has brought the once-impoverished Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, they are concerned about the environmental impact of drilling on their land.The Three Affiliated Tribes opened their third annual oil and gas conference Tuesday at the 4 Bears Casino in New Town, on the northwestern North Dakota reservation. One of the first speakers to take the stage, stationed next to a banner proclaiming "sovereignty by the barrel," was Mervin Packineau, a tribal councilman."Our economy is really looking good," he said. "But now it's time to turn around and start protecting our land, guys."

In February, the reservation's oil production accounted for more than a quarter of the state's daily total, according to the state's Department of Mineral Resources. Tribal officials say that would put the reservation among the top ten oil producers in the nation.

But the sentiments of some tribe members are far removed from the, "Drill, baby, drill," mantra printed on T-shirts for sale at gas station convenience stores elsewhere in the oil patch. It reflects what they say is a strong, personal connection to the land and their long history in a place where most residents didn't arrive until the start of the oil boom, about five years ago.

Recent oil spills and incidents involving the illegal dumping of oil production byproducts have highlighted the environmental risks associated with drilling.

I'm not anti-oil. ... I'm anti-irresponsible," he said.

Political Theater of the Absurd

You can't make this stuff up. Read it here: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2014-10-16/the-worst-campaign-in-america

Dr. Ben Carson

10 Things Every Black American Should Know About Dr. Ben Carson Before Forming Any Opinion of Him

By Demetrius Minor (18 hours ago) | Culture, Elections, Politics, World

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Dr. Ben Carson catapulted onto the national scene after providing an alternative to Obamacare at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, with President Obama looking on only a few feet away.
But it’s the story of where Carson came from and how he ended up where he is that is so captivating to many. Because his story is so transcending and uplifting, here are ten reasons why black Americans should give the presumed GOP presidential candidate a fair chance before judging him along partisan lines:

#1. Ben Carson came from nothing.

He grew up poor in Detroit and was raised by an uneducated single mother who pushed him to read by taking him to the library, learning the value of education early on. From the Blaze:

“One of the things that I used to do is, I used to love to memorize things. I memorized poems, memorized Bible verses,” he said.  “And other people didn’t know those things, and it began to make me feel that there was something special about me, and that I could learn things.”

#2. Carson believes he has affirmative action to thank for being accepted into Yale.

He once stated:

“In my mind, I was pretty hot stuff. Only after I got to Yale and became cognizant of my classmates’ many accomplishments did I realize that the admissions committee had taken a substantial risk on me and that I had been extended special consideration.”

#3. Carson took advantage of the opportunity and was accepted into medical school.

From Townhall:

“I was able to adjust to the academic rigors necessary to qualify for medical school admission at the University of Michigan. Medical school was transformative, and I was subsequently accepted into the selective neurosurgical residency at Johns Hopkins. By that time, no special considerations were expected or needed.”

#4. Carson played a role in the first successful operation of the removal of Siamese twins joined at the back of the head at birth in 1987.

From the NY Times:

“Dr. Carson said it was too early to predict how close to normal the boys would be when their recovery is complete, adding that a prognosis is complicated by their age. Many neurological tests require patients who are able to understand verbal instructions, he said.
*But he said brain scans have indicated there was no major visible damage to the frontal lobes of their brains, which are primarily responsible for mental functions.”

#5. Carson, along with his spouse Candy, started the Carson Scholars Fund (CSF).

In 1994, the CSF was created to award those in grades 4-11 who exemplified academic excellence and displayed humanitarian efforts in their communities. Because education is so important, the CSF serves as a conduit to those who are vying for the American dream to become a reality.

#6. There is a movie about Ben Carson.

How many of us can say there’s a movie depicting our lives? That’s pretty fascinating in itself.

#7. Carson is a cancer survivor.

In the midst of performing his surgical duties, Carson was informed that he had prostate cancer.
From ABC News:

“I have the ability to put things out of my mind, so I just put it out of my mind and finished the operation,” said Carson, 51. “But certainly, you know, that evening it did weigh heavily upon me as I began to realize that wow, I have cancer. The thing that bothered me was the fact that I would be leaving so many people behind.”

#8. Carson received the 2006 NAACP Spingarn Medal.

The NAACP awarded Carson its highest honor for his contributions to society and his involvement in academia and education.

#9. Carson was named “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress.

In 2001, the Library of Congress recognized Dr. Carson for his contributions to life. He joins Harry Belafonte, Bill Cosby, Tiger Woods and many others in this elite group.

#10. Carson was a recipient of the 2008 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honor given on behalf of the President of the United States.
From President George W. Bush:

“The story of our first recipient begins in a poor neighborhood in the heart of Detroit. This was an environment where many young people lost themselves to poverty and crime and violence. For a time, young Ben Carson was headed down that same path. Yet through his reliance on faith and family, he turned his life into a sharply different direction.”

As compelling as his journey has been, the bigger question looming is: Would it resonate among the African-American community? As a presidential candidate Carson would have to reach into uncharted territory. He would have to appeal to a culture that has voted primarily Democratic in elections.
As someone who grew up as part of the black community, it is apparent to me that many of its member suffer mightily from a lack of a father figure and the breakdown of the traditional family unit – and many people are looking for substance over rhetoric.
While Carson obviously would need to have his message transcend the color of his skin, he would also need to connect with blacks who are reluctant to identify themselves with the Republican base.
Could this happen? It’s possible. But it wouldn’t come easy. If he runs for president, Carson, who has never held political office before, would have to convince Americans of all races that his message is not only timely, but that he would surround himself with a core of people who are smart and equipped to tackle today’s most pressing issues.

Say it ain't so. Reported by the New Yawk Times.

NY Times Just Blasted Out of Existence Biggest Myth About George W. Bush & Iraq War

By Kyle Becker (9 hours ago) | Headlines, Nation, Politics, World

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US Army soldiers from 2-8 Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division wearing their full chemical protection suits at a possible site for weapons of mass destruction in the central Iraqi town of Baquba, 01 May 2003. (Photo credit: AFP/Getty)

It wasn’t the only justification for the Iraq War, but it certainly has often been held up as the biggest. Although it has been claimed before that chemical weapons had been found in Post-Hussein Iraq, due to new documents uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the New York Times is now reporting it in a piece, “The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons.”
While various news sources had reported the finding before, all assertions that Hussein had chemical weapons in some capacity (weapons-grade or not – they had been hidden from U.N. inspectors) were largely scoffed at as nothing more than supercilious bunk. Well, behold…
The news report from the Times explains the now not-secret revelation that there had been WMDs in Iraq, after all:

From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.

In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The NY Times even published a map of all the cases when American military troops were exposed to the formerly ‘non-existent’ weapons of mass destruction:

Graphic via New York Times.

As The Blaze’s Oliver Darcy pointed out, the WMD discoveries were kept partly hidden from Congress.

Retired Army major Jarrod Lampier, who was there when the U.S. military found 2,400 nerve agent rockets in 2006 — the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war – said of the finding’s import, “‘Nothing of significance’ is what I was ordered to say.”

WMDs in Iraq vindicated, just like the “no blood for (no) oil” myth debunked? You know this is going to get good on Twitter. And it is.

The obligatory sassy Tweet:
Snark factor says a lot:
This report definitely looks like ‘something of significance’ to those who were told there were no wmds in Iraq.
Justen Charters assisted with the creation of this report. This article was edited after publication.

The Latest From Chris Christie

This comes from Yahoo News:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he may run for office again once his time as governor is up — just not in the state of New Jersey.

"When I say I'm never running for public office in New Jersey again, I mean I'm never running for public office in New Jersey again," Christie said during a speech at the annual conference of the New Jersey NAACP Saturday. "The only job left for me to run for is United States Senate, and let me just say this: I would rather die than be in the United States Senate.

"I would be bored to death," the two-term Republican governor continued. "Could you imagine me, banging around that chamber with 99 other people, asking for a motion on the amendment in the subcommittee? Forget it. It would be over, everybody. You'd watch me just walk out and walk right into the Potomac River and drown. That would be it."

Boomtown, USA

Had a wonderful time in Williston, North Dakota, last night. Responsible resource development has led to a huge economic boom there. The chant "Drill, Baby, Drill" is understood and appreciated in North Dakota! They're showing America how to live and preserve the American dream by rockin' the Bakkan, showing how domestic energy brings prosperity and can lead to America's security. The city of Williston itself has tripled in size, and North Dakota oil production is up 445% since 2008. North Dakota now leads the nation in agriculture, oil, job creation, personal income growth and even “people's overall well-being.” They got there by responsibly utilizing all the God-given resources put here for mankind’s use.

Special thanks to our friend Rob Port for keeping us updated over the years about North Dakota’s tremendous progress. Rob grew up in Alaska and was the little brother of my friend and basketball teammate, Katy Port. Back then “Robbie” was just a cute little kid coming with us on basketball trips, entertaining us with his toddler sense of humor. Now he's a big shot blogger in North Dakota with his "Say Anything" blog being the state's most popular political blog and one of the top conservative blogs in the nation!
The event in Williston was a fundraiser for Trinity Christian School. Got to meet some of the nicest salt of the earth people from the heartland. It was great to see David Barton (who also spoke at the event), as well as the musical entertainment provided by Ernie Haase and Signature Sound. Trinity Christian School is doing a wonderful job living the message in Proverbs 22:6, which instructs us to: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”
Thank you again to everyone who made last night’s event possible. North Dakota, keep up the good work! You’re leading by example with responsible energy development, balanced budgets and positive pro-life legislation.
- Sarah Palin

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And a related story

 

White People Make Up 42% of the Poor, But Take in Whopping 69% of Government Benefits

If you pay any attention to right wing media, then you know that folks on the right are obsessed with unraveling the safety net, mostly because they believe that the safety net benefits mostly black and brown people:

• All of the candidates delighted in calling President Obama the food stamp president during the 2012 campaign.
• Also during the campaign, Rick Santorum said “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money.”
• Newt Gingrich famously added, “I will tell black people to demand paychecks instead of food stamps.”

As we edge closer to Obama making some ‘grand bargain’ to cut Social Security and Medicare, it is important to remember that the vast majority of people who receive government benefits are white. In fact, whites receive a disproportionate amount of benefits.
The Economix blog at the New York Times reported the following in February of last year:

Another finding of the study is that the distribution of benefits no longer aligns with the demography of poverty. African-Americans, who make up 22 percent of the poor, receive 14 percent of government benefits, close to their 12 percent population share.
White non-Hispanics, who make up 42 percent of the poor, receive 69 percent of government benefits – again, much closer to their 64 percent population share.

Read that again. It says blacks comprise 22 percent of the poor, but blacks only take in 14 percent of government benefits. Conversely,  whites make up 42 percent of the poor , but take in a disproportionate 69 percent of government benefits. 
If Republicans cut these programs, as part of the sequester or any other backdoor maneuver, their issue will be with their own base, not blacks. Although, I’m not yet convinced that some white right wingers wouldn’t starve themselves if it meant robbing a black or brown person of a spoonful of broth.

Leave it to Thom Tillis: the republican creed is revealed

    

Thom Tillis speaks to supporters at a election night rally in Charlotte, N.C., after winning the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate Tuesday, May 6, 2014. Chuck Burton/AP

Republican Senate hopeful equated welfare and ‘reparations’

10/14/14 09:28 AM  By Steve Benen

North Carolina’s state legislature considered a resolution in 2007 expressing formal regret for the state’s previous support for slavery. Republican Thom Tillis, now the state House Speaker and a U.S. Senate candidate, supported the resolution.

 But as Daniel Strauss reported, Tillis issued a statement at the time elaborating on his perspective, connecting the resolution to his concerns about “reparations.”

“This measure does not obligate legislative members to provide reparations. A subset of the democrat [sic] majority has never ceased to propose legislation that is de facto reparations and they will continue to do so as long as they are in the majority,” Tillis said. “Federal and State [sic] governments have redistributed trillions of dollars of wealth over the years by funding programs that are at least in part driven by their belief that we should provide additional reparations.”

 

“I believe there are several conservative democrats [sic] who are prepared join Republican [sic] in OPPOSITION to measures that propose new entitlements and reparations,” Tillis added. “However, a vote against the resolution would most likely eliminate any chance that we would get support from more conservative members of the democrat party [sic] members to oppose such measures.”

To be sure, this is plainly dumb. Indeed, it’s arguably another “macaca” moment for the far-right candidate. Tillis’ argument seemed to be that Republicans need not fear the slavery resolution creating the basis for reparations because, as Tillis argued, African Americans already receive “de facto reparations” in the form of public assistance.

In other words, while trying to defend his vote in support of a Democratic resolution, Tillis ended up making a racially charged argument about the social safety net. The Republican effectively said welfare and reparations are the same thing, which is clearly an ugly and ignorant charge for anyone, especially a U.S. Senate candidate, to make.

 But there’s a larger context that arguably makes Tillis’ remarks slightly worse.

 

Brian Beutler yesterday flagged the Republican’s 2011 remarks on pitting Americans against one another in order to dismantle anti-poverty programs.

“What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance. We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy and had no choice in her condition, that needs help and that we should help. And we need to get those folks to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government and say, ‘at some point you’re on your own! We may end up taking care of those babies, but we’re not taking care of you.’ And we’ve got to start having that serious discussion. It won’t happen next year. Wrong time. Because it’s going to be politically charged. One of the reasons why I may never run for another elected office is cause some of these things may just get me railroaded out of town. But in 2013 I honestly believe that we have to do it.”

As Brian added, “The only thing missing from this exegesis is an explicit reference to racial minorities, reparations, and so on. But the subtext is pretty clear. And when you read it in light of his comments about the slavery resolution, it becomes painfully obvious who in Tillis’ mind deserves government assistance and who needs to be conquered.”

 

But we can perhaps even go further still. In 2012, Tillis was asked in an interview about his party’s difficulties in connecting with minority communities. Tillis said the Republican agenda is “appealing to everybody,” but went on to say, “The traditional population of North Carolina and the United States is more or less stable. It’s not growing. The African-American population is roughly growing but the Hispanic population and the other immigrant populations are growing in significant numbers.”

 

It sounded an awful lot Thom like Tillis sees the “traditional population” of North Carolina as the white population.

 

Taken together, Tillis’ rhetoric probably won’t help his campaign reach a broad and diverse base.